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#1 Feb 23 2009 at 10:53 PM Rating: Good
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Starting a secondary thread to discuss what people have said in the other thread: 10 Questions - Please respond here and keep the other thread to a 1 post per person thread.

Angina wrote:
3) Is that job still as loved now as it was back when you wanted to become one?

In terms of my own preference, absolutely. No other job in this game is even a fraction of the fun I find in playing Thief. In terms of the overall player base's perspective, I'd have to say that Thief sadly remains one of the least-respected jobs in FFXI. This bothers me tremendously.

I actually respect THF a lot. It's one of those jobs that I plan to level to 75 (55 currently) next. I'm a player that likes technical things, so THF is up there. I like controlling the rate that my party is leveling at, rather than let someone else control it and pull half of Gar.Citadel bats in one pull... srsly can people learn how to pull those things. /facepalm

Kikkiaro wrote:
9) Same as question 8, but you had the ability to add one thing in FFXI what would it be?
Storage space...

I recently cleaned my main character up moving a lot of gear off to mules. I think I had 30 slots free... a month later, I'm struggling with 2 free slots. Why... why!!!! Also I do want Linkshells to be key items.

Edited, Feb 24th 2009 6:58am by Argonaut
#2 Feb 23 2009 at 11:37 PM Rating: Good
I can discuss the ups and downs of Thief all day. I'll chomp that hook. The problem with Thieves is largely threefold:

1) We're defined (unfairly) by our passive Treasure Hunter traits, which are often treated as the main reason to invite us to end-game events. We have no control over its activation rate (if any), and nobody even knows conclusively how well it works yet. The two items in the entire game which enhance this trait are placebos at best, and one is nigh-impossible to obtain in a reasonable time frame. This sucks.

2) Our attack speed tends towards ungodly fast in merits, but our low base damage means that on higher defense mobs (as most HNM are, by nature), we fail at DoT. You don't want a THF feeding most mobs TP at a frightening rate, so we're overlooked in favor of SAMs, etc., in many cases. This, I must admit, makes sense to me.

3) Most Thieves SUCK. They wear AGI gear (AF pants) to TP in, pack evasion earrings that dock their attack, can't set up SATAVB in under ten seconds from the first voke, fail to keep their marksmanship capped or pull with boomerangs, the list goes on and on and on. It's pathetic, and even I, who have always been a career Thief, hesitate tremendously before inviting a pickup THF to any type of party. Stereotypes come from somewhere, as they say.

But in reality, a well-geared THF can easily compete with any comparable DRG in a merit party, and people tend to like DRGs on Greater Colibri for a reason. I'd go so far as to say that if you see a THF with a well-defined /seacom looking for merits and you pass him up, you're cheating your party. (We don't exactly suck at Mamool, either, just for the record.)

We're an extremely flexible breed of melee DD who can rapidly jump between hammering out damage and tanking when we take hate. We have access to a relatively unique enfeeble in the form of Acid Bolts, can assist a tank in keeping hate with Trick Attack, close SC for substantial damage, and can even directly manipulate the hate level of your healer or BLM, etc., through proper use of Collaborator and/or Accomplice. We bring far more to the table than most people give us credit for, particularly when you find one of us who cares about how we represent our job.

But that last sentence again sums up the problem, as it always has.

Edited, Feb 24th 2009 3:12am by Angina
#3 Feb 24 2009 at 7:49 AM Rating: Good
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I want to discuss how the answer to "best expansion" could be anything other than Chains of Promathia!

>.>




As for THF... equipment/skill/statistics aside, I always felt that THF has to maintain excellent communication with the other party members and generally, set the pace for a party. That's what I would measure a good thief against.
#4 Feb 24 2009 at 8:13 AM Rating: Good
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Kysha wrote:
6) How long can you see yourself playing this game (in its current state) if SE said tomorrow "We will not be updating this game anymore, but we will leave the servers up"?

They don't even have to say that, but my remaining time is 4 more days now! It's just time to move on. :)


I'd like to discuss this....

Smiley: cry
#5 Feb 24 2009 at 9:00 AM Rating: Decent
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Quote:
I want to discuss how the answer to "best expansion" could be anything other than Chains of Promathia!


