FFXI and WoW, whatever the heck say we're on

[thistlechaser]

FFXI: Draque model in a star cap. Such a nice looking hat, I wish we could see more of them around. :/

I got my level 63 earring from Loth today (Merman ring, 830K), which means my funds are low enough to make me twitch some. Guess I'm going to have to put some time into farming soon. (Made lumber to sell tonight.)

--

WoW: I put way more time into WoW today than I had intended to... but I didn't have anything that needed doing on FFXI so it's okay. Back when I first heard about the pet system in this game (long long before I even considered playing it), I knew I would like it better than FFXI's system.

FFXI: Pets are "fuzzy guns" (to borrow a PokeMUSH term). You charm a mob, make it fight another mob, and kill it off on purpose soon after. Higher level BSTs can release them instead of killing them, but it makes little difference: the pet is just a tool, nothing more. It shouldn't be called a "pet" at all.

WoW: A pet is a pet. You tame something (have to endure its attacks for 20 seconds, you cannot fight back or do anything), and then its yours. It levels, you feed it, you should keep it happy for best results, and it can die and be raised.

I went with a wolf because it was the first mob I came across, but I wish I had known then what I know now. I really, really had wanted to get a prairie dog pet (cause who would use those? They're so tiny!), but now I've put so much time into leveling my wolf (Fluffy) that I hate to release him and start over. :/

I started the day at level 10, and he started as a level 8 wolf, we both ended as level 14.

When things went right, this is how fights went -- perfect! I'd send Fluffy in to attack at close range, while I shoot from a distance. Eventually the mob would come running at me, but by the time it reached me it was mostly dead. (Somehow I keep ending up in jobs that can't take hits well!)

I'm trying to figure out if WoW has a hate-system (it must...), but if it does it seems as inaccurate as its range-weapons-distance system (I swear to god, the max distance on your gun must vary by mob... or the system is just majorly f'ed up). FFXI's max-range-distance isn't perfect (I think hills confuse the distance), but it's light years ahead of WoW's.

Swimming continues to be highly cool, and your pet will follow you under water!

I know death isn't supposed to be a big deal, but I died like three times today and it annoyed the heck out of me. (And Fluffy died twice, which made me disappointed with myself.) Since the game tells you outright what aggros, I wonder why it doesn't indicate what links. There had to have been linking going on: I moved to a higher level area and attacked one member of a non-aggro herd, and suddenly the whole herd surrounded me and attacked back. That makes sense, but ... bah.

There's way, way, way too high of a concentration of aggro mobs on WoW, too. I'm so sick of seeing 57857021750257 wolves and cougars in every direction! (FFXI people: In the areas I've seen, it's easily 19 aggro mobs out of 20.) They're low enough level that the XP isn't worth wasting my ammo on, but they aggro left and right. :/

Something odd is going on with my skinning. I hit 100 early this morning, and haven't leveled even once since then. Hours of skinning, not one single skillup, when I had gotten a skillup on nearly every single skinning before then. I would think I'd need to buy another rank(?) of it, but the next one the seller offers me requires level 150 to buy. (Edit: I logged back on for a few minutes tonight and killed a bigger thing than usual, and got a skillup on skinning it. Guess I was just over cap all day...)

Perhaps the high point of the day was some people from the other side tried to invade one of our starting villages. I really, really wanted to help out defending, but what good would I (level 12 at the time) have done? Slowed them down for the second it took them to kill me? (I assume they were really high level, they killed the level 60 PvP NPC pretty fast.)

I love Fluffy. I really wish FFXI's pet system was more like WoW's. :/ He follows me around in towns, in shops, everywhere. He does lots of dog/wolf-like things too, he doesn't just follow: He sniffs, he scratches himself, he howls, he's nicely realistic.

Comments

[daltontrix.livejournal.com]

Your pet will even usually try to avoid doing overly stupid things if you do one! I've seen Gulthak (my raptor, taken solely for style) take the long way down a tower when I just jumped off it. ;)

I've only had two PVP kills, but many PVP encounters, including being a minor help in killing two people that were 10+ levels higher than me. (Lasted long enough for higher level characters to come and finish them when I bit it, then I got rezzed by one of the higher people both times, lucked out that a Shaman and Priest showed up.)

