[Chriscoffey]

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Maybe I just apply my general life philosophy to this game: some shit is supposed to be hard, stop fucking bitching for a handout and do it; if you're worth something go get it, if you can't then you don't fucking deserve it. We're not all special snowflakes that deserve the very best and who can all get into Harvard. Some people thrive, some people just survive

I heard this same thing basically said in Rocky Balboa. I agree with that in today's games too many people are cheating and expect the handouts before they even attempt to better themselves to LEARN ( yeah lost term to most people) to play better or do better. I can't recall the exact date i was playing Donkey Kong on arcade but i do remember not first thinking "God damnit i can't get up this first ladder they should have an elevator here" to make my time easier. I had FUN (doesn't correlate to learning i guess to some) making myself do better on ANY game i have played since Atari was first introduced.

I agree with Gred myself maybe not everything but very much alot of what is said that people in today's society want handouts far too many times rather than fucking try a bit harder or learn more. It makes me think to myself if these same people would have taken away DYING on a game because its a negative aspect of playing because you shouldn't have such negative things in a game of fun.

EDIT: I also liked the comparison of sporting events to playing online games. I remember playing football with my friends outside and during the game I loved to get the ball and just run them over. I also never thought of them as weaker or pathetic class lower than me just because of that. I just enjoyed the competitive aspect of playing and liked to do my very best against them. Everyone that played had a blast and it was heated at times but it made it that much more fun for me and them. That to me is the same on a video game when playing for more of a challenge or to compete against my peers in RL or on LOL video games.

This post has been edited by Chriscoffey: 11 September 2010 - 12:36 PM

[Banter]

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Maybe I just apply my general life philosophy to this game: some shit is supposed to be hard, stop fucking bitching for a handout and do it; if you're worth something go get it, if you can't then you don't fucking deserve it. We're not all special snowflakes that deserve the very best and who can all get into Harvard. Some people thrive, some people just survive

There is a difference between something that is hard and something that is zero sum. You can have difficult boss fights that are instanced just the same as you can have easy boss fights that aren't.

[Gredival]

ITT: Banter continuing to throw in one liners that don't actually respond to anything because he thinks it's clever.

[pathwriter]

Gredival, on 11 September 2010 - 09:44 AM, said:

I only said the system sucks because it lacks a zero sum aspect. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.

You either don't understand what you're saying as you keep repeating things like this or you suffer brain damage. Which is it? Oh, but let me point out why you're a twisted, sadistic fuck who doesn't seem to have any working relationship with reality.

Gredival, on 11 September 2010 - 09:44 AM, said:

Are athletes petty people because they want to win against, they want to beat, the other team?

The other team are the dragons, asshole. This is a PvE game: the zero-sum is that as you get stronger, the monsters get weaker, and vice-versa. You're not competing with me. Trust me, I understand the nature of wanting to compete with other people, but when I want to do that, I load up Starcraft or I go to a battleground in World of Warcraft or I put Street Fighter IV on.

Let me draw a parallel, though, since I suspect you're a little dumb and not gonna get this. You would go to a gym and notice that some of the people are really buff and some are really weak. You'd run over and happily suck the cock of every muscle-bound idiot in there without even bothering to figure out if they're actually strong or just trying to achieve hypertrophy. I know you don't get what the difference is there, but suffice that a power-lifter and a body-builder are two very different approaches to being buff and the latter is a lot like the linkshell leader's cross-dressing e-girlfriend who gets all the shiny drops but tends to be the first one to screw up even the simplest things. Meanwhile, in between hoping to achieve buffness by extracting semen, you'd make a concerted effort to mock the skinny and the flabby because they haven't yet achieved their goals. Not just mock them, though, you'd try to sabotage them by greasing up the weight benches and stealing all the lifting plates.

And then someone with half a brain would look at you and say, "You realize that you're not in competition with these people, right? Maybe you should go join an amateur baseball league."

Gredival, on 11 September 2010 - 09:44 AM, said:

Really do you think the average Whitegate scrub running around in full Aurore or Perle is worth anything more as a player than the median HNMLS player?

If we ignore that Perle is really good for those jobs that cannot use Byakko's Haidate: no, I think they're both pretty much equally worthless. The "median" HNMLS player is probably a main-job Dark Knight who is made to show up at events on his Bard because he's a terrible player and Bard is the job one is least likely to screw up. Most HNMLS players are cannon fodder morons who don't know jack about the game and still get lost on their way to Dragon's Aery. They're gleeful little drones who march-march in step for a chance to overcome the deliberately corrupted and nepotistic reward systems that all large linkshells must employ.

Gredival, on 11 September 2010 - 09:44 AM, said:

To use your analogy, I don't care if you're the baker and always wanted to be the baker. But the baker shouldn't bemoan the foreseeable consequences of his choices; foregoing i-banking is obviously going to make him poorer. If the baker ultimately find she is unsatisfied with the profits of baking, no matter how hard he tries, he needs to give up on his desire for profit or give up on baking. We don't have a right to have our dream jobs and decide how much those jobs earn.

Way to miss my point yet again. That analogy I drew was that I prefer a low-man linkshell where profits aren't as high, but they're achieved in a way I like and not by needlessly cut-throat means. I wasn't bemoaning anything with that analogy beyond a loathing for the kind of sadistic fuck whose only enjoyment in life comes from beating someone else to the punch against a bunch of pixels.

Gredival, on 11 September 2010 - 09:44 AM, said:

Maybe I just apply my general life philosophy to this game: some shit is supposed to be hard, stop fucking bitching for a handout and do it; if you're worth something go get it, if you can't then you don't fucking deserve it. We're not all special snowflakes that deserve the very best and who can all get into Harvard. Some people thrive, some people just survive

I bemoan the fact that the developers used to take this stance with regards to XI. Can't beat AV? Get better. Can't get Salvage gear without duping? Sucks to be you. Unable to beat CoP? Oh well. But the incessant communal bitching of the incompetence have slowly taken its toll. Challenges disappear; competition is gone. Welcome to WoW.

See, this is the funny thing I notice about the Tea Party, of which you're definitely a philosophical member: just affluent enough to think you can claim the title affluent, but plenty stupid enough not to realize that you cannot, to say nothing of missing the strings attached to your joints. I'm not asking for a handout. No one is asking for a handout. Everyone, even the most casual players, expects to have to work for their gear. When we all saw that Aurore and Perle and Teal cost several thousand Cruor and no one had figured out Abyssea XP chaining yet, people hunkered down and started planning how to earn that Cruor the slow way. But in your twisted little mind, they sat around Whitegate hassling NPCs and buying lotto tickets.

And there you go talking about challenge. The challenge in this game is and always has been minimal. If you want challenge, go learn how to play Tekken. When you've managed to figure out how to beat people in a disgustingly complex fighting game, then you can come back here and try to talk about the challenge of an MMORPG with a straight face. I'm pretty sure that your opinion at that point would be, "There is none, now please forgive me, I must away to go own some noobs." Yes, I find it amusing to think of you speaking in such a pretentious mode because you are such a lump of pretense to begin with.

The funny thing here, though, is that you're basically complaining that Royal Knight's armor and Mercenary Captain's armor are too easy to acquire and too good for that ease of acquisition. Who fucking cares? They're level 55 and level 30 armors, dumbass. If your internet cock shrivels down to sizes that can only be measured with an electron microscope because your level 75 gear is partially obsolete at level 80 but you know that there are 19 more levels to go, you have severe perspective problems. They match well with the sociopathy, paranoid delusions, and narcissism, though.

