dothackers.net

Erm, does anyone else play this game?
You know I've played Everquest, WoW, and Guild Wars but this is still my absolute favorite MMORPG.

If you do play, what's your server/job/ect

I'm on Sylph server myself, my main is Whm75.
If you ever need a PL on Sylph, I'm allways available to help. I'm also actually in need of a new Dynamis shell so if anyone is in one...lol
I was in one for months and did a lot of Dynamis runs...but I never got a single piece of Relic out of it. XD
People take advantage of the fact I won't stand up for myself -_-;

Anyway, please share your opinions on this great MMORPG

Sorry if there's allready a topic, I went through the first 4 pages

I played WoW for about 2 years. Afterwards, I just got bored with it. Now I play EVE Online and Guild Wars. It is possible though that I might resurrect my WoW account when Burning Crusade comes around or if I make sure that the people I had planned to play with will continue paying. I'd hate to waste all that money on a subscription only to get bored with it again because I'm stuck playing it by myself. For the record, Guild Wars isn't a MMO. It's a common mistake though.

Anyways, as far as FFXI goes, I've never played it; but I've heard nothing but bad things. Leveling is a tedious and sometimes frustrating process. It's completely reliant on parties and isn't very solo-friendly. The party aspect wouldn't be a bad thing if making parties in any MMO wasn't a chore and the people actually stayed in the group throughout the entire dungeon (terrible WoW memories coming back). Aside from that, I hear the game really caters to the eastern players more than it does the western players, which is a major negative to me. I've heard other things as well, but those are the most common complaints I hear from people. Like I said before though, I've never played it myself so I can't give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. I did consider playing it before though, but then I found EVE Online ^_^

Oh well, the thing about Eastern players I don't really notice because I have the Japanese text enabled in-game. Sometimes the Japanese players tend to think they're a lot better then the Westerners, but it's an outdated concept from back 5 years ago when I was a newb, that's just carried through generation after generation.

In my opinion, if group interaction isn't absolutely nesecary, then there's no reason to put a game online. WoW if fun if you don't have a lot of time or don't want to deal with other people. You can get to level 60 pretty easily on your own..while in FFXI, you can't get past level 10. I tihnk FFXI gets a bad rap because most of the people who give it bad marks, only played it for a few days. In WoW, you can get a good sense of what the game is like fairly quickly...... not in FFXI. Unless you've gotten passed level 30, at the very least I would say you've only hit the tip of the iceberg. FFXI is a game designed for people who want a serious, long-term challenge in their game-play and want an MMO to focus on the multi-player aspect of it's title. It's basically not for the faint of heart.
I mean, I've been here for 5 years since the American release and all I've got to say for it are 3 lvl70+ jobs. No Relic gear, no sexy equipment. Of course, I didnt play for nearly two years over different periods of time, but it's still kinda sad.
Anyway, I wouldnt believe everything you read about FFXI, because, like I said, a lot of the reviews are from people who, in my opinion, didn't really play it.

Which is why I dedicate allmost all the time I spend on their now to PLing parties in the dunes so that people can really experience how much fun it is.
Valkrum Dunes is the infmous stopping point for most people...it's when you have to start to form parties in order to level-up. A lot of people get this far and run into those situations like you mentioned, people joining and then leaving a few minutes later, or more devestating perhaps, training large numbers of monsters and wiping out entire parties. Everything is so akward at that level, people get the wrong impression that the entire game is like that. Once you get to higher levels though, people will stay for hours and hours of leveling, due to sheer respect and by that point you've become so adept (well..there are allways newbs) that things literally go like clockwork.

Leveling is fun if you have a good party. It's only teidious if the people you're with don't know what they're doing, which is rare. It's very dificult, but not teidious. You can't walk away to get a soda or anything, you have to be incredibly focused.

Lol, when I was leveling my bard I actually had a timer to help me get my spellcasting exact.

FFXI is very mathematical now that I think about it actually...


To sum it all up, FFXI is just a lot more difficult then other MMOs.

I use to have/love this game. Until I realized how tedious it is. The lands are beautiful, the monsters are awesome, and the equipment is spectacular. However... After I got my Hume to Level 25 RDM/12 WHM, I realized this isn't the game I at first though.