CoP sucked. Added no jobs (the only expansion not to do so), added a bunch of filler areas that are mostly ghost towns and were mostly locked by missions anyway, and has a really skewed effort:reward ratio for a lot of the NMs and other challenges it introduced (looking primarily at you, sea)

IMO the best thing CoP had to add was Bibiki Bay, but even that has been eclipsed now by ToAU and still isn't really suitable for meriting >_>
#6 Feb 24 2009 at 12:05 PM Rating: Excellent
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I agree with Fyn. I wont argue that the difficulty of the promy missions has created an unmatched sense of accomplishment and forges bonds between people that survive the ordeal, but the expansion itself, had good story and hard fights. It brought people together to survive the HORROR that was CoP. I wouldnt call that an awesome expansion.

Tau on the otherhand has COMPLETELY changed the game. Before tau, there was HNM, Sea, sky, Dynamis and rather bleh merit opportunities at 75. Now players of all levels have much more to do. The "grindy" feel of FFXI has been cut back some with the faster camps. The expansion of merit camps both manaburn and TP burn have eased the bottleneck for merits a TON. The endgame list is no longer an exclusive club for the survivors of CoP and horrid king camps, and a sky system manipulated by RMT.

They also started Instancing endgame events. Now with instanced Einherjar, Salvage, Assault, Nyzul and a pop based ZNM system. Oh and the BEST thing, the Tau "BCNM"s (ISNMs) have exits RIGHT NEXT TO the entrance. OMG SE finally took a hint in removing completely useless timesinks like runing around for 10 min between BC/KSNMs. Also travel itself is fast in tau. All the new warp NPCs, the way point system etc. Tau changed our old sloggy game into a lean mean awesome machine.

Many people still seem to hold a grudge that things are "easier" now than back when it snowed walking uphill both ways, but it has made this rather closed community open up to a wider audience while still providing tons of "hardcore" material and ill take my 20k merit parties anyday over B.Bay no matter how hardcore i get. TAU has a LOT to offer anyone, and the zones/monsters are much less drab and more varied than CoP and WoTG by a mile. Toss in sweeping balance changes and not 1, 2 but 3 new jobs that are all extremely varied to what we previously had, and you have a winner.

Edited, Feb 24th 2009 3:07pm by Banalaty
#7 Feb 24 2009 at 12:49 PM Rating: Good
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I'd like to point out that most of the CoP story line fights were not nerfed. Snoll and Tenzen were changed and climbing the promies (not the actual bcnms) was made a joke, but O/U wasn't touched. Instead, SE just gave us the chance to buy and sell the polymer pumps from other players.

The reason CoP seems "easier" now is due to merits, gear, and knowledge.


And yes, as an expansion as a whole, ToA added so much more to the game than CoP ever did. The thing I still find amazing about this game is that despite having 4 expansion packs released, I am still using gear from every portion of the game.

Edited, Feb 24th 2009 2:51pm by xypin
#8 Feb 24 2009 at 1:05 PM Rating: Good
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CoP sucked. Period.

I bought it when it first came out and I am currently only on mission 5-2, promy V. With my playtime it's hard as hell to find a pick-up party to do missions, and lets face it, the people that have completed CoP absolutely DO NOT want to endure the hell that was Cop over again...and I don't blame them.

Running all over hell and back to get 37 CS's per mission, fighting 2-4 (sometimes up to 5-6) NM's per mission, and then, the creme d'la creme....99% of the CoP missions are ******* level capped. I take characters to 75 for a reason, not so I can fight **** at level 30 again where WS's, JA's, and equipment all suck ***.

SE dropped the ball big time with CoP. ToAU was cool though....^_^
#9 Feb 24 2009 at 2:46 PM Rating: Decent
I'm also casting my vote against CoP. It's a dreadful, godawful expansion in terms of missions and the difficulty in organizing and completing them all.
#10 Feb 24 2009 at 7:13 PM Rating: Good
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chluke, Goblin in Disguise wrote:
Kysha wrote:
6) How long can you see yourself playing this game (in its current state) if SE said tomorrow "We will not be updating this game anymore, but we will leave the servers up"?

They don't even have to say that, but my remaining time is 4 more days now! It's just time to move on. :)


I'd like to discuss this....