There was something else... oh, groups of aggroing things can be a serious pain. Especially since anything that aggros will draw anything else nearby that aggros along for the ride. When you get 'scare beast', use it only in extreme circumstances. ...And probably just cut and run for your ass too. They'll come back with a lot more stuff than what left.

Oh, and keeping your pet alive. I've found the best tactic if he's getting swamped is to run as fast as you can. If they get too far from you, they disappear until you use 'call pet'. Even if they're in the middle of a fight. This gets a lot more viable with Aspect of the Cheetah... unless you're getting whacked by something as well.

Gulthak still holds up a lot longer than I tend to face to face with multiple mobs though...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I've only had two PVP kills, but many PVP encounters

I snuck back on for a few minutes before bed, and wouldn't you know the village was under attack again! I ran to help (so what if I died, I wanted to try), but by the time I got there it was over. Oh well. Next time maybe!

If they get too far from you, they disappear until you use 'call pet'.

Oh, I hadn't known that. Thanks!

Gulthak still holds up a lot longer than I tend to face to face with multiple mobs though...

Fluffy is getting there. I have to find that Buy Pet Skills NPC again, then I can buff him further. *checks Alla before bed...*

Thanks! :)

[draymor.livejournal.com]

IIRC, the star cap is a prize for the winning team of each server in Ballista Royale. Which means that only 8 exists on each server (I think that's the number of people in each team). The person in the SS is probably JP since the NA-BR hasn't finished yet.
There is also a laruel looking piece that is for the winning team cross server, which means there are 8 of those across all the servers X_x (presumably all 8 of those would be on one server since teams are server based)

[draymor.livejournal.com]

Once the NA-BR is over there'd be another set, but don't expect to see them too often XD

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah, they'll still be pretty rare then.

[epyonmk3.livejournal.com]

Yep, there is a hate system. Each mob has a list, and anything you do that turns the battle in your favour will bump you up the list. Simply getting within aggro range is enough to put you on the list. Thing is, there are seperate entries for yourself and your pet, so your pet has to do something to draw the aggro to himself to keep the mob from running at you. You'll most likely be doing more damage than your pet, so you'll quickly rise higher in the mob's aggro list. One superb way is to get the pet ability 'growl' and get your pet to use it. It draws hate really well. Then you just have to be careful not to outdamage your pet too much, or the mob will turn its sights on you again.

As for the skinning thing, you'll notice when you move your cursor over a corpse, it'll have 'skinnable' underneath it. What colour that is shows you your chances of getting a skillup on it. If it's red, you can't skin it yet. If it's orange, it's 100% chance of skillup. Yellow means 70-90% chance. Green is 20-30% chance, and grey is 0%. Basically, you've got too good at skinning to skillup on low level mobs. Move to higher level areas and you'll start skilling up again. :)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ah, thanks for the info on hate. That's how I thought it should work, but I hadn't seemed to be seeing that.

I checked the manual and saw that info about skinning skillups as well, but had never noticed different text colors before! I guess I hadn't known they meant anyhing, so didn't register it.

[doxxxicle.livejournal.com]

The grey, yellow, green, orange, red thing seems to apply in quite a few places that involve a comparison of levels such as monster level vs yours, recipe level vs your craft skill, etc.

Items have colours as well, grey is vendor trash, white is common stuff that can be vendored or used in recipes, green is uncommon stuff like enchanted equipment (best sold on the AH), blue is rare, and I think the last one is purple which is like really epic stuff. Not 100% sure about that last one though.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I still need to get to a city big enough to have an AH in it. Right now I'm vendoring most everything and saving only what I'd need in the future.

I went out into the Barrons today at lunchtime (yay new area!) and when I finally successfully killed something there, skinning it gave me a skillup. Yay!

I really, really, really want to play more tonight, but I'm supposed to be at Eco and then Escort on FFXI. But as soon as we're done, I'm headed back to WoW!