[Banter]

Gredival, on 11 September 2010 - 02:55 PM, said:

ITT: Banter continuing to throw in one liners that don't actually respond to anything because he thinks it's clever.

You forgot the part about me actually making points and you just being an ignorant retard.

[treelo]

I'm amazed, two people playing the same game get different things out of it? Perish the thought!

[Gredival]

"You have posted more than the allowed number of quoted blocks of text"

Post 1 of 2

Banter, on 11 September 2010 - 03:10 PM, said:

You forgot the part about me actually making points and you just being an ignorant retard.

Except that you don't. You just state an opposing claim and provide no warrants, sometimes tossing in an insult as if that makes you right.

pathfinder and yes i said:

You either don't understand what you're saying as you keep repeating things like this or you suffer brain damage. Which is it?

You seem to be failing to grasp the concepts I'm presenting so I was attempting to clarify them. Maybe that's a lost cause.

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The other team are the dragons, asshole. This is a PvE game: the zero-sum is that as you get stronger, the monsters get weaker, and vice-versa. You're not competing with me. Trust me, I understand the nature of wanting to compete with other people, but when I want to do that, I load up Starcraft or I go to a battleground in World of Warcraft or I put Street Fighter IV on.

And why aren't I competing with you? It's not the same as Starcraft sure but it was definitely a competitive situation. For a long time FFXI *was* competitive PvE and I think it should have remained as such -- it was a system where only one group out of dozens could fight a monster. People were in direct competition for items because they were in direct competition for mobs.

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Let me draw a parallel, though, since I suspect you're a little dumb and not gonna get this. You would go to a gym and notice that some of the people are really buff and some are really weak. You'd run over and happily suck the cock of every muscle-bound idiot in there without even bothering to figure out if they're actually strong or just trying to achieve hypertrophy. I know you don't get what the difference is there, but suffice that a power-lifter and a body-builder are two very different approaches to being buff and the latter is a lot like the linkshell leader's cross-dressing e-girlfriend who gets all the shiny drops but tends to be the first one to screw up even the simplest things. Meanwhile, in between hoping to achieve buffness by extracting semen, you'd make a concerted effort to mock the skinny and the flabby because they haven't yet achieved their goals. Not just mock them, though, you'd try to sabotage them by greasing up the weight benches and stealing all the lifting plates.

I'll stop repeating shit when you cease to make it necessary. Your arguments and your psychoanalysis of me consistently rely on taking your own image of HNMLS for granted. You assume that in these shells everyone gets their gear from luck/kissing ass; there is no possible way these shells could ever fairly dole out gear. Every HNMLS leadership conspires around gearing themselves and their e-gfs and "exploits" their members. People in these shells suck ass because numbers substitute for skill.

So fucking prove it. You've yet to justify any of these claims and I've been "repeating myself" in an attempt to warrant counter arguments.

TL;DR version seems to be "I got fucked by my leader's e-gf so now I hate HNMLS. My prejudice against HNM players I have no interaction with other than knowing what class of LS they are in is completely artificial, but naturally I'm right because I'm special"

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If we ignore that Perle is really good for those jobs that cannot use Byakko's Haidate

Yes I know, it was merely an indicator of the type of player we are discussing here that doesn't touch "end game"

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no, I think they're both pretty much equally worthless. The "median" HNMLS player is probably a main-job Dark Knight who is made to show up at events on his Bard because he's a terrible player and Bard is the job one is least likely to screw up.

I can readily concede these players exist. But my experience is that these players cannot be a core of an HNMLS -- if they are, that LS would fail.

And at the very least, to me, having to gear and play a bitch job means infinitely more than the retard who sticks to a "meele only" principle and refuses to try and contribute to a greater whole

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Most HNMLS players are cannon fodder morons who don't know jack about the game and still get lost on their way to Dragon's Aery. They're gleeful little drones who march-march in step for a chance to overcome the deliberately corrupted and nepotistic reward systems that all large linkshells must employ.

Assertion with no basis. There is no way you can claim this is a systematic and conclusive analysis valid for an entire range of players you have never played with. I can say that in my experience that vast majority of players in my HNMLS have been far more competent, cared far more about their performance, etc. than the people I played with in Dynamis shells, Limbus shells, Non-HNM "end game" LS, and socials

Give me a theoretical analysis why a loot distribution system must necessarily be corrupted and nepotistic. I agree whole heartedly that a perfect system that "always gets it right" does not exist, but there is no reason to presume errors are about greed.

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That analogy I drew was that I prefer a low-man linkshell where profits aren't as high, but they're achieved in a way I like and not by needlessly cut-throat means. I wasn't bemoaning anything with that analogy beyond a loathing for the kind of sadistic fuck whose only enjoyment in life comes from beating someone else to the punch against a bunch of pixels.

I'm extending your analogy to characterize my own perspective on this game's transformation to WoW styled content. I bemoan the fact that low-man content is no longer an alternative with lower profit... Abyssea and ToM content is it for End Game

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See, this is the funny thing I notice about the Tea Party, of which you're definitely a philosophical member: just affluent enough to think you can claim the title affluent, but plenty stupid enough not to realize that you cannot, to say nothing of missing the strings attached to your joints.

LOL. Actually I'm much more of a socialist when it comes to real world politics. I actually don't even believe in inheritance since I think that's the number 1 reason for the wealth gap.

What I primarily believe in is meritocracy. In the real world certain social realities make true meritocracy near impossible. The wealth gap for instance means that it's not the smartest and brightest students that succeed, it's usually the students from rich backgrounds who have connections to land the jobs. Some students have to go through a lot more, or a lot less, to get the same numerical scores on tests. Etc. Some people need help because not every life journey is equal

The difference is that in a game we're not talking about needs. No one is starving because they failed at Fafnir and couldn't get a Ebody. It is a situation where a perfect meritocracy can actually be enforced -- everyone starts equal coming out at level 1 and people don't get born rich into HNMLS by birth. People don't need "handouts" in video games

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I'm not asking for a handout. No one is asking for a handout.

Did you miss the years and years of people bitching about why they have to compete against others for Kings Abjuration? People whining about how their decisions not to do HNM Endgame meant they would never get X and Y gear?

This post has been edited by Gredival: 11 September 2010 - 05:23 PM

[Gredival]

Post 2 of 2

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Everyone, even the most casual players, expects to have to work for their gear. When we all saw that Aurore and Perle and Teal cost several thousand Cruor and no one had figured out Abyssea XP chaining yet, people hunkered down and started planning how to earn that Cruor the slow way. But in your twisted little mind, they sat around Whitegate hassling NPCs and buying lotto tickets.

The part you are missing is that it turned out to be terribly easy and a full Perle DRK was immediately put on par, gear wise, with a Aces/Ebody/Homam DRK. Massive disparity in reward to work ratios

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And there you go talking about challenge. The challenge in this game is and always has been minimal.

And yet as recent as last year I could watch new "HNMLS" wipe to Fafnir.

More to the point though, even if you don't judge this game to be challenging, challenge is supposed to be an element of it. Many challenges have been systematically phased out because people bitched. The majority of these challenges were simply forms of competition. Anything where people had to compete against one another has been slowly thrown to the wayside as the game has progressed towards WoW. And I think that's a pity.

And as I conceive FFXI the big picture challenge *was* to perfect your character. That used to be possible. When gear didn't expire every piece of gear was a concrete step forward to getting the very best you could. And that was definitely challenging -- you could spend years at it and not succeed. It required a different set of skills than to master Street Fighter, but that's just to say there are different kinds of challenges. But SE basically pulled a Blizzard and made it such that new content will basically reset the gear progression.

