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SorataYuy posted:She made it worse - she was part of my social circle in college, and somehow assumed I A) Always wanted to hear about her characters, and B) that she had any real skill at telling stories about her role-playing characters that in any way at all made them interesting to hear. Especially with how often they were pretty blatant rip-offs of whatever JRPG she happened to have been into that month. One can only really take so many "thrilling" tales of the latest BadAzz thing done by a player who only seems to know how to Roll-play before one starts to make bad mental associations. To this day I run screaming from the room when people try to discuss Outlaw Star with me (the group ruined that one for me by feeling the need to verbally act out something not too dissimilar from that which you'd get in a F.A.T.A.L. game.) You hang out with weird people. e: Also, if you judge media and their fandoms based on the extreme crazies, boy do I have some bad news for you. Mega64 fucked around with this message at 09:55 on Jul 24, 2015 |
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Jul 24, 2015 09:53
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Mega64 posted:You hang out with weird people. College-me was still relearning some essential life lessons (long story.) "Just because you have interests in common, doesn't mean they're going to be the best people to be friends with" got tattooed on my brain and became almost a reflex reaction by the time I finished my associate's. Ha, nah, I don't really judge media and fandoms by that criteria. It's just harder to concentrate on the good when you can still remember people that insisted some odd things, like "Tifa/Rinoa/Garnet are all the same character!" Me: "Okay... why do you say this?" "Because they all look alike! Henceforth they shall be known as Tifa/Tifa Clone 1/Tifa Clone 2!" Me: *applies DeskOn to try to get the stupid to not take root in my brain* I'm not exaggerating. This guy insisted they were even written exactly the same, dialogue and story arc-wise. I knew some weird fuckers, it was like at that point in my life, I was some sort of mental illness/issues magnet. Hell, maybe that's why I barely play the series any more, too many trippy mental associations attached to let me enjoy it in peace.
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Jul 24, 2015 11:44
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Tell me where the fandom touched you. It's okay, this is a safe place.
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Jul 24, 2015 14:03
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But you aren't even a real fan if you don't love them all! Which you shouldn't be because "true fans" are loving horrible. But anyway, I missed total party wipe out and Vivi being kidnapped. 3 knockouts, 3 kidnappings.
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Jul 24, 2015 14:24
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That's what makes me so sad to play FFXIV. It's a great game. I love it. But sooooo much of the player base is what I can only call "perfect target audience". They'll harp on and on about how FFXI (one of the worst mmos of all time) was great, what with its pathetic player base and its insanely bad design. While any game will have something good about it, I'm not sure anyone can legitimately claim FFXI was a "good" game unless you are specifically into masochism.
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Jul 24, 2015 15:22
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Sum Mors posted:That's what makes me so sad to play FFXIV. It's a great game. I love it. But sooooo much of the player base is what I can only call "perfect target audience". They'll harp on and on about how FFXI (one of the worst mmos of all time) was great, what with its pathetic player base and its insanely bad design. While any game will have something good about it, I'm not sure anyone can legitimately claim FFXI was a "good" game unless you are specifically into masochism. I haven't really had that experience. I do occasionally encounter people waxing nostalgic about 11, but I more often encounter people going "gently caress that noise, it's so nice that 14 doesn't have all that bullshit 11 did". And far more often than either of those, I encounter people who have no experience with 11 at all, outside of possible hearsay. That said, 11's gotten much, much more accessible and reasonable in the past few years. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it in a vacuum (because there's still some underlying bullshit, just not nearly as egregious as it used to be), but at this point it might be worth considering playing through it for its various major stories, and then dropping it like a hot potato before getting into any sort of endgame gear grind.
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Jul 24, 2015 16:48
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Vil posted:I haven't really had that experience. I do occasionally encounter people waxing nostalgic about 11, but I more often encounter people going "gently caress that noise, it's so nice that 14 doesn't have all that bullshit 11 did". And far more often than either of those, I encounter people who have no experience with 11 at all, outside of possible hearsay. They're a vocal minority that you can see on the official forums. They're usually also the same people who complain about all the recent improvements to 11 as making the game too casual.