Smiley: cry


Thank you for caring! Never got to repay you the favor of helping me out with that Mannequin... :X

As of now I plan to cancel it for 3 months or so. I might come back if I am in need of some good entertainment. :D






As for CoP, it is just like it to be an expansion that you either hate or love, and rarely have an "in between". For me, I thoroughly enjoyed organizing the setups and strategy for each and every fight. I think it gave me a great opportunity to shine as a leader. Of course, it was only pulled off well because of so many great people supporting me and pushing me forward at all times. I think, in 10 years, I will probably remember my LS's CoP experience the most.

The excessive planning it required really made me feel like some kind of high-ranking strategist immersed in the world of Vana'diel. To me, my LS consisted of possibly the best mix of people. In retrospect, it was such a good fit. We had the people who were level-headed balancing out the unreasonable ones (me, mostly!), the frustration-prone ones coaxed by the optimistic ones. It was really amazing to witness the dynamic of everyone around me.

CoP left the deepest impression on me because it really felt like we were indulging in the game entirely, and not just at face value. That, I guess, is what separates a good MMORPG from a great MMORPG in my book.



*sighs in nostalgia* So, as much as people may dislike CoP, I still love it! Wouldn't trade it for anything.
#11 Feb 25 2009 at 12:04 AM Rating: Good
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I'm starting to think that those that hate it had bad experiences with it. The storyline blows all other expansions out of the water, the fights you had to think about, and if someone was slacking then it cost you big time. Everyone had to put in 200% to get past them. Honestly who cares about new jobs? I would keep playing this game until I was old and senile if SE brought out a CoP-esque like expansion each year.

When you think about it, when you play the other FF games, what do you play them for? The new jobs that get added (well technically this isn't true as they've never done expansions for anything but FFXI), or for the storyline?

FF has always had great storylines, it's what makes this line of games a hit among the millions of players world wide. I don't think there is anyone out there that hasn't been emotionally effected by aspects of FF games in some way or another.
#12 Feb 25 2009 at 12:55 AM Rating: Good
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The problem with the storyline, no matter how good it may or may not have been, was that a lot of people didn't even get to experience it because they had too much of a hard time getting through the missions. (I personally didn't find CoP to have such a fantastic story as many people proclaim it has, particularly when comparing it to most past FFs; most of it was just a big mindfuck and I didn't think it made much sense at all until past halfway through -- but, I don't really fault the game for that because it's hard to support a good, linear plotline in a game genre that is designed to be an open-ended sandbox of sorts.) There were numerous reasons for this. For some, they might have had such a hard time that they might not even care about the scenes anymore, they are just happy to finally be past Hard Fight X. Perhaps getting through them takes some people so long that by the time things start to make sense, they've already forgotten what happened in the earlier missions.

Personally, I don't care that much about having to fight through something to see "the storyline". If I really wanted to see just those such things, I'm sure I could find vids or a transcript or a knowledgable FFXI guru somewhere on the internet and spare myself the in-game trouble. In the meantime, the playerbase is generally just focused on getting Phat Lewt Y and access to Neat Zone Z, and spamming through cutscenes in order to achieve these things as quickly as possible -- because if the game isn't already giving you a battlefield time limit, chances are one of your static members has to go to sleep soon anyways, possibly because another dude in your group (or even the same dude...) showed up late.

Also, in order to prepare well for the fights (because face it, would you want to do/repeat CoP missions for people that don't have a goddamn clue what they're getting into?), you pretty much had to research them all beforehand, meaning you already knew what you were going to be up against, meaning you already had things spoiled to you, etc...

Quote:
Honestly who cares about new jobs?


I loves me some new jobs, even just looking at their subbing potential (which is pretty much all that career RDMs have to look at, considering how they haven't really touched the job in eons other than adding group 2 merits and that the only "new" things to come to the job pretty much come from subs...)

RDM/BLU is a very potent blood tank for solo scenarios, or group scenarios where it is allowed to keep hate.

RDM/SCH greatly increases the job's nuking potential, and offers better MP efficiency than /WHM does if you can afford to lose the few extra utility spells /WHM gives.

As far as WotG was concerned, the two new jobs were the main part of the reason for me to buy the damned thing in the first place. The other part is Vunkerl Inlet, and anyone who knows what I've been up to in the past few days knows why >_> But yeah, point is that the new jobs are really the only thing that make me rank WotG over CoP. I think DNC and SCH are pretty badass jobs (SCH not so much at first, but they fixed it up... perhaps too well, depending on who you ask...)
#13 Feb 25 2009 at 1:00 AM Rating: Good
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Kysha wrote:
chluke, Goblin in Disguise wrote:
Kysha wrote:
6) How long can you see yourself playing this game (in its current state) if SE said tomorrow "We will not be updating this game anymore, but we will leave the servers up"?

