The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

[abknight]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

someone posted earlier that the game has always allowed for leveling to 75 without purchasing expansions. while that's technically true, i want to point out that the original game content only allowed that if you were willing to grind EP mobs. jiraat/zilart/whatever just happened to come with the NA release and the 75 cap.

as far as this argument about EN vs JP goes; i started playing in '02 and became accustomed to the JP party style. i liked the game a lot less when the english version hit because it changed what i was used to. however, i eventually grew up and realized that there are shitty players and assholes everywhere you go in the world. in a game like this the best NA player in the world is at least as good as the best JP player, and vice versa. the argument is pointless, but you'll rarely convince a biased player of this. i believe a lot of people who favor JP players and view them as "superior beings" are either delusional and/or immature.

i remember square saying that they'd never raise the cap above 75 due to balance issues, but it was inevitable. it'll keep a few more people playing as 14 draws nearer. the game is so drastically different than it was at release that it doesn't really matter anymore. all this talk of 35-60k/hour in different burn parties seems ludicrous considering 3k/hour was acceptable 8 years ago. i'm looking forward to a fresh feeling from 14.

lastly, i saw someone post a link to vana'diel wind. it's amazing that it's still going and doesn't appear to have changed.

[Zoltar]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

I'm still gonna solo for my swift belt lol I'll try damnit! lol

[Ziero]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

You know what, at this point none of this matters. SE just said they're turning CoP zones into 75+ exp camps so all the math and parsers regarding little pink birds just got tossed out the window. All we can do now is hope to god they're smart enough to completely rework the EXP curve because I do not want to spend the next two years trying to cap EXP on my two jobs.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

@ Clever Ninja
I think you missed the word "average". Of course it's possible to build more optimal parties--then it would be about edge cases instead of what most people normally see, and no longer "average". (I don't know what the exact average is, but I do suspect it's closer to 20k than 30k exp/hr.)

Though I may be able to be more selective with invites, what about the NINs, THFs, BLUs, and RNGs? Do you think they get the 30k ex/hr party as a norm?

@ Vyuru
I think you misread what I wrote; I was saying w/out good gear, merits, and setup, it's not likely a party can get 30k exp/hr.

I didn't in anyway to imply that people w/out those gears should not be allow to merit. Heck, I take practically any invite as long as it's Lv.75 and not a replacement--that's hardly a sign of someone terribly elitist.

[Vyuru]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

Just a couple of things.

Most people don't have relics or 20~25% gear haste. Most of the RDMs in merit parties do not have 2 MP/tick gear refresh or 1k Convert. (Many of them don't even cast Dia II/III.) Most of the people don't merit on fully merited jobs, either.

Even if I where to get the pieces of Homam I want, I don't know if I'd get to 20-25% gear haste, plus my other haste gear. The other thing is that people don't hit lvl 75 and start meriting with full merits, they have to start somewhere. You know, yeah, once I get a job fully merited I'll merit on it, until then however, I am going to be meriting on jobs that are not fully merited just because I don't have one that is.

Not to be rude, but I kinda read the above as, "Most people don't have (used to be) rare highly sought after relic gear, homam, or full merits" Which smacks greatly as elitism to me. I'd probably point to the homam, or say, Rdm relic hat, and say that this was true, there are typically long lines of people waiting for those drops in particular.

[Clever Ninja]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

Given all that, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that my experience of ~20k exp/hr average base exp is a lot closer to what the majority of people see, rather than the 30k to 40k figures people like to claim now and in the future.

I love how you like to talk about numbers, and then claim with this small sample size and the fact that you've only ever merited on one server that your xp/hr is the average amount that people will see. 30k+ is not difficult, it really just comes down to A) having the best job combination WITH THE PLAYERS KNOWING WHAT THEY ARE DOING and B) having the camp open. The fact that you say in this same post that you'll take invites from anybody, including PLD, shows you aren't building an efficient merit party and if all you did was take terrible job combos during NA time and not so much during JP time it would further skew your data.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

Because EVERYBODY ELSE on this site actually quote real numbers combed from multiple parties after thinking about how to fairly compare the numbers, except me. Am I right?

I don't have any vested interest in installing a parser to back my figures up, partly because I have no need for one, and partly because the rampant use of them in WoW really soured my perception of them and the people who constantly use them. Even so, your figures are no more credible than mine, any data produced by yourself here is just as questionable as a random number plucked out the air or are you assuming because you say, "These figures are parsed" that they suddenly become accepted as beyond reproach. ExpWatch is sufficient for me, it's really no skin off my nose if you don't believe my figures. That said, after seeing the spectacularly unremarkable rates you just posted up I can understand why you wouldn't want to believe them.