About your soloing comment... People should be able to play by themselves, online or not. The whole point of having an actual community around them, with them being a part of it, is enough for some people.

P.S. Valkurm Dunes is extremely, extremely, frustrating.

Hmm, that's true. Soloeing doesnt really become an option again until endgame...and then only if you're a certain job.
Theif or Monk can allmost allways solo while... as a 3 times over endgame mage, I'm restricted to groups only. XD

Again though, I don't think you get a real feel for the game until after lvl 30 at least, which is asking a lot, I know.
I've helped a lot of people through the early stages and I find many change their minds when they get their first advanced job.
It's different for everyone though.

Personally, I think when you have someone to help you out, everything is a lot nicer, which is why I do it ^__^

I bet it is pretty cool, it's just I spent around 7 days of total playtime just to get where I was. Hm... Just not for me. But I tend to have high standards when it comes to ORPG's.

Very stunning landscapes though, definitely.

Lol 96 days of playtime.
It's probably not worth it hehe.

It doesnt seem like anyone else on this forum plays FFXI, or more people do, but they havent posted yet.

Anyways, i myself play on a 2-3 day a week basis.

Yes getting to level 10 is annoying, and the fact that most times in order to get a lot of exp you need to be in a pt. An infamous place to pt would in fact be Valkrum Dunes. In fact my more recent pt there ended horribly: no exp gained people kept leaving out of impatience since we never got a full pt, and to add icing to the cake, my pt disbands shortly after i die without so much as to ask for a raise, when there were two whms in the area. Luckily there are some jobs that can go without pts, like take my Dragoon i skipped the dunes and leveled that up to level 17 on my own. You really cant go wrong with using the Empress Band which gives you +50% exp for every battle, then having a Corsair as your subjob when you have Corsair's Roll which will also boost the amount of exp you earn. I remember one battle i landed 350+ exp, that rocked lol.

and another thing about FFXI is that as you level up your horizons tend to expand. Take for example my level 40 RDM, i can pt if i feel the need to level up, but that isnt all, since i can fight and hunt for NMs and do a lot of quests that would be difficult for me at a lower level. Also, on occasion i will help my Link Shell members by PLing and stuff like that. Like today me and one my LS members were pting at a low level and we managed to do fairly well considering that we died once or twice. Although that doesnt really count as something not related to leveling up.

Oh and as far as the whole eastern players bit goes, well yeah thats died down a lot. As proof i remember being invited to a pt where i was the only english speaking player, luckily i knew a bit of japanese so that helped when they didnt use the Auto Translates.

In a nutshell the only problems i seem to have is the tediousness of getting a new job to level 10, annoying pts in the dunes, and in some cases finding pts for jobs i really want to level lol

S1lentOp wrote:Anyways, as far as FFXI goes, I've never played it; but I've heard nothing but bad things. Leveling is a tedious and sometimes frustrating process. It's completely reliant on parties and isn't very solo-friendly. The party aspect wouldn't be a bad thing if making parties in any MMO wasn't a chore and the people actually stayed in the group throughout the entire dungeon (terrible WoW memories coming back). Aside from that, I hear the game really caters to the eastern players more than it does the western players, which is a major negative to me. I've heard other things as well, but those are the most common complaints I hear from people. Like I said before though, I've never played it myself so I can't give it a thumbs up or thumbs down. I did consider playing it before though, but then I found EVE Online ^_^

That is true, even before WoW's appearance. On that same side it just wasnt as bad. And yes there is a big difference between the jpn and western players (its has caused tension from my experiences on Lakshimi).

I wouldnt recommend FFXI nowadays also for the fact it takes them A VERY LONG TIME for them to fix a problem or add something. For instance players asked for 2 years to get the blue mage job and pirate (plus necromancer because the pirates have the job. Note there is a difference between the pirates that raid ships because they are of Norg and the Corsairs). It wasnt that long ago that ToAU came out (only when the players were leaving) did SE add the job. And no we still didnt get the necromancer job. (Also note that ToAU is middle eastern influenced which alot of players became...just weird.)