Granted this was largely an endurance challenge, but it was one that was impossible without some minimum amount of skill. You needed to be able to conquer all of the little picture challenges, the NMs to get all that gear. Even given infinite time not every player could do this feat simply by putting in time.

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The funny thing here, though, is that you're basically complaining that Royal Knight's armor and Mercenary Captain's armor are too easy to acquire and too good for that ease of acquisition. Who fucking cares? They're level 55 and level 30 armors, dumbass. If your internet cock shrivels down to sizes that can only be measured with an electron microscope because your level 75 gear is partially obsolete at level 80 but you know that there are 19 more levels to go, you have severe perspective problems. They match well with the sociopathy, paranoid delusions, and narcissism, though.

Here's the fucking clue train. It's not about the 75 gear being beat specifically by the 80 gear... it's the fact that the level 75 gear will become obsolete at all, guaranteed at 99. I think that's part of the WoW transformation - it resembles how gear gets totally replaced whenever WoW had expansions - and I hate this most of all.

This post has been edited by Gredival: 11 September 2010 - 05:27 PM

[treelo]

It's very rare I find an argument I agree with, let alone a discussion between two people I can sympathise with.

While much of what you say about HNMLS members is based upon some degree of truth, though grossly exaggerated to suit your point. You do seem to be missing the point though, intentionally or not.

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The other team are the dragons, asshole.

Until your alliance has claimed said beastie, the other team are the hordes of campers stood around you from every HNMLS on your server. I spent the best part of five years dashing from camp to camp in an endless struggle to monopolise HNMs with varying success. Just because you find the idea of spending three hours idling dull, that doesn't mean some of us didn't find the act of camping enjoyable. Once I was finished robbing mobs of their shinies, I was more than content to continue working on a way to keep the loot flowing in our general direction. For someone who harps on about low-man linkshells and the joys of teamwork, I'd have assumed that this concept of pimping out your LS members would have been a no-brainer. That I could hide my own vindictive nature behind this veil of benevolence was merely a convenient cover. While you might not share our enthusiasm, if every HNMer thought like you did, we'd all be merrily dancing around our fellow campers as they claimed a last window NH and smiling contently at the prospect of another week without meaningful abjurations. With up to 100 people camping the same mob, it's a competitive scene, you're a fool if you think otherwise. Sure, I had friends in other HNM shells, but that didn't mean I wasn't trying to claim the shit out of them.

I'm not entirely sure where you're coming from Gred. Essentially it comes across that you're bitching because SE added easily obtainable items that outshine the equipment you spent years working for. It's called progress. Raise the cap, add tougher mobs, require better gear. Bringing WoW into the equation isn't going to help your case, and I certainly didn't hear you complaining when SE added Homam, etc and made your Assault Jerkin and Scorpion Harness obsolete. No doubt once the cap stops going up, they'll add some equally rare and ludicrously sought after shinies for you to gloat over. I'm really not surprised they're doing this, some of us have been vastly overgeared for years and SE are levelling the playing field in preparation for whatever they're adding at lv99. Just like they did in WoW. In the end, it doesn't really matter what becomes obsolete or not; it's what you wear that counts, not what you wish you were wearing. When lv99 content comes out, and even a deranged chimp can obtain the greatest of all gear, feel free to come back and complain some more. Until then you're just jumping the gun.

[pathwriter]

I really don't feel like wading through this, mostly because both of us can scream at one another 'til we're blue in the face and we write too much.

Quick points, though:

1.) What you're looking for in an MMO is dead. I'm not thoroughly convinced that it ever really existed except in the minds of people trying to justify to themselves why they keep doing things they hate.

2.) That something is difficult for stupid people is not the same thing as saying it is difficult. The level of challenge presented by Fafnir is well below that of Yiazmat in FFXII.

3.) What's the real difference between grinding through a Magian trial weapon and camping for Nidhogg for months on end to get Hecatomb Subligar? They're both unholy time-sinks and, really, the only major difference is that it is much easier to get pointlessly screwed in the latter case.

If you really believed in a meritocracy, you'd support the Magian system. It gives some ok rewards to those who put in a moderate amount of effort and it results in items that rival Relic weapons for those who put in a large amount of effort. It pays out just what you give in, really. And, you know, most players I see do not even have a basic Magian weapon, much less the workings towards an Empyrean. You can lord your hard work over the rest of the playerbase when you get Twashtar. Is it really so important that you weren't able to step on someone else's neck to do it?

[pathwriter]

@Treelo: Unlike Gredival, I only play because of the other people I play with. All of them are in their late 20s to early 30s (I'm the youngest in my circle of friends at 28). I completely understand improving my linkshell so we can move onto other things. I just don't agree with a model that insists we do it when the GAME insists that we do it, much less having to fight other people for it. We do things low-man for the challenge to ourselves, we're not interested in saying we're better than other people... because it is self-evident. That's the thing: I don't need to prove my superiority by suffering an event that is beyond my control and does not reward my hard work so much as stupid luck or outright cheating.

Is there a thrill in beating out others to a claim? Sure. But most of the time, I'd rather that we all benefited. I'm an egalitarian, especially when it comes to leisure activities. For the record, I don't play fighting games, I don't participate in team sports, and I was more interested in my own time than my position in the race when I ran track. Yeah, I get a thrill when I pass some Lance Armstrong official kit douchebag on an expensive bicycle 'cause my cheaper bike and fat ass are better than him, but I don't go out on the trail looking for or even thinking about that.

[Xairos]

Summation from a third party:

The very idea of "time-sinks" in MMOs is really something that cannot be argued against.

You see, the very fact that we play the games of this genre is the "time-sink" we hate to love (Yes I used that phrasing on purpose). No matter the goal we are trying to achieve, they are all time-sinks: Get from level 1 to level 2: easy, Get a relic weapon: not-so-easy. You want to level up and get awesome armor and experience playing with friends without a huge time-sink? Play a level-based FPS.

We all play this game for the pure reason of sinking our free time into something. As opposed to not playing anything at all.

All this to say that we can't lord our past time-sink in this game over the present time-sinks in any attempt to make them seem less than.

Gred, you were right about people feeling entitled to the best of without wanting to put in the work. I look at new gear all the time and think: "how can I get this without spending a large amount of time?" Rather short-sighted and selfish, I know.

But if i were to expand on that initial thought, then Path, I would come to be what you seem to believe runs rampant and medium-to-large LSs: That exploitative bastard.

To end, the way I see it is that Gred is saying that in order to get the best, there has to be a large obstacle that takes 18+ people to down, but drops enough for say 5. And Path saying that the system that doesn't take 18+ people to get the best is better because the ratio for people missing out is much, much smaller.

And honestly, I can't say the smaller model is any better, It would just make for more contented, albeit conceited, player base. Only then would we move on to focus on something else to critique others on (like Armor Score in wow).

This post has been edited by Xairos: 12 September 2010 - 01:47 AM

[Kaparu]

Gredival, on 10 September 2010 - 12:42 PM, said:

For someone who hates Kaparu you sure are fond of his style of posting one liners that you think make you look clever but don't.

wat

You do realize we're in the same linkshell, yes?

[Gredival]

pathwriter, on 11 September 2010 - 10:44 PM, said:

1.) What you're looking for in an MMO is dead. I'm not thoroughly convinced that it ever really existed except in the minds of people trying to justify to themselves why they keep doing things they hate.