Have you ever thought that maybe the good NA players just avoid you? Because I'm struggling to believe there are no non-JPs on Ifrit capable of topping 23k/hour on colibri.

Given all that, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that my experience of ~20k exp/hr average base exp is a lot closer to what the majority of people see, rather than the 30k to 40k figures people like to claim now and in the future.

20k per hour is maybe what the average person sees but this discussion was about maximising exp gain per hour. Maybe you need to work on catching up to those of us already beyond that point before offering advice.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

The absurd discrepancies between the statements of your own experiences and the experiences of everybody else on this dang site leads to one of two conclusions: 1) you have an uncanny bias towards the Japanese playerbase of FFXI, or 2) on Ifrit, NAs really are that bad, and JPs really are that good.

Actually, I freely admit bias.

The question is, why do I have a bias? Have a look at the exp/hr figures from my last 20+ merit parties (w/out LS members) which I have parses for:

EN = Everyone spoke English.
JP majority = I was the only non-JP.
EN majority = One JP player in party.
Mixed = 4:2 or 3:3, either way.

Exp rings' bonus have been calculated out; the EXP/hr figure is the base exp (with Sanction, but no ring). Every single one of those parties were from flag up; I didn't make any of them, and didn't pick the party members.

Unless I know the person to be a lousy player, I take the first non-replacement invite I get on BRD (think only one party was SAM); my /seacom macro has a "No replacement, please." line. I do not ask what jobs are in the party before I accept invite, and I take invites pretty much from any job--heck, PLDs need exp buffers, too.


Composition__Date_________Camp______EXP/hr
JP_majority__2010.04.14___Colibri___17.9
JP_majority__2010.03.27___Jade______22.5
EN___________2010.03.26___Colibri___14.6
EN_majority__2010.03.09___Colibri___18.0
JP_majority__2010.02.28___Upper_____25.5
JP_majority__2010.02.23___Jade______17.1
EN___________2010.02.06___Colibri___14.6
EN___________2010.02.05___Colibri___16.0
EN___________2010.02.05___Colibri___18.6
EN_majority__2010.01.14___Colibri____8.5
JP_majority__2010.01.08___Jade______27.2
JP_majority__2009.10.13___Upper_____26.1
JP_majority__2009.10.13___Upper_____25.2
EN___________2009.10.21___Colibri___22.1
JP_majority__2009.10.20___Colibri___24.3
JP_majority__2009.10.17___Jade______25.3
EN___________2009.10.17___Colibri___21.0
JP_majority__2009.10.16___Upper_____19.1
EN___________2009.10.09___Colibri___19.1
JP_majority__2009.10.08___Colibri___20.7
Mixed________2009.10.06___Colibri___18.0


A little hard to decipher all that at a glance, so I'll break out the "JP Majority" and the "EN" parties:


Composition__Date_________Camp______EXP/hr
EN___________2010.03.26___Colibri___14.6
EN___________2010.02.06___Colibri___14.6
EN___________2010.02.05___Colibri___16.0
EN___________2010.02.05___Colibri___18.6
EN___________2009.10.21___Colibri___22.1
EN___________2009.10.17___Colibri___21.0
EN___________2009.10.09___Colibri___19.1
____________________Average:________18.0
____________________Low:____________14.6
____________________High:___________22.1


Composition__Date_________Camp______EXP/hr
JP_majority__2010.04.14___Colibri___17.9
JP_majority__2010.03.27___Jade______22.5
JP_majority__2010.02.28___Upper_____25.5
JP_majority__2010.02.23___Jade______17.1
JP_majority__2010.01.08___Jade______27.2
JP_majority__2009.10.20___Colibri___24.3
JP_majority__2009.10.17___Jade______25.3
JP_majority__2009.10.16___Upper_____19.1
JP_majority__2009.10.13___Upper_____26.1
JP_majority__2009.10.13___Upper_____25.2
JP_majority__2009.10.08___Colibri___20.7
____________________Average:________22.8
____________________Low:____________17.1
____________________High:___________26.1


If the Blue Oni group gives you 18.0k exp/hr on average, and the Red Oni group gives you 22.8 exp/hr on average, which group will you be biased against? Maybe you like Blue better than Red anyway, but I like the higher exp/hr figure myself, and the Reds happen to be "JP majority".

I also like JP parties for the lack of mysterious d/c's, the cussing, the crude sex jokes, and the ever annoying replacements--but those are just the bonuses. The party's performance is the exp/hr, and the exp/hr is the party's performance, after all.

