Getting Harder to Find Good Players?Follow

Ahaha. You aren't the only one. trust me. I was on the verge of quitting when I just kind of tripped into a set party with some of the best players in this game and a linkshell with a lot of good people too. I find that if you meet one good person, they tend to know a bunch of other good people, and you just work outwards from there. I do know what you mean, though, and the 30's are one of the worst places for that.

Maybe I'll catch my monk or warrior up to you and shoot you a blind invite sometime. ;D

No offense but... am I the only one who finds it intensely amusing and ironic that someone with an underleveled sub is posting in the thread about not finding good players?

Shy, you do know you'll gain a lot of stats and extra HP and all of that if you have a full leveled sub, right? :/

Hoo boy, I'm out of my element here. Yeah, so I'm an odd noob. I've actually been in the game for a few months, but haven't done jack, as I've had a lot of real-world demands that have only recently let up. I'm a vet of both MMORPGs and the whole Final Fantasy series, and am an accomplished RPGer, but I've noticed a lot of resistance to noobs in this game. The last couple of nights I've tried to just talk to people (I got the PS2 w/ the keyboard), and not a single person communicated back. Granted, I know little about the game, but want to learn, since this is the only Final Fantasy I haven't completely sunk my teeth into yet. If anyone has any advice about how to build a Red Mage, be a good team player in this game, or is willing to take a dedicated noob under his/her wing, lemme know. Thanks. I'm "Blaine" in the game in Bismarck. Hope to see you all around.

-Blaine

I HAVE DIBS ON HELPING THE NOOB RDM OUT

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Blaine, I'll hunt you down after Christmas. :)

Now you know why I've all-but-retired my Red Mage. I only use it for LS events and whatnot. It's been level 63-64 for the past god knows how long and it will stay that way until people gain some amount of sense and I don't waste five hours of my time only to gain two thousand experience points... at best. I'm not kidding, though. Red Mage, while a high-demand job, draws some of the worst parties in existence.

So I've moved on to levelling ninja, where I spend upwards of 40,000 gil per exp session, only to find that the parties are just as bad. Makes sense to me!


edit: bloody html.


Edited, Thu Dec 23 08:04:16 2004 by Alauce

I am so frustrated w/ leveling lately I can't even begin to unleash my frustration on any poor soul who would read this.

About two and a half months ago, I was 51ish and just starting to make a lot of money with my clothcrafting, so I decided to start saving up for a Vermillion Cloak thinking by the time I had made all the money I would definately be level 59 and able to wear it. Well, about a month ago I purchased my last damascene cloth and did the big combine and made myself a shiny vermillion. Last week I hit level 56 (in one of the 3 good parties I had had in the last few months). No, I didn't do anything overly crazy to form my own parties or anything, I got plenty of invites while crafting. But, the parties I got were the 2k exp per hour parties. Most with really crappy PLD and subpar RDM.

So, I find myself /anon and crafting lately or with a message in my search comment that basically says leave me alone.

Just too frustrating to level these days. I suppose I will have to break down and start forming my own parties pretty soon if I ever want to see the rest of my AF and my lovely vermillion, since I pretty much have everything I can use atm and all the money I make now is going back into my crafts again.

Anyways, sorry for the rant.

If you could use a 56 WHM with awesome gear who goes with the flow and doesn't try to boss people around (like some WHMs, grr I hate bossy WHMs when I'm leveling my BLM lol) send me a tell, even if I'm anon, I could use a good party.

Merry Christmas btw, Happy Han. (going to leave it at that cause I can't spell it), Happy Qwanza, Have a good Winter Solstice, etc, etc

-Tweed

Go level DRK, you're a disgrace to Dragoons everywhere. THF sub, and underleveled. Stop playing Dragoon right now, We get enough flak as it is, and you're just adding to it. Leave our ranks.

....Precisely.

Ouch! You're gonna hate me, when I start playing a Dragoon. But, just to clarify something for me (forgive my ignorance) why is Thief sub for Drg bad? (That's not a fight, for the job combination, I seriously don't know.) I figure you can give at least some kind of objectve argument against it, being the Drg god, and all O.~

I've noticed that about people dropping from parties quick - it's been especially bad now that I'm XPing in Kazham.

I'm not sure how people are sneaking by with underlevelled subs, but I see it more and more often - the worst I've seen recently was a RDM27/THF 6. >.<

I know I'll pass over them when putting parties together. The thing is, you're not just gimping yourself, you're gimping the party by not fully levelling your subjob.

