na redmages

[Tukka]

Heh, when it comes down to picking people for groups, I usually see who is online that has played mmorpgs for a decent amount of time before I would pick somone with high rank. 4+ years of mmorpog experience >>> some rank 10 with one year or so of mmorpg experience. It is pretty sad to come up to a high level with high rank and saying that FFXI was their first mmorpg lol.

The problem is, there is no "Number of years experience playing MMOs" stat available with the /search command.

The best convenient measure of a person's possible skill is an evaluation of their search comment, if any. If they use the translator function and seem literate, and include the pertinent information, that is a big indicator to me that they might be good bet.

I consider rank as a secondary consideration. If you're still Rank 1 or 2 at level 30+, I am wondering why you haven't been invited into a halfway decent linkshell yet that has offered to help you complete your Rank 3 mission, and why you haven't arranged to have that done. If you're Rank 10, I know you've experienced a whole lot more of the game than I have... it's quite possible you were babied through every mission and have little real skill yourself, but by sheer virtue of having played the game to that level, you're likely to have picked up at least the basic concepts of the gameplay (and then some), and are more likely to know what you're doing than a random Rank 1-2 character.

I also don't discrimate too much against oddball racial combos. It usually won't prevent me from inviting a person, but I will still give preference to a person with an optimum race combo, all other things being equal. I don't consider an unorthodox race/job combo as being something as "bad" as a sorely underleveled sub, or an apparently pointless job/subjob combo (WHM/WAR, for example).

It was also my experience (at least in EQ) that the "oddball" race/job combos tended to be played by more skilled players... every erudite cleric I ever played with was fantastic (personally I played an erudite shadow knight... I only ever met one other on my server. I know I was good, so 100% of the erudite shadow knights I grouped with were great too, heh). But in EQ, it's a somewhat of different story... in that game, race has little serious impact on your character's performance, especially at higher levels, whereas in FF11, racial advantages and disadvantages are a bit more pronounced.

I haven't run into that many "terrible" players yet firsthand, but I believe all the anecdotes. My problem so far hasn't been as much with players who are total clueless idiots, as much as it's been with the attitudes some people have. The bossy know-it-alls, the cranky children, the flakes who quit a group at the first sign of trouble, or who otherwise leave with very lttile warning.

Fortunately I haven't had to deal with any of that for a few days as I'm busy farming to buy Dispel and leveling subjobs.

[Quezi]

You know whats wierd, out of all the MMORPGS iv ever played its the less known ones *such as the previously mentioned 'NexusTK', or 'Dark Ages'* that seem to have the better players.

Acualy i even ran into less problims in shadowbane.

Infact now that i think about it the games popularity seems directly proportionate to the percentage of idiots among its playerbase. In AC2 i ran into lots of nice, compotent people, but in daoc or eq, idiots and jerks where everywhere. hmm, well no jerks seem to be evenly distributed *altho i ran into an aweful lot of nice people in both Dark Ages and AC2 so..*

Maby this simply serves to prove that people are far more stupid togeather than they could ever be apart Or perhaps its just birds of a feather...

[Bamce Sylph]

wow someone else with almost as much anger as me. /laugh

[Tulerin]

The oddball race/class combo's in EQ ended up to be on par with every other of the same class in the end game. Hell my gnome necro had 305sta unbuffed. In FFXI the taru rdm with the same equipment as the galka rdm will always have more mp. If FFXI wanted to make it equal like EQ then it would have end game caps on stats so that everyone would be equal.

But as for length of time playing mmorpg's, you get a sense for it and know who and who isnt by just partying with em. They know what aggro control is, they have a sense of how aggro can be established and held, etc etc. All mmorpg's are in a sense the same, some more complicated then others. After you play the same type game for a few years you get a sense of how the next mmorpg will play and jump in without much if any problems playing.

[Quezi]

There where things however. Ogres made the best raid shammys due to their stun immunity and whatnot, that doesnt mean that barbarians where useless. lizzy was arguably the best necro due to regen, however i never really bought into that as being a big deal, on paper it does make them look better=P *my necros where always DE for style =D*

In DAOC there where notable differances, your overall stat cap was bassed upon your base stats, therefore high INT mages where better than lower ones, but my sarc sorc was just as good. Sometimes it acualy goes backwards, for instance a troll warrior could go over the soft cap in str, effectivly makeing his high base str useless when fully buffed, *well, most people say, i always thought it made them kick ass in duels, but i just like dueling=P* they where still abundant and powerful tho

MP dont really matter unless your farming or something, the idea is to never ever run out, in order to do that there needs to be a balance between nukeing/not nukeing/refresh to keep your overall mp movement at neither positive or negative. You dont want to cause anyone to wait for you, the ONLY person who EVER gets waited for is the healer, if the healers ready and you are not then your doing something wrong, also if the healer has to use tons and tons of MP each fight, move to something easyer. That simple

Theres a damage differance, but for practical use, is not a hume BLM just as good? As far as RDM go, anything can be one, and whm.. well yeah ill agree that a healer should probibly have asmuch mp as they can, becaus unlike the other mages their job is far more likley to require an emergency reserve due to unfortunant strings of events.