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Jul 24, 2015 16:53
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SonicRulez posted:I may not like FFIII, but that part of it is golden. Talk about sympathizing with a villain. How could you not get pissed off in that situation? Clearly you were the least favorite and you got completely hosed. That sort of "In the same situation, I might've made the same choice" is actually SUPER relevant to this game and I love it. Like, philosophically, I can kind of understand how it could be considered a "gift." It's supposed to make you appreciate what you have before it's gone, that whole "memento mori/mono no aware" thing. But it's still a pretty dick thing to do. And even if Noah wasn't deliberately trying to be a dick about it, it's still the JRPG equivalent of that scene from "A Christmas Story" where Ralphie's aunt sends him a pink bunny pajama suit.
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Jul 24, 2015 17:44
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W.T. Fits posted:Like, philosophically, I can kind of understand how it could be considered a "gift." It's supposed to make you appreciate what you have before it's gone, that whole "memento mori/mono no aware" thing. Back when I first heard about this, I didn't even understand why mortality was supposed to be a bad gift. That's because at some point before encountering FFIII, I'd read a similar story about three dudes (brothers, I think) getting similary themed gifts. The last brother got "mortality", here meaning the power about the moment a mortal dies and he ended up more powerful then the other two jackasses. Since he essentially turned into death itself and all that. It took me a while to understand "mortality" was meant quite literally in FFIII. 
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Jul 24, 2015 18:08
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Vil posted:I haven't really had that experience. I do occasionally encounter people waxing nostalgic about 11, but I more often encounter people going "gently caress that noise, it's so nice that 14 doesn't have all that bullshit 11 did". And far more often than either of those, I encounter people who have no experience with 11 at all, outside of possible hearsay. Is FFXI still brutally racist? That was something that really struck me about it when I played ... More than a decade ago ...
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Jul 24, 2015 18:14
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David Corbett posted:Is FFXI still brutally racist? That was something that really struck me about it when I played ... More than a decade ago ... Well I mean, the tarus do exist to be punted, and to stealthily slash your Achilles tendon in return... If you're referring to the whole thing where certain races were heavily disfavored for certain roles (e.g. galkas for casters or tarus for tanks), then no, that's pretty much meaningless now. Current gear has so many stat boosts on it that racial differences are negligible, and HP and MP were evened out tremendously between races so there's no longer a terribly big difference.
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Jul 24, 2015 18:45
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 CHAPTER THREE : "We have to not go in the ice cave because it is danger" and they went into the ice cave and Gitan got caught in a sealion and then he died  You don't get random encounters while the microsoft default font is on screen. Were I not an idiot I would run asap to Ice Cavern.  But 1) I really wanted to save after an unknowable number of attempts at getting two plant spiders.  The sum total of Garnet's contributions at level 1 is having full ATB while Gitan uses Flee.  2) I wanted to buy potions because somehow I figured 29 was not enough for one boss fight.  You can actually get here before the microsoft default font fades and random enconters start. Saves some time and effort.  The treasures range from potions to what will be liquidated into capital.  And a second mage masher. It's actually important that I have two and I don't want to spend money on it, what a peasant thing to do.  I'll need several elixirs because I need to use several elixirs. This in addition to being level 1 is also a weirdo sexual deviant run due to selling and using valuable consumables.  Well cya Garnet the rest of us are fleeing have fun with the goblinoid and deserts. Tinhank will write you.  Saving here is very important as the next boss, as you might imagine a solo fight against two enemies while at level 1 would be  , is hard.  Well first the Sealion's Blizzard shaves off a third of Gitan whenever it's used.  Black Waltz #1's Blizzard isn't as strong but it makes one round nearly half of Zidane that's gone.  In the middle of being killed, I need to find time to steal this valuable trinket. It doesn't matter too much because I can buy one before it matters, but I need to obtain more assets in any way possible. Also it and the Ether are two more steals to the 834 total.  Wing is a breather while Gitan has 7 defense and is in the back row.  