Grizzlebeard's post (and rare is the moment I agree with darn near anything that Grizzlebeard posts) was sarcastically stating that the latter is obviously the more likely scenario.

Because EVERYBODY ELSE on this site actually quote real numbers combed from multiple parties after thinking about how to fairly compare the numbers, except me. Am I right?

* * *

........*cough*......*cough*...........dancer.

You just haven't merited with a decent dancer yet, I don't think.

I believe I've already said I like DNCs. (They're great for WS spam parties, except at the Jade Sepulcher camp, IMO)

Anyway, since I rarely make parties unless LS members are involved, and almost no one else invites DNCs, on some level it doesn't really matter what I like or dislike when it comes to DNC.

Yeah I feel ya, i guess.... 4/5 zenith (no dalmy), serket ring, star necklace is what I use, I mean that fits into one macro where I'm from, but... I dunno

You mean one macro to get HP down, which is nice.

But, left out at least another macro to get normal operational gear up.

I have three Zenith, and the rest of the HP down gear isn't as nice as yours. Two macros for HP down, two macros for general optional gear. One more macro for offensive songs if I'm running off to pull, since my "normal" set is for general buffs.

So, up to five macros, for me when over-cured. (Plus two pallet switches.)

I'd also rather take a Dia1+Box step+light shot, then a Dia2+Light shot. Saves way more MP and is a necessary thing anyway for Dancers to generate the TP that they do so well.

The one COR who was doing the Light Shot Dia upgrade was a COR/WHM; he was casting the Dia II himself. Worked out fine; RDM/WHM + COR/WHM meant no MP worries.



* * *


Well, it's the end of an era; the Lv.75 merit party is soon to be a thing of the past.

In a way, I shall miss it; the vast majority of my 4,290,000 limit points sunk into merits came from the much discussed WS spam party at the current level cap. At the same time, it is rather past due to move on to new things.

With it gone, I suspect I'd still be hearing loud boasts of "Never a party less than 30k/hr!" since no one will be doing them anymore to contradict them. Those who buy into the myth will chime in to defend those claims, too, I'm guessing.

But, this obsessive parser user will remember that he never had a pickup group that did better than 26.1k exp/hr (base), and he did heck of whole lot of those merit parties.

As far as I can tell: Most people don't have relics or 20~25% gear haste. Most of the RDMs in merit parties do not have 2 MP/tick gear refresh or 1k Convert. (Many of them don't even cast Dia II/III.) Most of the people don't merit on fully merited jobs, either.

And, worst of all, most of the DDs can't figure out that I usually put the bird in front of the first provoke person, so they should all go on the same side as the first provoke person (which would benefit SAM with Overwhelm, too!) to prevent disengaging unnecessarily. And, no, they still can't grasp the concept even after an hour of partying and four reminders from me.

Given all that, I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that my experience of ~20k exp/hr average base exp is a lot closer to what the majority of people see, rather than the 30k to 40k figures people like to claim now and in the future.

[ShepardG]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

I was following the logic of "more damage" that some of you folks seem to love so much. If more than one back line sources of cure is too much, why stop at removing one /WHM? Why not get a Haste person who can also do more damage?

Why worry about DNC not able to cure enough when you can do more damage to kill faster, if you believe the "more damage = more exp/hr" mantra that you and Grizzlebeard both advocating.

More damage=more kills at quicker rate=more exp earned. 1/6 jobs main focus is keeping all 6 jobs alive, followed closely by hasting the group. (That's the RDM) Rdm can DD sure, AND GOD KNOWS I'M NOT TAKING THE CONVERSATION THIS DIRECTION, BUT they're most useful roll (that of main healer) suffers when they do (not a disccusion for this thread).

DNC can drop 680+ Waltzs on players instantly, as well as drop 1100Dmg Dancing edges. They were designed to do it one right after the other. That's why you'd include them, as well as 10% additional haste.
And yeah, More dmg does = more exp an hour. That's how the game works...

It's about the odds. Where there is only one person with (reliable) Paralyna, and he's not mid cast or resting, and he guesses correctly who is under most danger and casts Paralyna on that person, it's fine. However, if any of those conditions are not met--and over the course of a merit party, any RDM/WHM will find himself without one of those condition--then, possible danger.

Two back line players with Paralyna cuts the threat of Dread Shriek by more than half, IMO.

Two sources of cures means that the main healer (the person with Cure IV or V) is less likely to run out MP when links and other bad things happen. (ex: My last Jade Sepulcher party started off with a -ga III that everyone missed on the very first monster. A RDM who just spend a ton of MP on Protect/Shell IV and Haste the front line would have to immediately dip into Convert if had it been a single cure source set up.)