In the end a MBing galka is better for exp than an overnukeing soon-to-be-dead taru

And galka red mages have the most style=D

taru still win on whm tho =x They are just so cute :sweat: WHM should be cute.

[Kousai]

Originally posted by Quezi
You know whats wierd, out of all the MMORPGS iv ever played its the less known ones *such as the previously mentioned 'NexusTK', or 'Dark Ages'* that seem to have the better players.

Acualy i even ran into less problims in shadowbane.

Infact now that i think about it the games popularity seems directly proportionate to the percentage of idiots among its playerbase. In AC2 i ran into lots of nice, compotent people, but in daoc or eq, idiots and jerks where everywhere. hmm, well no jerks seem to be evenly distributed *altho i ran into an aweful lot of nice people in both Dark Ages and AC2 so..*

Maby this simply serves to prove that people are far more stupid togeather than they could ever be apart Or perhaps its just birds of a feather...

haha, i've played Dark Ages for about 2 and a half years, have 3 master chars and i spend way too much time in the arena, wonder if i've seen you before O.o

Although, alot of the people i've met on the game were asses, untill you got to know them, then they were mostly nice. thats in the arena though, were the nice people are few, and the asses are many... good thing i could kill majority of the asses

anyways, my chars were "WoodElf" "Kousai" "SyZin" and "Theory" so uhh... lemme know if i know you

[Keji]

i kinda dont like how most NA rdm dont like curing ever.. like when i died one time he said Hey...im not a whitemage if i wanted to cure id be a whm its either that or they do Rdm/war or Rdm/mnk...those are the only kinds of NA rdm i see on my server. Though i have seen 2 good ones

[Quezi]

Dark Ages wasnt one of the games i played along time, i think i messed with it for about 3 or 4 months when it first came out, then it was back to nexus, wich i played for about 3 years total *not counting times i took off* So you probibly never saw me =P]

I liked dark ages alot but the problims i had with it where the following.

1. I didint like how if you didint get powerful +stat items to help you get your various spells and abilities and whatnot, but instead acualy got your stats up to the requirements, you gimped yourself.

2. I was sick and tired of haveing to find other people to help me get armor becaus i didint have X under my belt *im not verry social*

[Kousai]

Originally posted by Quezi
Dark Ages wasnt one of the games i played along time, i think i messed with it for about 3 or 4 months when it first came out, then it was back to nexus, wich i played for about 3 years total *not counting times i took off* So you probibly never saw me =P]

I liked dark ages alot but the problims i had with it where the following.

1. I didint like how if you didint get powerful +stat items to help you get your various spells and abilities and whatnot, but instead acualy got your stats up to the requirements, you gimped yourself.

2. I was sick and tired of haveing to find other people to help me get armor becaus i didint have X under my belt *im not verry social*

aww, it isnt really that hard to get the god items(+stat items) then again.. when i 1st started my friend gave me 20mil lol, so i was sorta set for a long while

[Tulerin]

lizzy was arguably the best necro due to regen

End game necro's had so much mana and mana regen the point of regen was really useless. There were necro's so said "well we didnt have to use sk like others do!" But then SK was extra damage, the fact that it added life over time was just a bonus, and what high end necro would ever run out of mana with max FT and SOS. =p

Looking back solo'n in plane of fire I never had any downtime from low mana or low hp as a gnome(btw Plane of Fire was hands down the best solo exp outside of the nerfed WoT and tower of sol ro bug that was fixed) And on raids regen was useless since bard ae regen song would keep all necro's from even loosing life.

Besides, Iksars looked fugly ^.^

[Bamce Sylph]

another eq related derailment, ogre's were defintally not the best raid shaman, because if ya pulled agro, you were dead, there was nothing to save you from it, no race, no gear, nothing mobs that quad for 1200+ would just flatten you before u really relized

[Saedius]

Originally posted by Deodorant

Agreed. Unfortunately it's not that simple. How is a party leader supposed to know how skilled a prospective party member is? He can't. Therefore he will base his decision on quantitative (rank, level, subjob, etc) measures. All other things being equal, an rdm/blm will get first pick over an rdm/war.

Yes, there are skilled ENs and sucky JPs. However there's no denying that when choosing a random JP player, you are more likely to get a skilled player than choosing a random EN player. Factor in the language barrier and it's understandable why JPs are hesitant to party with NAs.

Of course, there are also the in-betweens: would you choose a rank 1 50rdm/10blm or a rank 5 50rdm/25bst?

.
Or perhaps there was no other choice. High-demand jobs like whm, brd, rdm can, in a sense, afford to 'slack' with their subjobs somewhat and still get regular invites. I'm assuming your level info is up to date; below 20 sure your rdm/war can provoke and tank like a pro. At level 50, mobs that hit pld's for 40's will hit you for over 100.