Keeping Gitan's HP topped off is of paramount import. Hence why I wanted so many potions.  Fire hurts while the Silk Shirt is equipped but as you can see by Dyne here the first phase of this fight is over.  The important thing at level 1 is to not use Tidal Flame.  The Black Waltz needs to die as Fire adds a bit too much damage and he can heal the Sealion. We can't Tidal Flame because that would set the Sealion to Tsunami range and that would nigh invariably kill Gitan. The lowest damage round from the baddies, Wing and Blizzard, would still leave him at low enough HP that Tsunami would be fatal.  So instead I need to waste this Trance.  Then shank the bastard three times for around 120 damage. This will get his HP low enough that another Dyne would slay him, but it keeps him at blue so he never uses Blizzara or Tsunami.  After that it's a matter of waiting for the trance gauge to fill and using potions when Gitan gets below 40 HP. This is also the time to steal if one doesn't have the Ether and Mythril Dagger yet.  And when Gitan finally Trances a second time, it's bye bye sealion.  Sun Wukong: 1 Blacks: 0   Bandit is very important as it bypasses the level+spirit check. Gitan is never going to get further than, like, 29 on that check, and that's if I equip him dumbly.  ...did I actually equip the loving thing christ am I that much of an idiot  So, regular running. It sucks.  The result is then compared to a random number from 0 to 99. If the number's lower, they gtfo. Gitan and friends average 1. The Flans average 2. This gives running a 6% chance of success.  That is, when it actually checks, which is once a second when the flans aren't killing Gitan and friends.    Okay so my last save was before beating these guys so I have to do that process all over.  NO GODDAMMIT GITAN DON'T CRIT ON THE THIRD ATTACK gently caress!!  Well now that he's on yellow he's using Blizzara, which hits a fair bit harder than Blizzard.  Like, fatally.   Okay the third attempt goes just fine.  Well Garnet's useful for now when not everything is one-shotting the party and Cure heals more HP than anyone will ever have. She mostly saves on potions when travelling.  And yes I kept the mage masher equipped this time.   "Except for the ones called Mage Mashers, what mash mages."   "Lol just kidding I was a KNIFE EXPERT all along nerd. Get bent loser."  Wait  What's this  Am I on acid  Well I suppose South Gate is an objective part of this universe.  So let's violently assault the floating circle that's named "True".  Yaaay I'm not a dumb dumb!  Believe it or not this actually lets me reach my funding goal without having to strip people nude.  Well, 1/1.  Thanks Ragtime Mouse. You're a darling. The front of his card is nigh impossible to see in normal gameplay. The text on it reads "Pop Quiz! FF10's theme is GUTS! True or false?" REGISTER OF RESETS: One to Tidal Flame Garnet for the hell of it; Unknown number lost to plant spiders spawn numbers; Died to Flans without Flee; Untimely crit pushed Sealion to fatally Blizzara.
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Jul 24, 2015 18:46
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:
Enjoying the low level shenanigans. Keep it up Sheep.
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Jul 24, 2015 19:05
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Vil posted:Well I mean, the tarus do exist to be punted, and to stealthily slash your Achilles tendon in return... Actually, I was referring to the whole JP ONLY thing and the somewhat frayed relations between the Japanese and non-Japanese customer bases. That always struck me as one of the most dramatic issues with FFXI. e: oh god now I'm having NM hunting flashbacks agghhhh David Corbett fucked around with this message at 19:11 on Jul 24, 2015 |
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Jul 24, 2015 19:08
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Oh right, that. Forgot about that. Yeah, that was definitely A Thing back in those days. These days I don't think it's so much a case of enforced language exclusivity, as it is a case that people will naturally tend to congregate towards grouping with players they can easily talk with. On top of that, there's a shift towards doing content with a smaller number of players, or even solo/duo, which affords less opportunity for it even to be an issue. I can't speak for other people, but when I log on to the game I just run with friends and it doesn't matter to me what the rest of the server is doing. When people do shouts they still use autotranslate and I can't recall the last time I saw "JP ONLY" or "NA ONLY". After all, if you're doing something that requires genuine coordination you'll draw on your existing social contacts (with whom you can presumably communicate just fine), and if you're doing something that just requires a lot of bodies then it doesn't really matter. There doesn't seem to be too much current focus on things that require both bodies and coordination, or if there is, it's not something that a majority of players are heavily engaged in. As for world-spawn NM camping, rejoice - there's been a heavy shift away from that particular flavor of bullshit.