They don't even have to say that, but my remaining time is 4 more days now! It's just time to move on. :)


I'd like to discuss this....

Smiley: cry


Thank you for caring! Never got to repay you the favor of helping me out with that Mannequin... :X

As of now I plan to cancel it for 3 months or so. I might come back if I am in need of some good entertainment. :D






As for CoP, it is just like it to be an expansion that you either hate or love, and rarely have an "in between". For me, I thoroughly enjoyed organizing the setups and strategy for each and every fight. I think it gave me a great opportunity to shine as a leader. Of course, it was only pulled off well because of so many great people supporting me and pushing me forward at all times. I think, in 10 years, I will probably remember my LS's CoP experience the most.

The excessive planning it required really made me feel like some kind of high-ranking strategist immersed in the world of Vana'diel. To me, my LS consisted of possibly the best mix of people. In retrospect, it was such a good fit. We had the people who were level-headed balancing out the unreasonable ones (me, mostly!), the frustration-prone ones coaxed by the optimistic ones. It was really amazing to witness the dynamic of everyone around me.

CoP left the deepest impression on me because it really felt like we were indulging in the game entirely, and not just at face value. That, I guess, is what separates a good MMORPG from a great MMORPG in my book.



*sighs in nostalgia* So, as much as people may dislike CoP, I still love it! Wouldn't trade it for anything.

We're no longer entertaining to Kysha? ;_;
Please don't leave us!! Smiley: cry
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#14 Feb 25 2009 at 5:09 AM Rating: Excellent
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Kysha wrote:
chluke, Goblin in Disguise wrote:
Kysha wrote:
6) How long can you see yourself playing this game (in its current state) if SE said tomorrow "We will not be updating this game anymore, but we will leave the servers up"?

They don't even have to say that, but my remaining time is 4 more days now! It's just time to move on. :)


I'd like to discuss this....

Smiley: cry


Thank you for caring! Never got to repay you the favor of helping me out with that Mannequin... :X

As of now I plan to cancel it for 3 months or so. I might come back if I am in need of some good entertainment. :D


I don't want repayment, just more fun fights Smiley: grin

I'm glad you're not completely dumping and canceling. I've seen so many people do that, and then regret it a month later. I hope we can see you again in those 3 months. And when you do return, we should get together and put your strategy making to work. Smiley: nod

As for CoP, this is what it meant to me, and no other expansion has come close:

Screenshot


Edited, Feb 25th 2009 8:13am by chluke
#15 Feb 25 2009 at 5:59 AM Rating: Good
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You are all very nice and I wish I had more similar playtimes to you. :)
Unfortunately, as it is, I don't get to poke my NA friends much anymore and have been hanging out in the JP circles mostly. :)

I feel like I will miss FFXI because it actually gives me a lot of Japanese practice (which I seem to need, seeing as to I got 230/400 on my JLPT2 T-T Fail!)




Oh, and just to keep this thread 'railed'... I think CoP storyline was good, but it is ESPECIALLY awesome when you do all the little quests that are related to it... like... The Search for Goldmane. Epic! I'm quite a quest nut. And yes, it's because I think the stories in FFXI are pretty awesome...
#16 Feb 25 2009 at 12:55 PM Rating: Good
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Even though i shared a similar experience of slogging though CoP with a static that i bonded with through the experience, I just cant call it the greatest expansion. I had a great time with that static, we bonded, we got our rajas etc. But then i moved on and i have my memories. I did that some years ago and it only affects me now through zone access for sea based endgame.

However, Tau I use every day. It has more on-going activities that bring you back. It has new jobs that I use frequently (primarily as Drg/blu which ROCKS!). It has changed party dynamics with new camps, new jobs, increased mobility throughout the world. New and awesome endgame events (I LOVE Einherjar and enjoy salvage enough). There huge numbers of zones in CoP that you only see once during missions.

