[Alisha]

indulge me here... if you had to fight some exp mobs in a zone where you are forbidden from making gear swaps what would it look like. i assume it would look similar to a ballista gear set but that topic is so out of date its sad.

[pathwriter]

This is a stupid question. Really stupid.

One of the central aspects of FFXI gameplay is gear-swapping and optimization. It is baked into the code and encouraged by the developers. The singular reason that FFXI's horrible PvP system doesn't jive with it is because of the targeting issue it creates by reloading character models. If they could find an elegant solution for that (PS2 limitations, I promise you), they would have gear-swapping in Ballista without a second thought.

Considering how slowly this game plays compared to every other MMO on the market and considering how much of it is auto-attacking for melee characters, you have no excuse to not spend the time developing an appropriate macro palette. Monk isn't even difficult in that sense except that we have more JAs than most other melee. It is seriously an aspect of gameplay to sort this kind of thing out in very much the same way that WoW players have to learn the priority and/or rotation of their abilities. If you really cannot be bothered to do some simple preparation, online gaming may not be the place for you. If you really hate the notion of having to change gear, go play WoW, but don't cry to me when people laugh at your lousy performance because you just kind of randomly smack your face into the keyboard and hope for the best.

[Banter]

Alisha, on 19 March 2011 - 03:23 AM, said:

indulge me here... if you had to fight some exp mobs in a zone where you are forbidden from making gear swaps what would it look like. i assume it would look similar to a ballista gear set but that topic is so out of date its sad.

Stop being a terrible ass player.

[Alisha]

sigh.....is it so bad to want to watch my char punch the enemies and execute asuran fists instead of having my animations canceled out by macros? how can people enjoy playing in such a robotic fashion. maybe i should do like a friend suggested and stick to whm or something.

[pathwriter]

If you're not blinking constantly on White Mage, you're doing it wrong. More to the point, however, how is actually doing things (that may or may not cause a character model reload) "robotic"? Standing around waiting for TP so you can hit your ONE MACRO is robotic, dummy.

You're really not getting this, are you? That or you're the kind of idiot who would walk into the locker room for the New York Yankees and say, "You know, I like baseball, but do you think we could do it without all the running?" 'cause, you know, taking away one of the CORE GAMEPLAY ELEMENTS won't make the game less fun or interesting, right? Dumbass.

[Segasaturn]

Well... if you don't like the Blinking that dosint let you see your WS you can always time the Marco different.... or if your on windower "Blink me not" to me nothing pisses me of fmore then not being abkle to see skillchain dmg or the WS itself because it keeps me from MB or Leech chaining ...but nobody cares about that....just the best dmg possible every single WS...

[Banter]

Alisha, on 20 March 2011 - 03:55 AM, said:

sigh.....is it so bad to want to watch my char punch the enemies and execute asuran fists instead of having my animations canceled out by macros? how can people enjoy playing in such a robotic fashion. maybe i should do like a friend suggested and stick to whm or something.

It's not that bad, but making yourself a complete gimp shit in the process is.

[wigglestyx]

Alisha, on 19 March 2011 - 03:23 AM, said:

indulge me here... if you had to fight some exp mobs in a zone where you are forbidden from making gear swaps what would it look like.

Not blinking has been beaten to death on very XI forum, in short if you're not blinking you're not playing your job to its fullest. That aside if you're really set on not blinking I would suggest full Tantra +2.

Alisha, on 20 March 2011 - 03:55 AM, said:

sigh.....is it so bad to want to watch my char punch the enemies and execute asuran fists ...

Not sure why you're still using Asuran. If you don't have Victory Smite there's always Ascetic's Fury, if you don't have that I always felt Howling Fist was stronger then Asuran.

pathwriter, on 19 March 2011 - 09:22 AM, said:

..The singular reason that FFXI's horrible PvP system doesn't jive with it is because of the targeting issue it creates by reloading character models. If they could find an elegant solution for that (PS2 limitations, I promise you), they would have gear-swapping in Ballista without a second thought.

I doubt its PS2 limitations and more just coding they never decided to go back and address. I'm sure they could easily add a patch that would act like "Blink me not".

[Banter]

wigglestyx, on 20 March 2011 - 08:29 PM, said:

Not sure why you're still using Asuran. If you don't have Victory Smite there's always Ascetic's Fury, if you don't have that I always felt Howling Fist was stronger then Asuran.

Depends on buffs to a degree but no @ howling v asuran.

[pathwriter]

wigglestyx, on 20 March 2011 - 08:29 PM, said:

I doubt its PS2 limitations and more just coding they never decided to go back and address. I'm sure they could easily add a patch that would act like "Blink me not".

BlinkMeNot just locks everyone's character models at the moment it is started. This is certainly not the functionality that Square-Enix would want. Hell, one of the many reasons I do not use BlinkMeNot (in addition to the fact that blinking in and out doesn't affect me meaningfully) is because of how often I've read people not realizing they're wearing something stupid due to a macro misfire and no visual input. In order for them to allow dynamic reloading of subsections of the character model, they'd need to overhaul a lot of the programming and I am 100% certain that this really is a function of the PS2's limitations.

That said, I've long harbored a secret hatred of the perpetual gear swaps if only because it's so unrealistic. In between performing arcane gestures or preparing a complex attack, we're ripping our trousers off and exchanging hats and heaven help those ludicrous mages who insist on equipping at least two different sets with every single cast. It's no wonder attack rounds are so long in FFXI, it's because everyone is juggling bladed objects and underpants in between swings. But for all its absurdity, I still make the gear swaps.