rangers jobFollow

Hey guys,

i am curious if other people get this often. i play a ranger lv 38 right now and i often have people complain about how i play this job. i am by no mean a rich taru so i must be carful about the amount of arrows i use, i have taken to using an axe as well as my bow. usauly i will start a fight with sharpshot..barage....flaming arrow... 2 more arrows.. then about
3-5 attacks with my axe then flaming arrow.
i usauly shoot one normial arrow evey 3-5 attacks with my axe.

now yes i do realize that i do 80-130 damage per sot with my bow without barage and flaming arrow.

and my axe does about 10-30 damage a hit, also i have 56 agility so my critical hit rate is up there.

so even using my axe i outdamage a rdm, and with this patten of attacks i use outdamage anyother class in the party.

dispite this i have people getting mad i dont just stand there and shoot all the time. i explain that i am still doing more overall damage than anyone in the party and also that arrows are expensive, i use about 1000 each day that i play. the response i get is that i should just stand there are shoot, and that its not my fault i picked ranger as a job. and i also get harassed allot about people saying i should use a gun.

am i just finding allota dumb people to party with or is this normial?

if you're not firing arrows to save yourself aggro from monsters that's once thing...if you're saving arrows to lower costs then you really shouldn't be a ranger, you knew what you were getting into..it's expensive...but that's why you have to farm or tradeskill every now and then, and rangers were put on vana diel for 3 things, track, pull and do mass dmg if you can't do those 3 simple things then something is wrong with your ranger prowess.

I think the problem with lack of intelligence in the game is,alot of the people playing from NA are new to the MMO game genre and still can't really figure out how to play a game that is dependant on others to get you through things, I try to play with my rl friends whenever I can because they've played with me through EQ and we played that for about 5 years together.
For the most part though I see alot of people not being so nice to each other, hell the other day I had two people provoke snatch my pulls when it was blatently obvious that I was aiming my bow that way to pull it, and then one of them literally told me to "Suck One" when I approached em about him doing it more than once. People dont understand that there's other people behind that character that you're pissing off and so they don't think about what they say before they say it.
Pretty much you just have to learn to take it all in stride and know that once you get sidewinder he'll drop his mouth like he just got smacked when he sees what you can do.
All in all you just have to stick with it and ignore the stupid comments.

Well...that and I think it may also do with the fact there are younger players involved too.

What surprises me the most is the amount of players who can "coast by" in this game without having to understand too much. I find it amazing how there are players who are mid-way through their advanced class who ask things like "What is TP?", "What's trick attack?" etc.

Certainly this is a game and I try not to be too critical of these players...but certainly one would expect people to understand the basics by the time they're into their 2nd build.

I was doing mission 10 the other week and a bunch of players decided to go on auto-follow the whole way and go afk! The gall! Another half of the players had only half their gear...they looked at my gear and said "you're rich! I only have 200 gil"

200 gil?! That's one gob helm or 2 batwings..comon!

ok..rant over. :)

Edited, Tue Jan 27 15:03:09 2004 by Kamena

True. :) But there's just MORE then your usual distribution in FFXI then other MMOs it seems and I'm just trying to figure out why hehe

Edited, Tue Jan 27 16:53:10 2004 by Kamena

I think there's a few reasons why people seem less -- shall we say -- attentive to the genre in FFXI than perhaps you've observed in other MMORPGS.

1) FF, to my knowledge, has always been an RPG and not multiplayer. People may be approaching it from that standpoint.
2) FF is a name, more than anything. People may see "Final Fantasy" and say, "sure" even if they've never played any other RPG or MMORPG.
3) FF has, for the most part, been console-based. Most of the people using PCs (which, at the moment, means almost everyone) are used to playing games like Ultima, Wizardry, M&M, etc. These games are based on power-leveling as fast as you can - all benefits are from fighting, killing, and "beating" the game.
4) You're playing it. Now, wait, I didn't mean it like that. Perception is always aimed towards egocentrism. So, the light always changes for me (if I'm positive) or against me (if I'm pessimistic) regardless of who else is in the traffic pattern. This game has more "inattentive" players than any other because we're on it and have to deal with them right now. Realistically, other MMORPGs have probably had to deal with the same percentage of induhviduals as FFXI; our scale is slightly tweaked because the "decent players" are "all japanese" and the "sucky players" are "all north american", but I would bet the math is consistent (no basis for this; just pure speculation).