True and false. You can be the best player in the world, with the best rdm/war in the world, and it might be good, but for a level-up party scenario /blm and /whm are better. Like it or not, /war's abilities/boosts are of negligable benefit to a party.


False. Nobody is denying that rdm/war could work. Or whm/pld. Or pld/drk, or similar 'non-cookie cutter' job combinations. Rdm/(mage subjob) is not the only workable combo. However in a level-up party it is the most effective (if you have any reasoning to the contrary, I'd love to hear it).


True. But you would not be as effective or as efficient as a 'standard' job combination that is best suited for the particular job at hand.

Your problem is that you haven't taken rdm high enough to realize that the path of the rdm starts close to melee but ends at the backline with the mages. If you never plan on taking rdm past 30 then by all means stick with war.

Gotta agree with Deod here... at lvl 52-54 you will hit Kuftal crabs for about 0-10 with another 5-10 from you're enthunder.... the area attack will hit you for 100+. In short... in the end you're a mage and you hit like a cripple schoolgirl... on the other hand you can do things that no other class can do, and if you do those right, you're the best thing your party has seen all day... trust me on that one. Past lvl 50 keeping refresh up, dispel on the mob, and all the debuffs takes all your time and makes you so valuable. Your melee means nothing to the party when the pld outhits you.

[Tulerin]

another eq related derailment, ogre's were defintally not the best raid shaman, because if ya pulled agro, you were dead, there was nothing to save you from it, no race, no gear, nothing mobs that quad for 1200+ would just flatten you before u really relized

Well they were the best.....when VP was considered end game~

[Sithered]

Someone said that NA players like individuality, very true, remember that, that's why we play as other jobs with differnt subjobs that you normally wouldn't see. But NA players also like to play with certain people when possible, so in the end everything works out for them since the PT knows each other's actions. That's how you see 'moronic' NA players at higher levels. To me it's no fun playing the cookie cutter role all the time, yea I sub a mage class when I'm looking for a serious party, but other than that, I like to have "fun", that's the whole reason why I bought this game in the first place, was to have
FUN say it with me now FUN FUN FUN!!! If I think having a dark knight subbed with my RDM if FUN then hell, I'll do it. Another thing is NA players (a LOT OF THEM) look for healing class, melee class, nuking class, etc. and when we find it we take it, not really considering as much on what their sb may be, but yea if they have 'uber-suckedness' then it's fun to get em killed for bringing along all the aggrivation they brought into the PT.

If you wanna play the cookie cutter role, and with a cookie cutter PT, the play with strictly JP, I have nothing against them, whenever I see one LFG I invite them, it's fun to 'intermingle with different ethnic groups'. That's another reason why this game is FUN. Man, so many people rant about the cooky cutting style of play it's almost sickening, I lost count of how many posts I've seen on this subject. A lot of you make this game out to be a 'task that must be under taken a certain way or else it's the end of the world (OH MY GOD NOOOOO!!!!). If you wanna stress yourself out about something, don't do it over a freakin' game; because it's just that, a game. You wanna have some fun and adventure, not really knowing what to expect. Then try putting a PT together with a Galka WAR that has WHM subbed, or even better a RDM galka with WAR subbed, along with other melee classes subbing melee jobs and go fight IT mobs. Gues what, it can work. It's worked practically every time I've done this. Cept for the occasional few when someone only brings 'aggrivation' to the pt.

Wonder how many flames this will get, and wonder how many ppl. it will make realize something about thie game (it's a game).


HAVE FUN

[Quezi]

See the thing is MMORPGS are not games in the way that say, mario or monopoly are games. They are games in the way that sports are games. You dont go up to your coach who asked you why you ran in the opposite direction and lost the game and tell him you 'where haveing fun!'...

Its a TEAM game, and becaus of that its your responcibility to be the best you can be for the TEAM, and not simply do what 'you want to do'. You are not an individual, you are part of a team, and there is no 'I' in that. When you join a party the party owns you, by joining them you have made a sacred oath that you will do everything in your power to ensure harmony.

With that said, yes non-standard job combos CAN work. But most people who could make them work realise that its better off to just do what is best. Dont say that some people are used to doing something X way or something. While its true that on rare occasions you may run into someone who knows what they are doing useing a strange combo, that person is going to know how to function in a normal group already. Theres no excuse for not listening to others sound advice unless you are experianced enough to really know what your actions mean.

When someone knows they are sub-standard, and are doing it for whatever reason, and do not ask to be invited but end up getting asked into a party anyway *probibly becaus theres noone else on* then yeah, aslong as they play well, its the party that invited them so they kinda have to deal with you as is. However asking to be invited when you are not at your best is just a mark of selfish newbieism. But they still better know HOW to play, thats the key, i can deal with someone whos really good(experianced) who wants to do something strange for some reason, but someone who obviously doesnt know what they are doing, and further have some stupid job combo like WAR/RDM are just hopeless and probibly more a danger than an asset.

You have some sort of wierd static party setup where everyone is some wierd job combo and it works? Fine, great. But you better have another, more reasonable, sub leveld if you want to ever do anything else.