I think with a lack of perspective on this, you have consistently pointed out that my type of LS is definitely not your scene, you are ill equipped to judge this. As Treelo said, for a vast majority of us camping was a competition and that competition was an aspect I enjoyed. That's why I find it much easier to get along with other "elitists" and such on an HNMLS, because they share a competitive drive to be better and to dominate. You need not read that as a sadistic desire to lord over others, just a competitive desire to win.

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2.) That something is difficult for stupid people is not the same thing as saying it is difficult. The level of challenge presented by Fafnir is well below that of Yiazmat in FFXII.

I'm not disputing that I'm merely saying that not everything in the game should be changed or removed because people want it to be easier. This should be especially true if you really believe most things in this game are as easy as you say they are (and for the most part they are; players have consistently gotten stronger with gear, merits, and now especially +10 levels).

But it's also worth noting stupidity is the norm. The bottom 10% of HNMLS are probably definitely at least in the median range of all players in general.

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3.) What's the real difference between grinding through a Magian trial weapon and camping for Nidhogg for months on end to get Hecatomb Subligar? They're both unholy time-sinks and, really, the only major difference is that it is much easier to get pointlessly screwed in the latter case.

1. Effort/skill level. With a few notable exceptions, most ToM hardly require significant effort. As trivial as you make Fafhogg out to be, I will stand by the following statement. Pre-twohand patch, an alliance of players all with median level skill for their jobs, arranged in a typically sufficient alliance (tank party, blm party, skillchainers) would not have the coordination, skill, reaction time, gear, etc. to beat Fafnir before rage. I'm basing this off the level of quality of a normal player as I have experienced it and watching tons of start-up shout LS go in and fail miserable at Fafnir. Of the few ToM that require a group fight, they don't stack up in difficulty to how bad Fafhogg was even three years ago.

2. Test of different types of skill. Taking for granted once again we are talking about trials which are mostly soloable, or at most require just a few people, solo based activities test a much different skillset. Being a successful HNMLS demands a much different skillset from its members. You may label it drone work, but it is a skill set 80% of the players in this game lack. It tests timing, understanding of positioning, reaction time, and yes the ability to simply fucking listen. I think people who lack these skills shouldn't succeed at this game. The biggest example I can give you is Shamshir and Hauteclaire. A wretched tank PLD who can kill 300 crabs but couldn't tank his way out of a paper bag can get Shamshir. Hauteclaire requires a halfway decent LS, and maybe it sadly doesn't require that you personally tanked Khimaira, it does mean you ideally are a competent enough player that an LS that can do Khimaira keeps you around.

3. Item value. I previously explained that I believe item value is a good thing and item value is a function of both quality and rarity. A system where everyone can work on a trial themselves will shit out more of an item than a system where two linkshells get a shot at the item per week.

4. I value competition for its own sake.

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If you really believed in a meritocracy, you'd support the Magian system. It gives some ok rewards to those who put in a moderate amount of effort and it results in items that rival Relic weapons for those who put in a large amount of effort. It pays out just what you give in, really.

It lacks competition, in my opinion does not test a player's skillset, and tests players mainly according to endurance.

And I also find the effort:reward ratio to be skewed, especially when you just look at relics. Relics are already a massive trial and they require so much effort to be cleaned. But they are worthless unless cleaned now. That's marginally retarded.

And now relic WS, one of the key points of a relic's uniqueness, are coming out on other weapons in this drive to make this game more "all inclusive"

treelo said:

I'm not entirely sure where you're coming from Gred. Essentially it comes across that you're bitching because SE added easily obtainable items that outshine the equipment you spent years working for. It's called progress. Raise the cap, add tougher mobs, require better gear. Bringing WoW into the equation isn't going to help your case, and I certainly didn't hear you complaining when SE added Homam, etc and made your Assault Jerkin and Scorpion Harness obsolete. No doubt once the cap stops going up, they'll add some equally rare and ludicrously sought after shinies for you to gloat over. I'm really not surprised they're doing this, some of us have been vastly overgeared for years and SE are levelling the playing field in preparation for whatever they're adding at lv99. Just like they did in WoW. In the end, it doesn't really matter what becomes obsolete or not; it's what you wear that counts, not what you wish you were wearing. When lv99 content comes out, and even a deranged chimp can obtain the greatest of all gear, feel free to come back and complain some more. Until then you're just jumping the gun.

The WoW reference is just referring to the phenomena in WoW where an update totally resets gear hierarchy.

Yes previous expansions have introduced new gear before, but this is the first time true "end game" gear got obsoleted in this sort of total and systematic way.

1. Previously when new gear replaced gear, it was not gear that came end game content. WotG HNM gear, none of the gear replaced other HNM gear -- White and Black Tathlums, Ancient Torques, Ixion Cape, Ixion Cloak were all non-competitive with King, Sky God, or Jailer gear really. Homam was mostly for jobs that didn't get a lot in RoZ. It didn't make anything from RoZ end game obsolete; it added completely different stats in some slots for jobs that didn't get those stats from previous gear. Jailers gave neck pieces that basically replaced Argus. They weren't in the habit of taking something from End Game and giving an item with the same type of stats but better.

2. If the gear was introduced from a non-competitive and easier form of content than previous gear, it was usually not as great. For example, ZNM Aurum Cuirass or Einherjar's Shadow Breastplate vs. Ebody. That's totally out the window now. If something did outshine something else from end game, like PW body vs. Shura Togi, the challenge was significantly raised to justify the replacement. No one can make the argument PW and Kirin are anywhere near comparable challenges. Can you say the same about Briareus and Juogi vs. PW? Ovni and Bullwhip Belt vs. AV's Ninurta (granted that KA was overdue to get killed)?

Before I even had WAR I bitched when Ridill's supremacy was threatened, and eventually taken, for the same reason. I find it an offense that something as easily obtainable as Perdu Voulge would dethrone a much more valuable item. As I said, pretty much I just prefer the "hard to get items, but those items will always be great" skinner box over the skinner box where we get everything but then later they just offer us shinier stuff.

The point of a permanent level cap like 75 was to provide this sort of anchor to balance around. And the sad thing is, they could have allowed for progress without invalidating the established hierarchies by simply implementing some sort of current armor upgrade system in ToM instead of introducing so much brand new OP shit. For example instead of killing off Haidate, make a trial that gives X stats to whatever starting legs you use. You just made it so the quality of our final gear is directly tied to the quality of our current gear.

This post has been edited by Gredival: 12 September 2010 - 06:14 AM

[pathwriter]

I wonder if you're the only person who didn't feel that the game was stagnant, bloated, and frankly boring 4 months ago. I stopped playing because of leadership burnout (since items don't motivate me, I have low tolerance for the kind of bullshit that HNM players seem to be immune to), but I didn't come back until I was sure there was something to actually do. And although I can't prove it, I'll bet you were complaining about the Trial of the Magians when it was first introduced this past spring. I'm detecting a strong pattern in that respect.

Gredival, on 12 September 2010 - 05:50 AM, said:

I think with a lack of perspective on this, you have consistently pointed out that my type of LS is definitely not your scene, you are ill equipped to judge this.

I think you misunderstood me. The market will not support the kind of MMO that you have convinced yourself that you enjoy. That ship has sailed and market forces ensure that it won't be coming back. It's not a question of whether I like it or not (I don't); it's bald fact that gameplay revolving around denying paying customers access to content is not viable anymore. It's also not the slightest bit fulfilling for developers, unless they're all sadists (a real possibility with Square-Enix). The developers are Blizzard have repeatedly said in response to players like you that they were irritated that less than 1% of their players of a video game ever got to see the inside of Naxxramas before Burning Crusade was released, and ditto for most of Sunwell Plateau among other areas. They changed their paradigm because they realized that there's a huge market out there and the vocal minority are the ones who get their kicks by pissing in other people's Cheerios.