They gave us this job called the "PuppetMaster". Its actually a fairly unique job in that the doll itself acts as a lesser or even another player. However its very underrated (much like any other job that isnt for the cultures. For instance alot of eastern do mnks sams or nin. Westerns do Pld drk and you get the point by now.) The doll can do red mage, ranger, paladin and 2 more if I recall right.


Still Lakshimi itself was also known as the "drama" server. So its possible that everything there was just over dramatized.

T'Orlyn wrote:Valkrum Dunes is the infmous stopping point for most people...it's when you have to start to form parties in order to level-up. A lot of people get this far and run into those situations like you mentioned, people joining and then leaving a few minutes later, or more devestating perhaps, training large numbers of monsters and wiping out entire parties. Everything is so akward at that level, people get the wrong impression that the entire game is like that. Once you get to higher levels though, people will stay for hours and hours of leveling, due to sheer respect and by that point you've become so adept (well..there are allways newbs) that things literally go like clockwork.

So true to every degree about dunes. Everyone hates that place. People want hell to freeze over there . That or Kazham (before that patch came in with MPK). If you know what youre doing it can be skipped (by soloing with the exp bands or a personal PL from ls member).

Because it is hard (something hard is different from being devoid) alot of people have respect. You have to be on top of your game (even if youre a mnk who does nothing but spam attacks). Adding the ability to sub a job also helps. However most sj (sub jobs) suck or have never been tried.

For instance Monk/Samurai (mnk/sam). When I first did it 2 years ago to later lvls, it was really looked down upon. More so it alienated me from getting into parties. So I said screw them and made my own (which later helped me get my other work done from the amount of friends Ive made). Now since Samurai got revamped (now they are way better than drk XD) they are just as crazy with the sword as they are with the bow.

FFXI would be good if it was at its prime against WoW (which I would gladly jump back in). But then again what does that say about the game?

Mmm, Yeah it's true that they're veyr slow to fix a problem
RMT is so rampant now that the economy on Sylph is in complete direppair.
A lot of us have been asking for Necromancer or Time Mage and/or Bluemage since the game's release, and when Coirsair finally came out it wasnt pirate so much as Gadgetter (see FF:TA) which at least makes sense since ToAU is the same development team as TA.

I love the new areas in ToAU, but they're really not at all welcoming to new players, only higher levels can really use them, which was a bad idea for the 360 release. Since I have a terrible time making friends that arent newbies, I can't even get the things done that I need or want to. I need my Relic gear for 3 jobs, my artifact for another. I need to do Scavange and the ToAU missions...but I'll never get it done because I don't belong to any of the big Linkshells...and even when I did, I allways ended up being too intimidated by the other players that I would just pass on the items.
I swear, the only way I can get my Relic is if all the new people I PL became endgame really quickly..but even with my help, a lot of them quit.
No one ever uses my LS since I don't do HNM, sky, sea or Dynamis. There are only a couple of endgame WHMs in it and a lot of newbies who, of course, can't help with the high level stuff.

I actually solo on PUP most of the time, it's like the new BST in someways and not too difficult to solo. It has more punch then a SMN so it can at least hold it's own in a fight; although, I never have any idea what the "proper" thing is to sub it with.

I'm no melee character...not in the least, but when I would solo my mnk at very low levels (between 15-25) I would use /SAM as a sub occasionally. It actually works fairly well and I know several monks that use it consistantly as a sub when the party allready has all the Provoke that they need.

Played for about a year and a half, but it started becoming a bit too time-consuming around level 50, and that doesn't mix well with a job and college. Sometimes, I really do miss the atmosphere and environments of the game, though, which are its greatest strengths, in my eyes. Overall, I did enjoy my time there, even if there are some aspects of leveling and partying I find to be bad.

I don't really have time to play MMO's anymore, so I pretty much stick to FPS's.

FFXI has alot of potential, but most of it is untapped. If they wanted to they could make an additional trait that adds to the job from subjob.

For instance

If one were a Smn who subbed blm, then a dark summon (necromancing) ability is unlocked.

See where Im going with this?