Here's an example - in my current 4/6 set, we use the Fusion skillchain a lot, Red Lotus Blade -> Seraph Strike, and usually Magic Burst Fire off it. A lot of the times the two RDM in the bunch can pull off the whole thing by themselves, but it's nice to be able to MB Fire (or Banish, to be fair) if a) I have the MP to do so inbetween Regens, Cures, Barspells and Na-spells and b) it won't hurt the XP chain for me to do so.

I'm tired of this. To dispel the rumor that ALL Japanese parties are "OMFGWTFBBQPWNZERZALL!11!!1" I will say this:

Unfortunately I have been outta work IRL for about 1 1/2 months now so I have been playing ALOT til like 5 to 6 am EST. (i.e. Japanese Primetime) and you know what a Japanese Rank 4 or 5 player is? A decent player, sometimes. I have found that RANK has had ALOT more to do with the quality of my parties than Nationality. Now, before all you people go into a "I dun do mizzionz n' stuffz cuz I find'em boring so Rank don't matta" I'm gonna say this. Yes, I have played with ONE or TWO players below Rank 4 before who were not bad, but guess what? They were like Rank 10 in another country and had just switched to get Rank 10 in another country.

So, just because someone has funny characters in their search comment when they join your party don't start jizzin' your pants automatically thinking your about to get 8k xp per hour, cause they aren't that much better. One thing I will commend Japanese parties on is their ability to "think outside the box" and not just go to Yuhtunga >> Yhoatar >> Garlaige Citadel >> Crawler's Nest. They utilize the other areas in the game which are much better for good quality XP. Maybe some of you should take the hint and go grab your damn Teleport-Altep GC and stop being lazy.

Edited, Sun Dec 26 13:57:54 2004 by Trizzoro

An LS mate of mine and I were in the dunes in an otherwise all-japanese party earlier this month. New players for the most part, with no subs yet.

They did alright. Language barrier issues aside, the party was about on par with what I would expect from any dunes party containing mostly new players. They made many mistakes. They were a bit unsure on the finer points of party dynamics. They got the job done. No more, no less.

I think that myth came to be in the days when NA service had just started, and there were proportionately more Rank 10, highly experienced players working on new jobs by the time the various waves of new NA players started looking for xp parties. Lacking any other frame of reference, I think the assumption just got made (and subsequently blown out of proportion) that japanese parties were just better.

By way of moderate supporting documentation: The only other JP party I have ever been in was an xp party in Lower Delkfutt's Tower. Yes the party was incredible, and we leveled over an over again in a glut of sparkly golden "level-up" notices as the evening wore on.

They were all rank 9-10, baring myself who was rank 2. (While not among my peers with regards to experience and skill, no hate was lost, nor any deaths suffered, and I felt proud to have not been a hinderance to a party which was essentially "out of my league".)

Regarding the original topic (and all piratical hijacking aside) I've noticed that the decrease in experienced and skilled players available for xp parties lately has coincided with the decrease in overall server population due to the release of several competing MMORPGs.

That isn't to say that there is any specific, clear-cut correlation between the two phenomena (as the equations are a bit more complicated than that), but a correlation exists nonetheless, I think.

I think it can be said that many skilled players (whose skill derives in part from experience) are at least leaving because their interests have been turned aside to other matters. Many of them have likely been playing for a long period of time (as have many of you) and have simply set the game aside for other, fresher interests.

I think any effect on the overall skill of our server's population will disipate within a month or so, as newer players obtain some of the more crucial experience necessary.

Also keep in mind that with the release of FFXI in EU, the player you see using english words may claim another language as their primary language, and as such more minor language barriers than those we are used to with japanese players have appeared.; language barriers less overbearingly obvious, but no less potent in fast-paced parties for it.

As a final note, it is Yuletide after all. Things should pick up after the first week or two of 2005.

Else the Nataraja a liar call.

Edited, Mon Dec 27 00:04:21 2004 by nataraja

Another thing. My guess to why people are saying that the players in general are getting worse is because they are better educated from reading forums and such. And thus they notice more flaws in other less experienced people.

This in fact should make the new players better because they have more online reference compared to people that started playing before them. People that started playing the game from the launch got nothing except that piece of crap Brady (mis)guide. It is so bad, I read it for a good laugh.