Gredival, on 12 September 2010 - 05:50 AM, said:

You need not read that as a sadistic desire to lord over others, just a competitive desire to win.

Maybe that one group that you eventually managed to join and work for at a pittance wage was the sort that solely camped for things that members needed, but a.) I doubt that strongly given your attitude, and b.) that's certainly not what Treelo described: the thrill of running among spawns and dominating claims.

Oh, and cheating to do it. Should I even waste my metaphorical breath asking if cheating cheapens your petty sense of superiority? The usual line I hear on this is, "Everyone uses a bot, we're just leveling the playing field." It's a false assertion to begin with, but it's also faulty logic. I hear the same insanity spouted by sports fans on the subject of steroids. This isn't a perfect parallel, I grant you, because cheating in a video game is merely obnoxious (in addition to unethical and puerile), whereas accepting or encouraging steroid use in athletes is nothing less than causing them to destroy themselves for the crass entertainment of their "fans." Either way, it's a long way to go to justify something that everyone sees is ethically wrong and turns friendly competition into poisonous feuding.

Let me draw another parallel, because I want to hammer home that competition doesn't need to be the toxic misery that you prefer. I've lately been farming Lord Ruthven so as to collect Nails and, if I was lucky, Marching Belt and Strigoi Ring. I haven't been lucky, but I have made my Isatu, anyhow. I do this solo, because I find it far more interesting and challenging. Due to a long streak of bad luck, I spent most of two or three days parked up in Xarcabard popping Feuerunke, which incurred the ire of a few people who were competing with me for the same spawn. I actually know that they all used third-party programs to locate the NM, too, whereas I did it the legitimate way and still beat them consistently. I can only imagine that their screams of frustration were louder for realizing that cheating doesn't always work. Anyhow, once they got sick of me getting in their way, they actually started a dialogue and proposed that we team up. And I accepted, because I have more fun cooperating than consistently being stymied by pointless competition. It's like the assholes who manage to take up the entire sidewalk and will not move to let anyone pass: you're not proving anything except that you're an obstruction.

Of course, the reason I teamed up was that I was sick of pissing through arrows and was going to let them do the heavy lifting, which they did. You guys think I'm deluded about how HNMLS leaders work, which is funny. I know how I would work and I know the only way that anyone can work in that situation: exploit the hell out of the credulous. If you don't get that, congratulations, you're a gullible twit.

Gredival, on 12 September 2010 - 05:50 AM, said:

But it's also worth noting stupidity is the norm. The bottom 10% of HNMLS are probably definitely at least in the median range of all players in general.

Keep telling yourself that. I've lost track of how many HNMLS members I have seen over the years who don't have gear-swap macros, who full-time obviously inferior options, who insist on using lousy gear because it is Rare/Ex, who won't spend a cent (probably because their LS didn't have any kind of payout, it all went straight into the leaders' pockets one way or another). There have been too many times that I'd see someone doing something painfully stupid like full-timing Hachiman Domaru or Rogue's Culottes and I'd check their LS and, go figure, they're in an HNMLS. And not some little scrub LS, either, before you suggest that.

I know there are worse players out there. I almost never encounter them, though, because they're the sorts who play Beastmaster or who Campaign 24/7: that is, they don't interact with other people. When it comes to scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of talent, though, I'd estimate at least 50% of HNMLS members will fit the bill, especially the large linkshells of yore that attempted to or were able to keep most world spawns on lockdown. If you really think that membership in Machina or Armada or some other LS conveys competence, you're out of your mind. Mostly it just means that they have a single-minded approach to get what they think they want, regardless of whether it is what they need.

Gredival, on 12 September 2010 - 05:50 AM, said:

1. Effort/skill level. With a few notable exceptions, most ToM hardly require significant effort... Of the few ToM that require a group fight, they don't stack up in difficulty to how bad Fafhogg was even three years ago.

I find this highly dubious, but let's suppose I temporarily agree with you. Do you suppose there might be a reason? Used to be that you could log on in between peak times and find 4000 or more players on every server. Now JP and NA evenings have around 2000, sometimes a lot less. I'm certain SE balanced around what its players are most capable of, which is fielding ~6 people. Plus, the only thing to stir up player interest in about two years has been Abyssea, the new level caps, and Trial of the Magians for people who like the idea of customizing to their playstyle (in fairness: Trial of the Magians has also been one of the biggest deterrants).

Additionally, I wonder if you've skimmed past a point I keep repeating. Once you've got your method down (even if it is a woefully sluggish and inefficient method because that's the only one the proles can manage to squeeze into their heads), Fafnir is not an exciting or interesting fight. You're just repeatedly killing the same NM until you complete your trial and Ridill drops or, if you're lucky and have sufficient patience, E. Abj. Body. Neither one is difficult and I promise you that proportionally as many people died to the T2/T3 VNMs for their Magian trials (to say nothing of the Abyssea NMs) as have to King Behemoth or Aspidochelone.

Gredival, on 12 September 2010 - 05:50 AM, said:

2. Test of different types of skill. Taking for granted once again we are talking about trials which are mostly soloable, or at most require just a few people, solo based activities test a much different skillset. Being a successful HNMLS demands a much different skillset from its members. You may label it drone work, but it is a skill set 80% of the players in this game lack. It tests timing, understanding of positioning, reaction time, and yes the ability to simply fucking listen. I think people who lack these skills shouldn't succeed at this game.

This is hilarious. I should print and frame it for whenever I need a laugh. You really do think that most HNMLS members are actually any good. I keep telling myself, "He's lying to support his argument," but, no, you actually buy this nonsense. The best players I've ever met? The ones that can pull things off that no one else can, the ones that actually impress me? They joined an HNMLS for about 5 minutes, immediately saw that they were at the bottom of a pyramid scheme, and left. I've watched many times as people with "better" gear than me who are in all those "better" linkshells were incapable of doing things that I've been doing for years. Don't get me started on the hilarity of watching some of these lazy fuckers try to complete a Magian trial as I tear through two or even three identical mobs in the time it takes them to barely kill one.

But let me make my own assertion that you're welcome to dismiss as nonsense: 9 times out of 10, group play makes things easier, not better. There are lots of exceptions, notably when the group does stupid things like bringing a lot of TP feed to a fight with troublesome TP-related consequences. I watched a JP alliance spend something like 40 minutes fighting an NM in Abyssea that I duo in about 15 minutes, for instance, but most of the time, you bring more bodies to zerg it down, not to finesse it. What fun is there in being infantryman #106 in This Man's Army versus being special ops agent #4?

Gredival, on 12 September 2010 - 05:50 AM, said:

It lacks competition, in my opinion does not test a player's skillset, and tests players mainly according to endurance.

I really don't see how you can credibly argue that camping Fafnir day in and day out is not a test of endurance. It's not a mark of skill to be able to repeat the same actions daily for months on end. I got into a very patterned routine doing my daily quests in WoW, for instance, and once I had figured out my pattern (where to go in what order to minimize time spent, how much health mobs have and what rotation to use to blast them fastest), the only test was whether I could force myself to continue doing them after the third iteration or so.