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Jul 24, 2015 19:36
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Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:
Challenge runs of all sorts are more enjoyable when the RNG has no say in whether or not you fail. More enjoyable to play, anyway. Watching someone else.... well, there's a reason the word "schadenfreude" exists, after all. 
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Jul 24, 2015 22:35
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Edward_Tohr posted:Challenge runs of all sorts are more enjoyable when the RNG has no say in whether or not you fail. As someone who just finished a FF5 solo Berserker run, I agree.
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Jul 24, 2015 22:38
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Man, seeing this LP just reinforces how much I want to buy this game. Too bad I'm a poor who can't even pony up the  for it on PSN.
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Jul 25, 2015 01:39
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FFXI was an ocean of poo poo with a bunch of flawless diamonds in there somewhere. There were some genuinely great moments, some genuinely great ideas, and some amazing design, but it was so mired in obscurity, tedium and Tanaka that I absolutely don't fault anyone for being turned off by it. I still miss it sometimes, but I miss the romanticised version of it that's in my head, not what it actually was. I'm really enjoying this low-level run, I never had the patience for this sort of thing myself. I did minimal levelling in VI and VIII where that's actually mechanically helpful, but I've not done any of the ones just for the challenge.
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Jul 25, 2015 02:15
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The big problem is that FFXI definitely did not invite itself to casual playing at all. You couldn't just pop in and go kill stuff for a while and then log out when you got bored. Not if you wanted to progress at a decent rate. The best sources of experience and quality drops inevitably required parties to fight. Furthermore, you couldn't just throw a party together and start rolling in experience. Each job was highly specialized for one or two tasks, and people usually wanted all their bases covered in the limited six-person party ("Optimal" parties went something like healer/tank/back-up tank/nuker/buffer/misc), so frequently all parties would be full, or the ones with open slots would already have your niche filled. When it takes hours just to get into a party, that's a problem for people who only have a couple hours a day to play games (durn work, durn social life, durn sleep). It requires a rather large time investment that many people simply don't have or care to give. This might not have been as much of a problem if the game were free-to-play, but since it's a minimum of $13 a month, a lot of people felt it was too much to pay for gameplay that's basically 3 hours of setup and 3 minutes of fighting. Nowadays I hear it's more open to solo and casual play, but kinda late for that.
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Jul 25, 2015 02:37
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I loved FFXI, but that was about 90% for the story and 10% for the gameplay. I still think it's had some of the best story beats of any of the FF's, Chains of Promathia blew me the gently caress away, but it mired them in just the most horrible loving tedium imaginable. The one exception, of course, was Blue Mage. Blue Mage was loving incredible to play, and I've still yet to play a game, single-player or MMO, that's given me the same feeling of incredibly joy playing a character as I did soloing poo poo as a BLU/NIN. But still, you couldn't pay me money to pick the game back up, even with all the great memories I still have of it. I'd love to see it LP'd, just to see the storylines play out again. God I loved that game.
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Jul 25, 2015 02:57
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prishe is the best ff character
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Jul 25, 2015 03:30
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Endorph posted:prishe is the best ff character "I don't know if I can even die or not, but I'm not about to go throwing myself off any cliffs to find out!"  Captain Bravo posted:The one exception, of course, was Blue Mage. Blue Mage was loving incredible to play, and I've still yet to play a game, single-player or MMO, that's given me the same feeling of incredibly joy playing a character as I did soloing poo poo as a BLU/NIN. Blue Mage was loving incredible, FFXI had the best incarnation of BLU of any FF game, very closely followed by V and of course IX. BLU/WAR was my preferred shitwrecking mode. Double Attack, Triple Attack, Dual Wield, just incredible.
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Jul 25, 2015 04:06
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Eh. Blue Magic in this game is kinda a crapshoot. A lot of it has lousy accuracy, is too tactical to be useful in a game where the best strategy is always (except in one case) "nuke them fast, nuke them hard", or is just plain useless. Although it does also have some absurdly useful spells. 9999 damage on disc 1 is nothing to sneeze at. Its just not as viable a skillset as it is in, for example, Final Fantasy V. Or VII. Rabbi Raccoon fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Jul 25, 2015 |
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Jul 25, 2015 04:33
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It's really hampered by having only one good, reliable damage spell.