Herein lies the rub, Your basing your entire setup off of a single TP move that may or may not wipe your Party, your gimping your dmg output, speed, and efficency to account for one single TP move that you shouldn't encounter but maybe once or twice every 30 minutes. And if your party missed a ga-3 and the RDM had to convert right off the bat, that shouldn't matter. Your rdm should be converting as soon as the timer is up anyway, otherwise he's just wasting mp. Again this goes back to aggresive play vs. conservative. Aggresive is going to get more Exp/hr.

Real world do most players perform below the ideal skill line in merit parties. Yeah. So playing conservative (in your ideal party setup) is probably not a bad thing. But when I get into a merit party, and 5 minutes in it's clear that the other 5 players have a clue, and are focused enough to push the envelope you best believe i'm gonna forsake some insurance to improve my Exp/hr. Were getting down to personel prefrence at this point.

I also don't like to shove all that work at a single RDM/WHM or WHM/SCH. I've been there as the single-healer RDM, and I find it a distasteful task, especially when the front line are uncooperative about damage mitigation. It's so much easier when there's a second cure source who can keep people upright while I catch 2-3 ticks of hMP.

........*cough*......*cough*...........dancer.

bard stuff

Yeah I feel ya, i guess.... 4/5 zenith (no dalmy), serket ring, star necklace is what I use, I mean that fits into one macro where I'm from, but... I dunno

I'd also rather take a Dia1+Box step+light shot, then a Dia2+Light shot. Saves way more MP and is a necessary thing anyway for Dancers to generate the TP that they do so well.

IMO the DNC is the best for that role, but at any camp other than Jade Sepulcher. I like COR/DNC as well, but JP CORs only want /WHM, and NA CORs here seem to only like /NIN. *shrug*

You just haven't merited with a decent dancer yet, I don't think. You get one who's got a 120+ chrisma build for waltz, roundel earring, AF body, Relic head, and ask me how often your Rdm/whm is curing. Hell on BG the theory talk about 75>80 is actually talking about 3DD, Bard/whm, Cor/nin (pulling), and Dancer as the main heal. I honestly can see this working out wonderfully. Cor/nin pulling has a ton of benefits. heck pull with crappy Ninja magic (dunno cast times/recast times) but you wouldn't even loose TP from swapping weapons around for quick Ranged attacks at that point.

[Yellow Mage]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

Then again, neither would you. lol.

I believe you missed the point of the post. You routinely and rather unfairly portray NA players as the bane of organization and JP players as the paragons of proper party play, only occasionally spitting out a token story of something impressive a North American player accomplished, or, very rarely, something that a Japanese player did that you viewed as wrong. The absurd discrepancies between the statements of your own experiences and the experiences of everybody else on this dang site leads to one of two conclusions: 1) you have an uncanny bias towards the Japanese playerbase of FFXI, or 2) on Ifrit, NAs really are that bad, and JPs really are that good. Grizzlebeard's post (and rare is the moment I agree with darn near anything that Grizzlebeard posts) was sarcastically stating that the latter is obviously the more likely scenario.

Are you Lv.75, yet? Done a merit party? Get there, get a few parses with different setups, and then you can really chime in to talk about what's the 'truth'. (Don't wait too long; Lv.80 cap is coming soon, and all that knowledge about Lv.75 meriting would become pretty useless soon. lol.)

Maybe you didn't get the memo, but I'm not exactly what you would call "in a hurry" to do anything in-game, barring my Promys for Adventurer Appreciation, and considering I'm leaving for a three-day weekend in Orlando this Friday, not to mention how busy schoolwork (yes, I'm taking summer classes) and looking for a job has left me in the meantime, I don't think I'll even be getting those done in time. Not to mention that, if what we know about level 75 merits is going to be useless pretty soon anyway, then why should I even bother to care about what we know about them at all?

If I ever find myself the time, I'll just finish BLU to 25 (leveling /BLU sub was a pretty bad idea in retrospect), bring my PLD and WHM from 40 to 50, and then, assuming S-E doesn't add anything to make /BLU more worthwhile, or make another job worth leveling at all (hint: that would take A LOT; leveling /BLM right now seems like a good idea, except that would involve spending even more time and leveling Black Mage, which would require much more persuasion for doing than there is now; /SCH even more so), finally get on the RDM leveling wagon again, just to shut you guys up.

JP CORs only want /WHM, and NA CORs here seem to only like /NIN.