Gredival, on 12 September 2010 - 05:50 AM, said:

And I also find the effort:reward ratio to be skewed, especially when you just look at relics. Relics are already a massive trial and they require so much effort to be cleaned. But they are worthless unless cleaned now. That's marginally retarded.

And now relic WS, one of the key points of a relic's uniqueness, are coming out on other weapons in this drive to make this game more "all inclusive"

I've agreed many times with people on the subject of the relic trials. They are an absurdity, especially since they have fuck-all to do with the massive group effort that is otherwise a hallmark of acquiring them (I don't think groups of 6 were taking down Animated Weapons at level 75).

As for handing out the weaponskills... meh. Most of the better ones are good because of their Aftermath effects (Catastrophe, Tachi: Kaiten, Namas Arrow for Samurai, Coronach) and I'm willing to bet that those Aftermaths will not apply without the weapon. I can only think of one that is any good without its aftermath and that is Mercy Stroke. It also remains to be seen how those weaponskills are available, so let's withhold judgment. I know the Great Axe has been found, so hopefully we'll have an answer sooner than later.



Mostly, though, I find it worrying that you're so fearful of change. It's not like there was a huge power difference between someone in the super-rare HQ gear and someone in more conventionally available items. I consider myself to be very middle-of-the-road as far as gear is concerned, but because I know how to exploit it to the fullest, I consistently outperform those people who've managed to get items of a better quality than me. Even when they were able to pull ahead of me, it was rarely a big difference. The advantage is largely in your head. Surely you need look no further than the dearth of truly horrible relic weapon owners to understand that the gear does not make the man, regardless of difficulty involved in getting it. Not that it is all that hard to cyber the haijin shut-in running an HNMLS, anyhow.

Actually, that's sort of a funny dichotomy. You seem to believe so strongly in putting in a lot of effort and blah-blah-blah. You say that some things should be hard and that the reward should be commensurate with difficulty (FYI: it rarely ever is). I walked my way into a few linkshells, deliberately manipulated the leaders to view me as indispensable, ensured that I got the drops I wanted expeditiously, and then walked away. I prefer to work smarter. I pay my dues elsewhere and would rather not have my enjoyment of the game marred by someone shouting at me that I must be at the mandatory Fafnir camp when I should be writing a paper or having sex or doing something actually worth three hours of being glued to the same spot.

[Gredival]

Quote limit again. 1 of 2.

pathwriter, on 12 September 2010 - 06:59 AM, said:

I think you misunderstood me. The market will not support the kind of MMO that you have convinced yourself that you enjoy. That ship has sailed and market forces ensure that it won't be coming back. It's not a question of whether I like it or not (I don't); it's bald fact that gameplay revolving around denying paying customers access to content is not viable anymore. It's also not the slightest bit fulfilling for developers, unless they're all sadists (a real possibility with Square-Enix). The developers are Blizzard have repeatedly said in response to players like you that they were irritated that less than 1% of their players of a video game ever got to see the inside of Naxxramas before Burning Crusade was released, and ditto for most of Sunwell Plateau among other areas. They changed their paradigm because they realized that there's a huge market out there and the vocal minority are the ones who get their kicks by pissing in other people's Cheerios.

I'm not debating the business aspect. Of course the normal and the suck overwhelm the elite and the most economic revenue will be gotten from catering to the majority. My stance is not that SE is making a poor business decision

They've seem that they can just shit out new versions of campaign, reskin old mobs and old zones, reward new gear for grinding EP mobs from five years ago... and everyone fawns over it. So why spend too much time or effort developing anything new?

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Maybe that one group that you eventually managed to join and work for at a pittance wage was the sort that solely camped for things that members needed, but a.) I doubt that strongly given your attitude, and b.) that's certainly not what Treelo described: the thrill of running among spawns and dominating claims.

The thrill of running around spawns and dominating claims is not sadistic, it is competitive. It's equivalent to the thrill of winning any sort of competition. Are Superbowl players sadistic for wanting to dominate the opponent and win the championship? It *can* be sadistic, but not necessarily so.

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Oh, and cheating to do it. Should I even waste my metaphorical breath asking if cheating cheapens your petty sense of superiority? The usual line I hear on this is, "Everyone uses a bot, we're just leveling the playing field." It's a false assertion to begin with, but it's also faulty logic. I hear the same insanity spouted by sports fans on the subject of steroids. This isn't a perfect parallel, I grant you, because cheating in a video game is merely obnoxious (in addition to unethical and puerile), whereas accepting or encouraging steroid use in athletes is nothing less than causing them to destroy themselves for the crass entertainment of their "fans." Either way, it's a long way to go to justify something that everyone sees is ethically wrong and turns friendly competition into poisonous feuding.

I have never used a bot. I have defended a position at multiple forums, including this one, that being pro-Kings/world spawn content is perfectly compatible with not botting. I have always upheld that I believe SE needed to be much more aggressive about botting. (Albeit I have defended third party tools and functions of a bot that do not interfere with competitive aspects of the game; my position is always about the fairness of competition and preservation of the importance of skill. For reference I am a staunch opponent of the cancel plugin because I think it takes the skill out of shadow tanking)

First there is an obvious logical fallacy in your argument. You say that "Everyone uses a bot we're just leveling the playing field" is a false assertion. But if that much is true how can you so blatantly assume I, or my shell, cheats by botting? It could be true in the respect that people outside of HNMLS don't use bots, but that wouldn't be relevant because they wouldn't be factored in when you are considering aforementioned playing field.

Do people in my current shell bot? Yes. But at this point in my career I'd rather play with good people who are competitive enough to bot (and thus would care enough to gear themselves well and actually play to a high standard) then be stuck with completely ethical players who lack the drive to go out and compete. I'd love to play with completely similar minded players to me, but frankly there aren't enough. The trend I see is usually that you're competitive enough to have no qualms about botting if it means winning or you're uncompetitive and wouldn't want to deal with competition to get your gear so you'd rather not do HNMs at all.

I tried to turn a non-HNM end game shell into a non-botting HNMLS -- we didn't fail because we didn't bot, we failed because people didn't care. People blatantly afk at windows, doing other shit at windows (crafting during a KB pop comes to mind), etc.

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You guys think I'm deluded about how HNMLS leaders work, which is funny. I know how I would work and I know the only way that anyone can work in that situation: exploit the hell out of the credulous. If you don't get that, congratulations, you're a gullible twit.

As I mentioned I ran an end game shell that tried to transition to HNMs but failed. I can tell you myself that from this experience no loot system will ever work completely and totally correctly. There are too many disparate factors that one can associate with dessert and it is impossible to objectively weigh them against each other. One has to decide on how to learn for oneself how to balance members' personal fulfillment with the betterment of the shell as a whole in terms of progression. Although a number of my previous members may have disagreed with some of my decisions, and my ultimate decision to leave the shell when the transition to HNMs failed and I felt I couldn't be satisfied without that activity, I acted in good faith and most of my old members understand and would vouch for that.

This experience lets me sympathize a lot better with the leaders of other shells I've worked under... and on one occasion made me criticize poor decisions, hypocrisy, and made me leave the shell.

Long story short? Bad leaders out for themselves exist. I've had one too. But having done it myself I can say just because something looks bad doesn't mean you should read greed or exploitation into the picture. Sometimes tough decisions have to be made that will make no one happy.