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Jul 25, 2015 04:48
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Honestly, I think what would have helped it out a bunch would be just giving it the Aero series of spells, or something like that just so it can stay competitive when you have to use it. Or hell, even White Wind being available earlier. Because when it's forced on you, it gets overshadowed since there's not really any particularly great stuff available. Although, again, if you're willing to tote around someone at 1 HP Blue Magic can completely destroy the second half of Disc 1 and a solid chunk of Discs 2 and 3. But as it always is, when it's useful, it's incredibly useful.
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Jul 25, 2015 05:05
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FFXI was also flawed for how imbalanced some things were. I recall a long period after the Aht Urghan expansion where NO ONE wanted a Black Mage for XP parties. Because the primary strategy was murdering little birds that, for some inexplicable reason, retaliated against magic by casting the same spell back at the caster. Why spend MP healing a BLM who's blowing himself up more than the monster when you can have another Dragoon or spear Samurai poking it with a spear. White Mages also fell out of favor for Red Mages, since Red Mages had way more tools to keep their MP topped up (and healed almost as well as a WHM) and keep the XP flowing in non-stop. Bards were the preferred job for pulling monsters to the party because they could spam an AoE sleep to keep several birds snoozing nearby while the party worked their way through them one at a time (and bards had some pretty awesome buffs). Basically, the game kept going through "fads" where some jobs were considered nigh useless for significant portions of content/leveling process, and others were prized above all else. Then there's some of the poorly thought out stat boosts on your job's artifact armor, which is supposed to be some Pretty Awesome Stuff that lends itself well to What Your Job Does. Most of it fell flat on its face or was only good for when using specific abilities. Why exactly does a warrior need +INT/MND again? Just wear your fancy sandals for the +Double Attack rate and ignore the rest. Or warrior (which became a DPS class) having more enmity (hate/aggro/threat bonus) on the chest piece than the entire Paladin (tank) set. That last bit is partly a case of taking a class and using it for a role it wasn't really intended for (or specializing it in a role it was supposed to be competent at while ignoring the other role in favor of more specialized jobs). Plus, FFXI was the only game where I've seen a ninja fulfill the tank role, and I'm pretty dang sure it wasn't intentional and the devs just ended up rolling with it after the player base shoehorned the job into the role. On that note, you were ridiculed (or at least chided) if you weren't subbing NIN on warrior. Even when you have to calmly explain that you haven't unlocked it yet (because you need to be at least level 30 to unlock most of the jobs, and, surprise surprise, you're only level 25 or so). Of course, that's partly an issue with the player base rather than the game, and I think most people were at least somewhat understanding in that circumstance. Then there was the skill system, which made it so jobs could have a wide breadth of weapon classes to choose from... but only use one or two, since they had the best rating in them. Or oddities like giving paladins a solid rating in clubs... but there being absolutely no decent clubs to wield barring a few rare exceptions. And staves, which were similarly nigh worthless as an actual weapon. Then there's the ridiculous grind for Relic weapons, which would take years of playing due to time-gated content, devoting entire multi-alliance (an alliance being 18 people total) runs to do One Specific Thing JUST for you, or end up costing effectively around a thousand dollars worth of gil to purchase the items needed. Most jobs didn't even benefit all that much from their relics in the first place, even. And Mythic weapons are a whole 'nother beast, requiring you to do basically EVERY. LITTLE. THING in the Aht Urghan expansion to unlock. And let's not even get into the inanity of the crafting system, which left you grinding for skill increases measured in the decimals. And you have a limited budget of skill points on crafts over.. 60, I think it was? So if you had something at 100 and got a 0.2 on something that was 60, welp, now your previously maxed skill is at 99.8. And that could happen fairly often, I think, because a lot of higher end recipes called for having multiple high level crafting skills just to make a single item. I could be mistaken, though, as I never really bothered with that aspect of the game.