There is NO reason to return to most of the zones in that entire exansion. Once you finish the missions, you only really use Tav, and the sea zones if your in endgame. Who goes wandering around the 3rd floor of the promies? When was the last time you rode the ferry from B.Bay to P.Island? The Tau boats have NMs at least to draw people back. Tau I use most of their zones on a frequent bases. People party/Merit/ZNM/Solo in most of the zones.

I think of CoP as an experience torn by grief and success that bonded people akin to a small company surviving a horrible battle together. But it passes, and its over. The experience might be unmatched, but Tau mas made the game itself better. I say that in an open ended/sandbox-ish MMORPG, an expansion that improves the game drastically forever>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Than a linear experience (no matter how awesome) that has a start, and an end.

That is why I feel Tau is the "Best expansion." If this were about the best mission line, or the best experience, CoP would rank much higher to me. But to me that doesnt make a good expansion in my eyes
#17 Feb 25 2009 at 1:08 PM Rating: Good
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Banalaty wrote:
Even though i shared a similar experience of slogging though CoP with a static that i bonded with through the experience, I just cant call it the greatest expansion. I had a great time with that static, we bonded, we got our rajas etc. But then i moved on and i have my memories. I did that some years ago and it only affects me now through zone access for sea based endgame.

However, Tau I use every day. It has more on-going activities that bring you back. It has new jobs that I use frequently (primarily as Drg/blu which ROCKS!). It has changed party dynamics with new camps, new jobs, increased mobility throughout the world. New and awesome endgame events (I LOVE Einherjar and enjoy salvage enough). There huge numbers of zones in CoP that you only see once during missions.

There is NO reason to return to most of the zones in that entire exansion. Once you finish the missions, you only really use Tav, and the sea zones if your in endgame. Who goes wandering around the 3rd floor of the promies? When was the last time you rode the ferry from B.Bay to P.Island? The Tau boats have NMs at least to draw people back. Tau I use most of their zones on a frequent bases. People party/Merit/ZNM/Solo in most of the zones.

I think of CoP as an experience torn by grief and success that bonded people akin to a small company surviving a horrible battle together. But it passes, and its over. The experience might be unmatched, but Tau mas made the game itself better. I say that in an open ended/sandbox-ish MMORPG, an expansion that improves the game drastically forever>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Than a linear experience (no matter how awesome) that has a start, and an end.

That is why I feel Tau is the "Best expansion." If this were about the best mission line, or the best experience, CoP would rank much higher to me. But to me that doesnt make a good expansion in my eyes

This ^^

I read the question as "what is the best expansion?" not "Which expansion had a better storyline?". Overall, CoP did not add that much content to the game in my opinion, but on the otherhand, ToA literally changed the game and offers content that I use every time I log on.

Edited, Feb 25th 2009 3:10pm by xypin
#18 Feb 25 2009 at 2:07 PM Rating: Good
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Banalaty wrote:
Even though i shared a similar experience of slogging though CoP with a static that i bonded with through the experience, I just cant call it the greatest expansion. I had a great time with that static, we bonded, we got our rajas etc. But then i moved on and i have my memories. I did that some years ago and it only affects me now through zone access for sea based endgame.

However, Tau I use every day. It has more on-going activities that bring you back. It has new jobs that I use frequently (primarily as Drg/blu which ROCKS!). It has changed party dynamics with new camps, new jobs, increased mobility throughout the world. New and awesome endgame events (I LOVE Einherjar and enjoy salvage enough). There huge numbers of zones in CoP that you only see once during missions.

There is NO reason to return to most of the zones in that entire exansion. Once you finish the missions, you only really use Tav, and the sea zones if your in endgame. Who goes wandering around the 3rd floor of the promies? When was the last time you rode the ferry from B.Bay to P.Island? The Tau boats have NMs at least to draw people back. Tau I use most of their zones on a frequent bases. People party/Merit/ZNM/Solo in most of the zones.

I think of CoP as an experience torn by grief and success that bonded people akin to a small company surviving a horrible battle together. But it passes, and its over. The experience might be unmatched, but Tau mas made the game itself better. I say that in an open ended/sandbox-ish MMORPG, an expansion that improves the game drastically forever>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Than a linear experience (no matter how awesome) that has a start, and an end.