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Keep telling yourself that. I've lost track of how many HNMLS members I have seen over the years who don't have gear-swap macros, who full-time obviously inferior options, who insist on using lousy gear because it is Rare/Ex, who won't spend a cent (probably because their LS didn't have any kind of payout, it all went straight into the leaders' pockets one way or another). There have been too many times that I'd see someone doing something painfully stupid like full-timing Hachiman Domaru or Rogue's Culottes and I'd check their LS and, go figure, they're in an HNMLS. And not some little scrub LS, either, before you suggest that.

I know there are worse players out there. I almost never encounter them, though, because they're the sorts who play Beastmaster or who Campaign 24/7: that is, they don't interact with other people. When it comes to scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of talent, though, I'd estimate at least 50% of HNMLS members will fit the bill, especially the large linkshells of yore that attempted to or were able to keep most world spawns on lockdown. If you really think that membership in Machina or Armada or some other LS conveys competence, you're out of your mind. Mostly it just means that they have a single-minded approach to get what they think they want, regardless of whether it is what they need.

I can't deny your personal experience, but I can tell you that would not be tolerated in by myself in my shell -- and I don't even have a sack to kick someone with.

We have people on the bad side in our shell, but on an absolute scale I would say even the worst of our members are at least median overall players. And those are mostly players that got grandfathered into our shell and our weak human emotions mean we don't kick them due to some warped sense of camaraderie (imagine that)

Are you Asuran? Which server Machina and Armada are we talking about.

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Additionally, I wonder if you've skimmed past a point I keep repeating. Once you've got your method down (even if it is a woefully sluggish and inefficient method because that's the only one the proles can manage to squeeze into their heads), Fafnir is not an exciting or interesting fight. You're just repeatedly killing the same NM until you complete your trial and Ridill drops or, if you're lucky and have sufficient patience, E. Abj. Body. Neither one is difficult and I promise you that proportionally as many people died to the T2/T3 VNMs for their Magian trials (to say nothing of the Abyssea NMs) as have to King Behemoth or Aspidochelone.

I will agree in the respect that there is a fight X until you get item Y, whether or not Y drops from X's lootpool or comes from a ToM quest, there are shared elements. And you are right that with infinite amounts of practice efficiency will increase. But as you said, hard to a specific subset of the population isn't hard on an absolute scale. Not saying Fafhogg is hard absolutely but considering it relatively I'd find it difficult to argue that T2/T3 VNMs rank with the Kings either on an absolute scale or a relative scale. VNMs are a lot more simple as a fight -- they are mostly pure tank 'n' spank, and a lot of Abyssea mobs are the same way. The ones that aren't? Ported versions of HNMs.

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You really do think that most HNMLS members are actually any good. I keep telling myself, "He's lying to support his argument," but, no, you actually buy this nonsense. The best players I've ever met? The ones that can pull things off that no one else can, the ones that actually impress me? They joined an HNMLS for about 5 minutes, immediately saw that they were at the bottom of a pyramid scheme, and left. I've watched many times as people with "better" gear than me who are in all those "better" linkshells were incapable of doing things that I've been doing for years. Don't get me started on the hilarity of watching some of these lazy fuckers try to complete a Magian trial as I tear through two or even three identical mobs in the time it takes them to barely kill one.

We can trade stories about the quality of the people we play with in our shells, and the sucky players we've seen outside out shells, but at this point it's just analogy vs. analogy. All I can really say is your experience is not anywhere near representative of mine.

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But let me make my own assertion that you're welcome to dismiss as nonsense: 9 times out of 10, group play makes things easier, not better. There are lots of exceptions, notably when the group does stupid things like bringing a lot of TP feed to a fight with troublesome TP-related consequences. I watched a JP alliance spend something like 40 minutes fighting an NM in Abyssea that I duo in about 15 minutes, for instance, but most of the time, you bring more bodies to zerg it down, not to finesse it. What fun is there in being infantryman #106 in This Man's Army versus being special ops agent #4?

I can agree with you insofar as that some mobs weren't meant to take 18 people, but some people suck so they need the extra bodies to help carry a load. That's not what I'm talking about.

Think of it this way. In some fights an alliance will only be as strong as its weakest link because a fuck up by one person can reverberate. This is what I consider a challenge. You have to play at X level or you are not even a neutral member of the shell you are a detriment and will get kicked.

Kings are a poor example now because players have far outstripped the era that they were designed for... but when they were first introduced the reason there were a large group event is because the fight required it. Fafnir is actually a pretty irregular fight all things considered vs. a base mob. The very issue of positioning itself can wipe the entire alliance -- how many flail stories circulated the net because some people were just too fucking dumb to understand stay on the feet? Your mages were not immune from range, so there is extra curing required and they just can't rest undisturbed for a few minutes to get all their MP back. If you ran into MP troubles, everyone in the alliance had to be smart enough to handle it slept.

When you design for an 18-man encounter vs. a 6-man encounter you can push the limits in intricacy and danger in ways that are not possible with fewer people. There is just less room for error and adding too much will overburden the players and make the fight impossible. The best example is Bahamut v. 2 non-zerg style. You have to organize your alliance very well and every subsection has to do its job right or else they fuck it up for everyone. It's a fight where the weakest link can break you. One person fucks up CC on Vrtra's add, one of the two tank parties suck (whether it be tanks or healers), or your BLMs don't have enough juice in the tank... and you will fail.

I would like more content like that, rather than ToM killing 300x crabs.

And yes I know Bv2 gets zerged by literally everyone. I have an anti-zerg stance from an intellectual view. Zergs rob fights of their strategic elements and allow gear to compensate for various aspects of skill by reducing fights to BRD rotation + engage and WS. I've argued this numerous times on KI.

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I really don't see how you can credibly argue that camping Fafnir day in and day out is not a test of endurance. It's not a mark of skill to be able to repeat the same actions daily for months on end. I got into a very patterned routine doing my daily quests in WoW, for instance, and once I had figured out my pattern (where to go in what order to minimize time spent, how much health mobs have and what rotation to use to blast them fastest), the only test was whether I could force myself to continue doing them after the third iteration or so.

Because the baseline of skill necessary for a Fafnir kill is far above that for solo'ing a Robber Crab. See above. Again not the greatest example but the fact is that Kings content was at its time more challenging than this ToM content is for its time, and probably more challenging on an absolute scale too (with the exception of the Empyrians)

This post has been edited by Gredival: 12 September 2010 - 10:09 AM

[Gredival]

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As for handing out the weaponskills... meh. Most of the better ones are good because of their Aftermath effects (Catastrophe, Tachi: Kaiten, Namas Arrow for Samurai, Coronach) and I'm willing to bet that those Aftermaths will not apply without the weapon. I can only think of one that is any good without its aftermath and that is Mercy Stroke. It also remains to be seen how those weaponskills are available, so let's withhold judgment. I know the Great Axe has been found, so hopefully we'll have an answer sooner than later.

My shell is actually the one that got the Great Axe last night. We had to level up the Warrior that got it, we'll start testing soon. Maybe they already tested, I went to bed.

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Mostly, though, I find it worrying that you're so fearful of change. It's not like there was a huge power difference between someone in the super-rare HQ gear and someone in more conventionally available items. I consider myself to be very middle-of-the-road as far as gear is concerned, but because I know how to exploit it to the fullest, I consistently outperform those people who've managed to get items of a better quality than me. Even when they were able to pull ahead of me, it was rarely a big difference. The advantage is largely in your head. Surely you need look no further than the dearth of truly horrible relic weapon owners to understand that the gear does not make the man, regardless of difficulty involved in getting it. Not that it is all that hard to cyber the haijin shut-in running an HNMLS, anyhow.