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Jul 25, 2015 05:05
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Haha, holy poo poo, I'd almost repressed memories of loving Colibris, this thread is Nostalgia Road...IthilionTheBrave posted:Or oddities like giving paladins a solid rating in clubs... but there being absolutely no decent clubs to wield barring a few rare exceptions. And staves, which were similarly nigh worthless as an actual weapon. [True Strike] Edit: For those who never played FFXI, let me lay some of the bullshit out for you. Everyone knows about the big things, like the boss that people spent 24 hours fighting, or the various Absolute Virtue dick moves the devs pulled, but the worst poo poo was small, innocuous, and absolutely frustrating as poo poo. So, say you want to level your Black Mage. It was one of the most important jobs in the game for end-game content, and it was pretty much necessary to have dozens of Black Mages for Sky, Sea, Salvage, you name it. So you want to get your Black Mage up to snuff. As was already mentioned, almost every other job in the game is taking down enemies that you are incredibly useless against. Black Mage was a terrible solo job, it had no damage mitigation, no way to heal itself, it was the second-most Glass Cannon job in the game. (lolDarkKnight) So here's how you level as a Black Mage. You get 5 other Black Mages, or 4 BLM and a Red Mage, and travel to the most hellish zone in the game. An active volcano, full of enemies that can A: Murder you effortlessly B: See through invisibility and best of all C: Detect when you cast magic So you get to your camp spot, after probably eating a couple deaths, and find a corner you can hug where you won't immediately die. You then send one brave soul out to cast something on one of the mobs running around, and pull it back to camp. (If that motherfucker casts poison, you kick him from the group and loving run) Once back in camp, you and your 3-4 Black Mage friends chain-cast sleep on it until it falls asleep. One of them casts an ancient magic spell that gives it an elemental weakness, and everyone else casts their biggest nuke of that weakness. You cast in sync, so it doesn't wake up early, and then you all chain-cast sleep again and hope you don't get killed. Eventually it dies, and you get a tiny bit of experience. Everyone pops a squat, drinks a little juice, then you repeat. You repeat that poo poo for hours And don't forget, FFXI had XP loss on death, so every hosed-up pull, every mob that resists sleep too long and murders you, all of that poo poo sets you back and you have to stay longer as a result. It was the most mind-numbing, tedious, stupid loving bullshit imaginable. From Aht Urghan until Wings of the Goddess, that was basically the only realistic way to gain xp for your endgame Black Mage. Captain Bravo fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Jul 25, 2015 |
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Jul 25, 2015 05:13
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Yeah, from what I hear the exp loss on death was a big sticking point. Though from what I'm seeing, exp loss never exceeds 2400 (was this a recent change? I don't remember that limit), so it's not quite THAT bad (not as bad as, say, Maple Story), but still, you could lose a couple hours' worth of dull, repetitive work from just one unlucky turn.
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Jul 25, 2015 06:06
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Bufuman posted:Yeah, from what I hear the exp loss on death was a big sticking point. Though from what I'm seeing, exp loss never exceeds 2400 (was this a recent change? I don't remember that limit), so it's not quite THAT bad (not as bad as, say, Maple Story), but still, you could lose a couple hours' worth of dull, repetitive work from just one unlucky turn. I believe that was the amount it capped at, or around there, even when I played. The Raise spells also mitigated some of the EXP loss, with the higher tiers refunding more EXP. This was determined after the initial loss, so it was entirely possible to die, level down (yes, that's another thing that could happen quite easily), get a raise, and get back up to find that you recovered just enough XP to get your level back. Of course, this also lead to people declining raises from friendly passersby because it wasn't a high enough tier for their tastes. Which was actually totally understandable, to be honest. Edit: Besides, you have a full hour to twiddle your thumbs waiting to be raised, and that was generally more than enough time to get a buddy to come raise you. Assuming you had a buddy that was a high enough level WHM. Or knew someone who did have it leveled enough. I think there were some level limits in place, though, so a Raise III on some level 20 schlub only refunded as much EXP as a Raise I. Didn't change people from always wanting a Raise III, though. IthilionTheBrave fucked around with this message at 06:37 on Jul 25, 2015 |
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Jul 25, 2015 06:33