I'm the exact opposite. Except for the occasional Assault, I rarely visit Whitegate, or AU areas. I'd much rather merit in Bibiki Bay or the Meadows. I jump at the chance to help my friends/LS mates with CoP missions. I regularly visit and hang out in CoP zones (capped or uncapped). I enjoy doing the ENMs (and they've got some pretty incredible rewards, even by today's standard). I have taken parties to XP on the third floor of a promy, and go to the promy zones to solo when around level 30 quite often (damn SE for reducing mob spawns there).


Quote:
That is why I feel Tau is the "Best expansion." If this were about the best mission line, or the best experience, CoP would rank much higher to me. But to me that doesnt make a good expansion in my eyes


I suppose this is what it's all about though. What do you play the game for? Whichever expansion gives you that, is what's going to be considered "best". Heck, anyone who's played this game for any length of time should probably claim RoTZ was best. It gave zones which are still regularly and heavily traveled today. It gave new jobs (some of the most used jobs in game at that). And while the story wasn't "incredible", it was certainly way better than AU. But most people don't really think of it as an expansion, since it was part of the game before most of us played.
#19 Feb 25 2009 at 7:23 PM Rating: Good
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Yeah, I can see what you guys are saying about ToAU. I've been a firm believer that ToAU made the player base stupid when it came to certain jobs. BLM for example, Pre-ToAU BLM's learn how to Magic Burst and not get killed, they could stun a Goblin Bomb Toss before the goblin even knew he was readying the bomb... they could do a lot of things.

Now Post-ToAU, BLM's in terms of skill level have declined. They are there for damage and damage only, there's no skill to nuking. It makes me cry when I see BLM's sitting around in party situations just resting and nuking, throw out a Stun to help the tank every now and again, put some extra dot's on the mob. Drain might give you 0hp back, but it still damages the mob... there's so much more BLM's could be doing but they don't.

Angina, could this be your issue with THF's now as well? Could it be that these days people don't want THF's because they can't play properly because they weren't shapped the way we were when we first leveled. Bring back Crawler's Nest trains, they scared the **** out of everyone enough that you were always on your toes.

These days players are all meh when they level, they don't care that much anymore.
#20 Feb 25 2009 at 8:17 PM Rating: Good
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I cant say i agree wholeheartedly with that sentiment. Its very easy as a veteran of many years to look at people leveling now and say they all suck. If whm leveld through onzozo, theyd be better. If people setup SATA based skillchain+MB they would be better. If tanks.....tanked more. Melees dont know about hate control with burns etc etc.

But we forget that Thfs STILL wore SH+AF pants and didnt macro swap back in 2004 just like today. There were still Thfs that would get the 1st voker killed because they couldnt setup SATA within 20 sec, or wouldnt position right fumble the whole thing....repeatedly. People were to cheap to buy "expensive" sushi back then. Drks went /thf with terrible gear, then popped every JA and hit SA+Spinning slash and went "im so awesome lookz at mah damage!"

My point is people sucked back when we climbed uphill both ways just like they suck today. Blm missed MB. DDs did better at "hate control" because we were fighting IT++++ crabs they could barely scratch to start with. Thfs still went /nin, wore Dex/agi gear and ate sushi then complained when they hit for zero. All melees were obsessed with wearing Str rings and str gear for TP. I try to keep the past in perspective. It was slow and people sucked then too and no amount of rose colored lenses will make killing crabs that take 5 min for 200 exp any better.
#21 Feb 26 2009 at 3:03 AM Rating: Default
Argonaut, Eater of Souls wrote:
Angina, could this be your issue with THF's now as well? Could it be that these days people don't want THF's because they can't play properly because they weren't shapped the way we were when we first leveled. Bring back Crawler's Nest trains, they scared the sh*t out of everyone enough that you were always on your toes.

These days players are all meh when they level, they don't care that much anymore.


My problem with Thief is that to properly play the job you have to, at a minimum, understand aggro and linking ranges to avoid slaughtering people on pulls. You have to grasp the mechanics of your job, which means prefiring SATA before pulls, but not so far in advance that it wears off before coming back to camp. You have to know how to macro SATAVB so you don't fumble around and blow the whole thing. Your tank should NEVER wait for more than 10 seconds for your SATA to land in a pre-60 party, unless they or the first voker fail to line you up. You have to gear very flexibly, making use of no less than 2 gear sets pre-60, and (hopefully) as many as 4 or 5 from 60-75, and you have to be willing to pour gil into each of those sets to maximize their efficiency. You have to understand how to use your abilities to benefit the party as needed: if the DRK tries to kill himself with JAs, use Collaborator to drop hate back to the tank!