For a Gun Mage just sub Blu (since a Gun Mage is technically a mix of both Blu and a gun related job). (technically on Lakshmi people called the Corsairs Gun mages).

Whoa deja vu...

At any rate ffxi is falling behind and wow's new expanison is going to drop kick it for sure. Its a shame that a good game like ffxi is in the shape as it is now. But then again, its the developers fault for not executing the problems beforehand when they surfaced (like MPK).

Uhnm yeah,for a game that boasts no PvP system outside of Ballista, you would have thought they'd have gotten the MPK thing worked out sooner then they did. I'm only glad it doesnt really happen anymore, it just made everyone's lives tougher.

I see what you mean with the special abilities with different job combinations. That's a really good idea actually! Something like that would really improve the gameplay, as well as subjob choices so it wouldn't be the same combo over and over again. It is too late for FFXI though, but it is rather old, after all.

I've never heard COR called Gun Mage hehe XD.
The only other name I've heard it called by is Gadgegetter, and that's the one that I use, since I don't think it lived up to the potential of a "pirate" job.

T'Orlyn wrote:Uhnm yeah,for a game that boasts no PvP system outside of Ballista, you would have thought they'd have gotten the MPK thing worked out sooner then they did. I'm only glad it doesnt really happen anymore, it just made everyone's lives tougher.

Techincally if MPK is done right it doesnt cause a huge problem (unless you are trying to kill someone.) I remember being my mnk with my friends in dunes just going on a killing spree of the flies to flush emp out. Its just insane to see 20 flies on you and knowing that 1 or 2 dmg wont be bad because you have 1500+ hp to fall back on XD!

I see what you mean with the special abilities with different job combinations. That's a really good idea actually! Something like that would really improve the gameplay, as well as subjob choices so it wouldn't be the same combo over and over again. It is too late for FFXI though, but it is rather old, after all.

< Game Designer. My head always does 360 spins when im coming up for ideas to a game. Common sense it is really (if one were to think about it makes alot of sense considering FFXI is the only game that promotes two way job configuration. Meaning Main job/Sub Job).

I've never heard COR called Gun Mage hehe XD.
The only other name I've heard it called by is Gadgegetter, and that's the one that I use, since I don't think it lived up to the potential of a "pirate" job.

Yea because they fire spells through cards or whatever (only been around a few Cor ). Techincally its not even a pirate. In actuality a Gun Mage is a Blue Mage. But a Gun Mage uses the spells as bullets (as well as monster abilties). AKA Gun Mage is a job in FFX-2.

Heres its background for everyone to read.

A Pirate's Life (link)

I do have to say it is a rather unique to present a shooter mixed with luck and cards.

I find it funny even with ToAU out people enjoy CoP more still. From what ive experienced CoP pits you in crazy situations (Everybody loves the crag battles XD).

I play on Phoenix server, under the characters Exelia and Haseo.

Doesn't look like anyone else here's on my server tho... I could use someone new to talk to, my linkshell's been dead empty lately

I was on Lakshmi

Ignus
Einhinder
and Vaporsnake

I see some Lakshmi players on here, but is anyone on Garuda server by any chance? if so look for a player named Leucon, that would be me ^_^
oh and just wondering, have you lakshmi-go'ers every heard of a player named Zerorush? it might be possible since hes somewhat infamous so i hear. Oh, and then if you see a player named Chaoscommander, give him a /slap and tell him he's a n00b XD

...kidding since that player happens to be my bro, and ZR happens to be his friend irl.

Final Fantasy Weapon Skills (link)

MONK FTW!!!!

Lol somehow I ended up being friends with pretty much every infamous and famous person on Sylph. I guess just because I've been here so long.. and my old boyfriend used to be Wmaximus' "disciple" or something.
I PL'd Dansieg when he was a newb. XD

A bit OT:

Heres a little tidbit

http://www.blizzard.com/press/070111.shtml

Back to WOW again, but have to say the new PVP system is great not only do you retain all your efforts through honor points every character can purchase epics, nice and well thought out Blizzard a lot of people will be coming back.

I hate the 3-tree system, also makes 1 tree side useless, if you've played WOW long enough.