It's a question of potential. I'm not denying that skill can compensate for gear when competing against a lesser player, but when you take the same player and give him absolute top tier gear and give him middle of the road gear, the results can be worlds apart. Case in point is my own damage pre- and post- Vermeil Bhuj. I went from median on our AV parses to consistently top three... over Bravuras that weren't cleaned. The other Warrior on the top of the parse? Also a Vermeil Bhuj. The funniest part? My /SAM sub isn't finished.

These are not bad players I'm beating -- when they had relic and I didn't, they beat me by about a margin that can be comfortably attributed mostly to the superiority of Bravura -- it's the fact their weapons are woefully underclassed now because the relative bar was raised so high.

To me there's something wrong about the fact I got a drop that took five minutes to get single-handedly allows me to leapfrog over other Warriors who spent months of our collective effort to get their Bravura. Yes it's an extreme example with relics, but the point remains that gear that takes minimal effort to get is destroying gear that took lots of effort to get.

Given the fact you say you agree with my about the relic trials, you must have some sympathy for this line of thinking. I say, why isolate it to just sympathy for relics though? I think erasing the benefits rare gear that took hard work by introducing lots of overpowered new common drops is bad policy, whether that rare gear was an Adaberk or a Bravura.

If AF3 bodies live up to the expectation, and the seals are as easy to get for them as they are for the head/legs/feet, I can tell you the relative disparity in effort between an Ebody and AF3 body will be almost as bad as the Vermeil Bhuj to Bravura.

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Actually, that's sort of a funny dichotomy. You seem to believe so strongly in putting in a lot of effort and blah-blah-blah. You say that some things should be hard and that the reward should be commensurate with difficulty (FYI: it rarely ever is). I walked my way into a few linkshells, deliberately manipulated the leaders to view me as indispensable, ensured that I got the drops I wanted expeditiously, and then walked away. I prefer to work smarter. I pay my dues elsewhere and would rather not have my enjoyment of the game marred by someone shouting at me that I must be at the mandatory Fafnir camp when I should be writing a paper or having sex or doing something actually worth three hours of being glued to the same spot.

And all I can say is that your experience is not representative at all of mine. That shit wouldn't fly in my LS, or most of my previous ones. I got a Dring over a new Aegis PLD. Why? Cuz he was new, I had 2000 more DKP than him. Was he more indispensable, at least from a tank perspective? Certainly.

[Zzulu]

Gredival, on 12 September 2010 - 09:56 AM, said:

To me there's something wrong about the fact I got a drop that took five minutes to get single-handedly allows me to leapfrog over other Warriors who spent months of our collective effort to get their Bravura. Yes it's an extreme example with relics, but the point remains that gear that takes minimal effort to get is destroying gear that took lots of effort to get.

This ^

FFXI isn't FFXI without rare drops and some elitist obsessing over them. It's like a FF / WoW hybrid.

[Aleera]

Gredival, on 12 September 2010 - 09:53 AM, said:

The thrill of running around spawns and dominating claims is not sadistic, it is competitive. It's equivalent to the thrill of winning any sort of competition. Are Superbowl players sadistic for wanting to dominate the opponent and win the championship? It *can* be sadistic, but not necessarily so.

Your idea of competitiveness is radically askew, then. You keep comparing it to sports. People play sports for fun, and when they win, they don't put the other team down for being lesser people, that they suck, or that they're gimp, etc. They show sportsmanship and never gloat. In fact, they removed letting players showboat whenever they score a touchdown, haven't they? In the MMO world, this is the norm, and I see it come often from HNM players who feel this sense of superiority because they actually like sitting and camping kings all day long for their preciouses. Just seems you're butthurt cause all the "competitiveness" that the mass majority of the game despises was taken out when acquiring gear that trumps the gear you have now from HNM.

[Gredival]

By the by just checked in with my linkshell. Metatron Torment latent is unlocked by charging up the weapon with 13 weaponskills. After you use Metatron, it's locked again till another 13 WS.

Aleera, on 12 September 2010 - 10:19 AM, said:

You keep comparing it to sports. People play sports for fun, and when they win, they don't put the other team down for being lesser people, that they suck, or that they're gimp, etc. They show sportsmanship and never gloat. In fact, they removed letting players showboat whenever they score a touchdown, haven't they? In the MMO world, this is the norm, and I see it come often from HNM players who feel this sense of superiority because they actually like sitting and camping kings all day long for their preciouses. Just seems you're butthurt cause all the "competitiveness" that the mass majority of the game despises was taken out when acquiring gear that trumps the gear you have now from HNM.

Read what I actually said. I said that for a lot of people, competition is fun and that fun isn't necessarily connected with sadism.

The spots analogy is to display this. Sports are activities explicitly predicated on peers (sometimes organized into teams) competing to win. If competition was not fun, then why would we enjoy sports so much? Look at it this way. Would we still enjoy sports if everything was a scoreless little league game? For some people maybe, and for some sports maybe... but for a very significant portion no. And definitely people wouldn't care about watching sports anymore. Hardly anyone watches sports for the sake of witnessing peak human specimens engage in feats of athletic display. No, we identify with certain teams and we compete vicariously.

But is this necessarily out of sadism, a desire to crush other people, a need to assert superiority? No. Sometimes winning is just fun. That's how our brains work. Games, video games included, are fun because our brains are hard wired to find enjoyment in the mastery of tasks. Competition heightens this by giving us a grasp of our relative mastery vs. our peers.

All these same things import to video games. We don't necessarily compete in video games out of sadistic desires, we can and some people do, but we can also understand a desire for competition as simply a desire for victory because competing is fun.

And also, you give sports athletes too much credit and video gamers too little. Athletes don't act the same way people on the internet do because they don't have a shield of anonymity. If you come off as a douche, how many people are gonna buy your jersey? What companies are gonna want to sponsor you? I'm sure there are a lot of people in sports who play out of blood thirst (Kobe Bryant comes immediately to mind for me). In fact you look at sports fans you will see that bloodthirst/gloating surface because those fans aren't accountable in the same way as stars.

And really, how many players have you met in FFXI that went out of their way to make you feel like shit because you didn't have their gear for no reason at all? Elitism exists -- no doubt -- and I will actually gladly own up to being elitist. But I don't go around the game trying to make people feel bad. Usually what I see though is players with an inflated sense of worth getting offended when we say we don't have room for DRKs or WARs and they'd need to level a mage job to contribute and decrying us as elitist because we don't want to take their meele onry ass.

As I already stated, I don't go out of my way to meddle with others and lord over them. If people are content not doing competitive content I'm not going to force them to do it. I'm not going to lord over them cause I have this and they don't. But I do think that if you make a choice to not complete challenges X and Y, then you should live with the fact you won't reap the rewards of X and Y. If you want the rewards, do the challenge.

Unfortunately some people couldn't accept that, they want to have the best without putting in the work -- e.g. all of the anti-end game bitching that happened EVERY year at fanfest. So what do we get? A systematic paradigm shift away from challenging and competitive content towards an increasingly solo and instanced based game because some people can't accept that some stuff is supposed to be exclusive, challenging, and yes perhaps pitt you against other people.

The funniest thing is though, once you can realize everything is a skinner box you should see that this skinner box is worse for everyone. Why? There is absolutely NO natural escape from it. Previously it may have taken a long time but people did eventually accomplish all that they needed to do. This type of skinner box? They just need to re-skin another zone and a bunch of mobs, make a few buffed armor pieces, and they can charge everyone ten bucks to keep playing.

This post has been edited by Gredival: 12 September 2010 - 11:14 AM