As for the original topic:
Most of the time, I'm a thief. I get jibes from my LS because I farm and NM hunt so much, but hey, I need to pay for that stack of iron quivers I'm using. They stop laughing when they realize it works. Being a ranger is expensive, but you have to deal with it.
I keep restating it, but the point of a party is the maximum benefit with the minimum impact. If by holding back ranged shots you don't decrease the efficiency or speed of the party, the by all means do it. If you do impact the effectiveness of the party, then you're doing them a disservice.

thanks for the input guys, it seems to me that most people have allot of time to play, if i play 5 hours a week or even 10 hours using arrows all the time will mean i have to farm over half of the time i spend playing, so i guess i really have 3 options

1 change jobs
2 be bored farming
3 hope people can be nice and help me on farming methods, crawlers are the main thing that i farm but dont seem to work so well

I dont think FF has anymore idiots/griefers than say EQ. In EQ there was always someone trying to train or KS your mob from you. Ninja Looting (Loot and Log) was especially bad. Least in FF the trainers that do it on purpose usually die, there is no possibility of being KS'd and loot goes into a pool upon which to be rolled. Square did a good job of weeding out ways that people could be griefed, which was a reason I left EQ (nothing was done about it so it was almost as if they were encouraging it). As for idiots in the game, bah they are worldwide, its pandemic. :p

Bru

Its all about the way you play the game.

Me for instance, i always must have the best gear for my level no matter what class. I want to be the best at every class i play at every level. Due to this i often dont play my ranger if i cant afford arrows. I cant bring myself to buy arrows lower quality than what i can equip, same reason i cant stand wearing gear lower than my level if there is better available.

Due to this, alot of other rangers coming up after me have passed me in levels. But i find it more rewarding to play my class to its fullest, and i have gotten alot of comments to the tune of how much better i am than other rangers who spend less time making sure they have the money to support their character.

But its a peeve of mine and thats how i play. Part of the game for me is buying gear and outfitting my character. I like being inspected by rangers 10-15 levels higher than me and being told "nice gear". I feel like im dishonoring my group if im not taking enough pride in my character to have the best.

For me, being inspected by a same level ranger and having him/her see me using a lower quality arrow than what i can equip is embarrasing and i wont do it. Same with stat food, i simply will not level without it because i feel i am slacking on my end of the group make up. Thats just the way i play though. I'm not worried about reaching lvl 75 as soon as possible, i'd rather be the best ranger i can be at every level of the game so i enjoy every level of the game and bring the most to the table i can.

As it is, sometimes i do have to farm for 2 hours to afford arrows and food for the evening, or play another class untill my AH wares sell. But to me, it makes playing my ranger something to look forward to, a reward almost.

1st topic: It's funny, I've accualy had party leaders tell me to tone down the dammage I do because I'm getting to much hate from the mob. If your conserving arrows to conserve hate, thus make the healer and tanks job easier, that's a perfectly good reason. If your conserving arrows 'cause your worried about cash flow, then you need to find a way to get more gill wheather that be farming, joining a guild ect.

2nd topic: Honestly, I don't know about other MMORPG's 'cause this is the first one I've played. I have found my share of 'special' people in this game, but that's just life. Jebus though, I was at the AH in Bastok yesterday and some guy's going up to everyone asking to borrow 100 gill......100 GILL! I mean, I can find that under my couch cushions for goodness sake.
Anywho, I try to ignore the stupidity the best I can and when I do find party members worth a return party, I either put them on my Friend List or (rarly) give them a Linkpearl.

I couldn't agree with you more. I like running across other rangers and comparing equipment... because I know that mine is almost always better. (once I get LL boots, I will be certain)

RNG is a unique class, in that we are the standard for damage-dealing in the game. When talking about how much damage they do, every other class has to say, "Yeah, I do more damage than any other job my level (except for RNG)." I LOVE that. It is my job to make sure that no person I ever party with comes away saying, "RNG is overrated... I did more damage than him."

I do everything I can to put my damage output right below the threshold of hate that the tank can maintain. This way, if anyone outdamages me, they would be dead.