I'm just going off of BBQ's experiences with the job here, myself, but it would seem like both sides on your server are doing it terribly wrong.

[Takelli]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

I like COR/DNC as well, but JP CORs only want /WHM, and NA CORs here seem to only like /NIN. *shrug*

If you ask them, they may actually be more willing to sub a different sub. I've seen Cor/Rng deal some pretty insaine damage in a few seconds. Monster at like 1/4 life Barrage+Slugshot = instant death. They even get ACC boosts so they can wield a Joyese and a shield if they wish to help increase TP gain, and a slight chance to block an attack aimed at them. If they are smart about enmity, then they can use /rng, or even /dnc if the party can make use of it more.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

QFT.

Well, I wouldn't know how other World's NA merit parties compare to Ifrit's NA merit parties, having never been to anywhere else.

Then again, neither would you. lol.

Are you Lv.75, yet? Done a merit party? Get there, get a few parses with different setups, and then you can really chime in to talk about what's the 'truth'. (Don't wait too long; Lv.80 cap is coming soon, and all that knowledge about Lv.75 meriting would become pretty useless soon. lol.)

Really...? You sound mad?

I was following the logic of "more damage" that some of you folks seem to love so much. If more than one back line sources of cure is too much, why stop at removing one /WHM? Why not get a Haste person who can also do more damage?

Why worry about DNC not able to cure enough when you can do more damage to kill faster, if you believe the "more damage = more exp/hr" mantra that you and Grizzlebeard both advocating.

I mean, what's recast on paralyna? 3 seconds? in 15 seconds everyone in the party that got hit with Dream shriek should be un-paralyzed. I mean....you do still have a rdm/whm right?

It's about the odds. Where there is only one person with (reliable) Paralyna, and he's not mid cast or resting, and he guesses correctly who is under most danger and casts Paralyna on that person, it's fine. However, if any of those conditions are not met--and over the course of a merit party, any RDM/WHM will find himself without one of those condition--then, possible danger.

Two back line players with Paralyna cuts the threat of Dread Shriek by more than half, IMO.

Two sources of cures means that the main healer (the person with Cure IV or V) is less likely to run out MP when links and other bad things happen. (ex: My last Jade Sepulcher party started off with a -ga III that everyone missed on the very first monster. A RDM who just spend a ton of MP on Protect/Shell IV and Haste the front line would have to immediately dip into Convert if had it been a single cure source set up.)

IMO the DNC is the best for that role, but at any camp other than Jade Sepulcher. I like COR/DNC as well, but JP CORs only want /WHM, and NA CORs here seem to only like /NIN. *shrug*

You are leaning way towards the defensive side of the merit parties. I'd rather catch a death and a raise one and be meriting again in 6 minutes, at full speed than have the Defensive measures in place to prevent the death, but 9/10 times, those defensive measures, go to waste.

It's true, I do prefer to have more curing power and damage mitigation than is typically needed, for the sake of atypical times. Trading a potential 3~5k exp/hr for more reassurances that the party will not go down on a bad pull or a Skoffin is not a bad deal.

And, it's the potential instead of the actual exp/hr we're talking about; a single weakened DD will already gimp a party's output as well as put more danger on the remaining DDs.

I also don't like to shove all that work at a single RDM/WHM or WHM/SCH. I've been there as the single-healer RDM, and I find it a distasteful task, especially when the front line are uncooperative about damage mitigation. It's so much easier when there's a second cure source who can keep people upright while I catch 2-3 ticks of hMP.

If your bard dosen't have a maxHP down gear set to macro in to activate his/her latent he/she probably dosen't have a 600k minstrel ring anyway.

Takes five macro presses for me to go HP down and gear up back to normal for the next pull when I'm cured to white. I can't fit the HP adjustment macros on the main pallet, either, so I have to change pallet twice for that sequence. So, yeah, I complain when healers keep spamming Curaga.

No, I don't use Windower. I expect the healers to have clues and pay enough attention, instead.


* * *

This is doable, heck you could do this now, and save a shit ton of MP over the course of an hour, at the cost of 3k worth of light cards.

Of course you can do that now, and know that because I've seen it done--by JP COR/WHM.

[ShepardG]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

lol @ derailed threads

Is it off topic, or does it have to do with theorized party dynamics AFTERTHENEXTUPDATE..... just saying ...

[Yellow Mage]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

As for the JP comment, all I can say is NA's on Ifrit must truly suck.

QFT.

[Feba]

Re: The next FFXI update (May20th I think?)

lol @ derailed threads

What? I don't remember posting in here.