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FFXI people seem to talk about it like it was the best MMO ever, but it was terrible. It's like an abusive relationship that you stuck with just to see if it got better, and you only remembered the good and not the torture it gave you. Dying in the Dunes as a member of Windurst and you couldn't use the crystal there to get points because Windurst didn't have control of the area. And chances are you don't have a Chocobo if you're levelling in the Dunes. Not to mention waiting 3 hours for a party to fill and after your one successful battle the team needs to split up because someone needs to go to bed and it's the healer or the tank who needs to go. Getting 100 exp for a kill of the same level, and don't you dare fight something one level higher or you will be completely destroyed. I guess people have "fond" memories of FFXI because it was their very first MMO. Remember, WoW came out a year after FFXI. I quit FFXI and bought my own copy of SWG so I could stop playing on my Brother's account. Not to mention that game cards were easier to manage than the backwards way FFXI did subscriptions. If you cancelled your subscription after the renewal date which was the same for everyone, you still paid the full cost of that month and your subscription was cancelled immediately. You couldn't play until the next renewal date, because your ended your subscription. The best time to end your subscription would be the last day of the subscription month. And if you wanted to return to the game after a break, you better start at the beginning of the subscription month or else you're shafted those extra days because if you, say, wanted to return to the game on the 20th of the month, you had to pay the full price for the month. The only time they didn't charge you full price was once, when you started the game up for the first time and they just did a fractional amount for the remaining time of the month after the 30 day trial. FFXI did change that, from what I heard. Now they use a normal subscription model where you can subscribe and you get the month, and you cancel renewals and you can play up to when your subscription lapses. And you can start in the middle of the month and not be gimped. Keep in mind that FFXI was the only game I know of that did this model, ever. It was the worst subscription model ever made for a monthly fee for a MMO. I'll like to remind you again that WoW came out a year after FFXI was released in North America. -- Now, back to FFIX. I bought after Squaresoft became Square Enix, because my copy had Square Enix on the cover. I don't think I really used a walkthrough to go through the game, and I checked my abilities a couple of years back or so again with my old memory card just to see if it still worked. My abilities were all over the place. I never beat it and stopped at the end of Disc 3. I didn't have the items to teach the skills anymore, I guess I sold them for the gil for some reason. Vivi had magic all over the place and never had the proper spells. Zidane was completely useless. Garnet was my healer, and Steiner was the only character truely decked out in the best gear you could get at that time of the game and he had all the skills you could learn up to that part of the game. Steiner is the best character, followed by Vivi. Clank clank clank clank clank clank clank.
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Jul 25, 2015 10:24
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IAmTheRad posted:Zidane was completely useless. Never thought I'd see that opinion. Every time I played ffix (including the very first time) Zidane ended up being down right stupidly powerful.
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Jul 25, 2015 10:29
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IAmTheRad posted:I guess people have "fond" memories of FFXI because it was their very first MMO. Remember, WoW came out a year after FFXI. I quit FFXI and bought my own copy of SWG so I could stop playing on my Brother's account. Not to mention that game cards were easier to manage than the backwards way FFXI did subscriptions. I actually played WoW first, I started my MMO experiences in '06, and I couldn't stand it. I switched to FFXI from Warcraft. However, my experiences were way different than anyone else, because I had a group of friends that all played. So we had guaranteed parties, and I had people that didn't bitch when it was time to unlock Paladin or run through the Bahamut fight in CoP. I never truly felt the full sting of ffxi until my friends stopped playing, and I joined a dedicated endgame linkshell. When I actually had to deal with the same poo poo everyone else did, I soured on the game pretty quick.
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Jul 25, 2015 10:31
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mauman posted:Never thought I'd see that opinion. This is true. Even without his abilities (most of which are useless outside of Trance anyway), he's got drat solid stats all around and decent equipment options (armor is a bit on the weak side early on, but he's got high enough HP to compensate for that). OK, maybe he'd be a little gimped if you have him in garbage equipment, but if you manage to make him COMPLETELY useless, that's more on you rather than Zidane.
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Jul 25, 2015 11:41
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Well to me his little blurb reads like the state that all his characters were in. So yeah, it was probably on him, but that's sort of the point.
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Jul 25, 2015 12:51
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I dunno, XI sounds amazing to me. But sadly making a big, inconvenient and imbalanced mmo just isn't happening today.