Some gear is absolutely unacceptable. I've seen 75THFs in end-game shells running around with Heartsnatchers. Every time I see one of those things, another piece of my heart dies. I don't mean to sound elitist, but there are facts and there is fiction, and the two are diametrically opposed. A well-respected player on our server once ridiculed me for meriting /NIN with a Blau and Sirocco Kukri and using Dancing Edge, unlike the extremely gimp THF next to me, who was /WAR with a Viking Shield and Heartsnatcher, using Evisceration. Sure, their WS spiked occasionally for higher epeen damage, but the sheer mathematics of TP gain, DoT, and Dancing Edge vs. Evisceration spike the parse sharply in my favor. I was "instructed" during this party to ditch /NIN and use a Sirocco as my weapon, since I'd get TP really fast. I'm not going into the math here, but suffice to say the best Thieves in the game have done rigorous calculations which prove that /NIN with Blau/SK beats /WAR with a SK/Viking Shield and otherwise equivalent gear.

The bottom line is that this job is still largely understood through the lens of blatant conjecture, and it pisses me off. When Thieves are ignorant of how to gear and play their jobs, no wonder many other people fail to grasp it all. There's only so much a fistful of committed players can do to chip away at the old "lolTHF" stigma, sadly.
#22 Feb 26 2009 at 9:57 AM Rating: Decent
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Quote:
Yeah, I can see what you guys are saying about ToAU. I've been a firm believer that ToAU made the player base stupid when it came to certain jobs. BLM for example, Pre-ToAU BLM's learn how to Magic Burst and not get killed, they could stun a Goblin Bomb Toss before the goblin even knew he was readying the bomb... they could do a lot of things.

Now Post-ToAU, BLM's in terms of skill level have declined. They are there for damage and damage only, there's no skill to nuking. It makes me cry when I see BLM's sitting around in party situations just resting and nuking, throw out a Stun to help the tank every now and again, put some extra dot's on the mob. Drain might give you 0hp back, but it still damages the mob... there's so much more BLM's could be doing but they don't.


Honestly, when BLMs are pretty much forced to solo all of their higher (ToAU) levels because nobody ever invites them to parties, you can't really blame them for not knowing how to act when they finally are in one.

Also, what's a magic burst?

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Bring back Crawler's Nest trains, they scared the sh*t out of everyone enough that you were always on your toes.


**** that. They didn't keep people on their toes, they just shut down zone entrances and were huge annoyances (what exactly are we expected to do if we just go in a zone and get slaughtered before we can even move or see the mobs on our screen? I don't know about everyone else, but when I die I like it to be because I screwed up, not because I didn't have any choice in the matter)

The MPK patch was primarily designed to stop scenarios like that. Immediate mobbing when entering a zone shouldn't ever happen.
#23 Feb 27 2009 at 4:50 AM Rating: Good
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2,915 posts
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10) Name one Lakshmi player would you regard as a celebrity?

Yoda. Not sure if he still plays though. I don't check that often.


Let's just be clear here. You mean just Yoda, and not Intyoda, right?


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Also, what's a magic burst?
I make it a personal goal to find a way to magic burst every time I'm in an xp party, and on a job that can cast any kind of magic. Even if it means I have to be WHMmelee long enough to close a SC myself. I'll be damned if I let some of these people go through life in this game not ever seeing or knowing what a magic burst is.
#24 Feb 27 2009 at 5:34 AM Rating: Good
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950 posts
Yea, I was going to say Yoda too, but I couldn't remember if I was thinking of the right person. Before I was even on these forums, everyone I met seemed to know who he was.
#25 Feb 27 2009 at 7:58 AM Rating: Good
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1,892 posts
Yoda is still around.
Intyoda we karma camped him across a few states. He is now unable to post residence on the entire east coast.
#26 Feb 27 2009 at 8:43 AM Rating: Good
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654 posts
Yoda is cool.

I'll agree with the people who named Jangula and Sleepynight, they are pretty well-known.

How about that guy who sits in Hall of Gods selling the Silent Oils?

I'd like to name my own LS member too... Sinscry. C'mon I'm sure lots of people have seen the Sins___ series of characters hanging around. :D
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