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Jul 25, 2015 14:47
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IAmTheRad posted:If you cancelled your subscription after the renewal date which was the same for everyone, you still paid the full cost of that month and your subscription was cancelled immediately. You couldn't play until the next renewal date, because your ended your subscription. The best time to end your subscription would be the last day of the subscription month. And if you wanted to return to the game after a break, you better start at the beginning of the subscription month or else you're shafted those extra days because if you, say, wanted to return to the game on the 20th of the month, you had to pay the full price for the month. The only time they didn't charge you full price was once, when you started the game up for the first time and they just did a fractional amount for the remaining time of the month after the 30 day trial. Your billing complaint here is only half true, specifically the half about "subscribe at any point during a month and you pay for the full calendar month, whether it's the 1st or the 30th." Which, yes, was dumb. And yes, at some point in the meantime they changed it to a more sensible system that prorated it based on the number of days remaining in the month. However, the game never - to my knowledge - had the other issue you claim with cancelling a subscription immediately while still keeping the time/money you paid for. When you cancelled your sub, your character went from an "active" status to a "to be cancelled" status, and then when the end of the month rolled around, any "to be cancelled" characters changed to "cancelled". Thing is though, you could still play a "to be cancelled" character just fine in the interim before it was actually "cancelled" at the end of the month. I've cancelled and reactivated characters many times over the life of the game - early on, during the WotG dreary lulls, and off and on since then when I've played for a month or two at a time - and never once had the issue you describe where the "to be cancelled" character was immediately unplayable even before the paid-for period had ended. Just like any other sub-based MMO I've played, I had access to the game for the remainder of the time I'd already paid for.
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Jul 25, 2015 15:20
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Dastardly posted:I dunno, XI sounds amazing to me. But sadly making a big, inconvenient and imbalanced mmo just isn't happening today. In my opinion, the absolute best part of FFXI was the focus on story-based PvE content. I was BLM, SMN and BRD back in the old Remora server (/tarutarudance) back then so I managed to clear all the plots up until Aht Urgan (where I quit) and they were all an absolute blast - I especially liked how they chained the Zilart and CoP events together. Mind you, Square was obviously treading new ground and that led to several questionable decisions:
I could go on but, yes, it required a level of commitment that put even WoW to shame. Thankfully, I had an ingame group of mates to reliably run through the story stuff and it was all mostly good fun until the point where I had finished everything lore-related and the endgame grind wore me off. IAmTheRad posted:FFXI people seem to talk about it like it was the best MMO ever, but it was terrible. It's like an abusive relationship that you stuck with just to see if it got better, and you only remembered the good and not the torture it gave you. Dying in the Dunes as a member of Windurst and you couldn't use the crystal there to get points because Windurst didn't have control of the area. I think you're misremembering something. Even if your nation didn't control the outposts, there was that port town in the dunes that had a crystal...or are you talking about that end-game desert region where Aspidochelon spawned? Brunom1 fucked around with this message at 17:43 on Jul 25, 2015 |
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Jul 25, 2015 17:41
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Bufuman posted:This is true. Even without his abilities (most of which are useless outside of Trance anyway), he's got drat solid stats all around and decent equipment options (armor is a bit on the weak side early on, but he's got high enough HP to compensate for that). OK, maybe he'd be a little gimped if you have him in garbage equipment, but if you manage to make him COMPLETELY useless, that's more on you rather than Zidane. The end of this story was I wondered why I was having such a hard time, considered my party, and realized all the mistakes I'd been making from the beginning (like not giving anyone any appreciable skills). So I played the game again from the start and beat it and loved it. The world and characters and story had been charming and compelling enough at that time that I didn't mind having to do the whole thing over again from scratch.
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Jul 25, 2015 18:19
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Brunom1 posted:I think you're misremembering something. Even if your nation didn't control the outposts, there was that port town in the dunes that had a crystal...or are you talking about that end-game desert region where Aspidochelon spawned? He's talking about the nation points thing that you used to purchase stuff like your national Aketon for the slight movespeed bonus. It was never a very important element, but he's correct about how it worked.
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Jul 25, 2015 18:23
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