Long time, no post (FFXI)
Oct. 22nd, 2006 09:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserMy chick grew to an adult and has an odd sized beak, and people wanted to see screenshots so I figured I'd edit the backlog of screenshots and post them.
The better to dig with, m'dear. I didn't have a good picture of his father's head, so I used the best I had. Big difference between normal bird and big-beaked one. His stats keep going up. I think he's average in dis and the step below in rec. Something like that.
The one thing I really did enjoy in the last couple days was watching the CSs for the new ToA missions. It's like they took everything about god-awful CoP and did exactly the opposite. While I didn't enjoy having to sneak/invisible to get that one CS (especially since I had no map), even the easiest part of CoP was still harder than it. And the scenes were so pretty! (SPOILER for text in that screenshot.) I love the details, the music, the characters, and how darned long the CSs were. We'll have to do the BC sometime so we can see the rest of them. (Supposedly the BC is easy, don't even need a whole party.)
Got this year's Halloween hat. Doesn't look as good on me as it does on some characters, but I like it.
We went skilling for ~7 hours today. As you can see, I needed to skill because BRDs are so darned bad with swords (ow!).
And in "A year ago today" news, our CoP static was in Promy-V. (Ha ha, that old font is so hard to read.) I miss working with the people from the static, but I really wish I could find the people who designed CoP and stab them in the eye.
I think I'm getting sick, and I have to go back to work tomorrow. Very much not ready to deal with that.
The better to dig with, m'dear. I didn't have a good picture of his father's head, so I used the best I had. Big difference between normal bird and big-beaked one. His stats keep going up. I think he's average in dis and the step below in rec. Something like that.
The one thing I really did enjoy in the last couple days was watching the CSs for the new ToA missions. It's like they took everything about god-awful CoP and did exactly the opposite. While I didn't enjoy having to sneak/invisible to get that one CS (especially since I had no map), even the easiest part of CoP was still harder than it. And the scenes were so pretty! (SPOILER for text in that screenshot.) I love the details, the music, the characters, and how darned long the CSs were. We'll have to do the BC sometime so we can see the rest of them. (Supposedly the BC is easy, don't even need a whole party.)
Got this year's Halloween hat. Doesn't look as good on me as it does on some characters, but I like it.
We went skilling for ~7 hours today. As you can see, I needed to skill because BRDs are so darned bad with swords (ow!).
And in "A year ago today" news, our CoP static was in Promy-V. (Ha ha, that old font is so hard to read.) I miss working with the people from the static, but I really wish I could find the people who designed CoP and stab them in the eye.
I think I'm getting sick, and I have to go back to work tomorrow. Very much not ready to deal with that.
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An essay reply to a sentence...
Date: 2006-10-23 10:33 am (UTC)Having said all that, it's great for the casual player who doesn't want to put that much effort into the game play. They want quick solutions, easy to get armor (that isn't the best, but close is good enough), and to get on with their life. The story is humorous, though not very thought provoking. Of course, as the casual player is discovering, you usually can't just stroll into Whitegate and pick some random people off the street and do Assault. You still have to plan something; a time to meet and which Assault you're doing. And, oh damn, that's starting to look like the type of effort planning a mission might involve...
I'm not sure how to say this without seeming like I'm flaming you ('cause I'm not, this is growing into a pet peeve frustration of mine and I have to let it out @.@) but you're angry at CoP because it required you to *work* for your progress. A person couldn't finish the update missions in a single night because the missions were too hard for that usually, and there were cutscenes all over the world to get. On a scale of 1 to 10 for difficulty, so far TAU has been about a 1 maybe a 1.5, while CoP was at least an 8 the first time I went through it. (All the repeat trips and nerfing of the missions like Promy have reduced it down to a 5 for me. Keep in mind that when I did the first 3 Promys there were twice as many mobs per island, Recollections dropped at a rate of 1 every 2-3 *hours*, and the portal only remained open for 30 seconds between islands.)
It's great that you're satisfied poking TAU stuff every once in a while at your leisure. For myself, I'm bored. I could munch through the content in a night and then get to spend the next 2 months helping others get through it. Yay? Thanks for tossing the bone to the players, SE, but where's the meat? I want some mission fights that are actually hard and more than one or two per update. I want some rewards that aren't "High level gear from another expansion ver 1.5". Those new pants are a GREAT example of that. Haste+3% and STR+3. Wow. If you did Zilart and went to sky and killed Byakko a couple times you could have Haste+4% (Byakko Haidate) and STR+5, Acc+7 (Shura Haidate). How about something new? Would that kill them? I could really go for some MNK pants that have Att+20 on them, SE, if you're listening!
It's not even a matter of "They're getting gear to players who couldn't get it otherwise." 'Cause, y'know, the players I see getting the gear are just as motivated to go in groups of 3 as they are in groups of 18 to get things done.
And again, it wouldn't kill them to do something that's unique -.- I think the most unique weapon/armor out of the expansion so far has been the All Jobs reuseable throwing weapons. DRGs and MNKs around the world rejoiced at getting something at lvl70 they should've had access to at lvl7. Way to go, SE.
I don't think SE will ever introduce another piece of armor for melee that is like Kirin's Osode or Black Belt or Ridell, nothing will match the Zilart rewards, but c'mon -.- At least CoP had its' unique treasures at the end like Rajas Ring and the Safehold teleport ring. A near-end-of-story-type treasure from CoP became a quest reward in TAU, that made me laugh... Will TAU have something like that at the end? At the moment I have my doubts. And even if it does, I have my doubts that my safe/storage/locker will have room for it after all the other rare/ex half pieces that have been tossed at us.
Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 10:35 am (UTC)* Any Nation mission line can be done in a week or less.
* Zilart can be completed in a weekend, from start to finish.
* Thus far TAU would take about 3 days to complete if I'm remembering how many "Japanese Midnight" delays there are.
* The quickest I've ran through CoP from Chapter 5 to complete, but not including the after CoP/Zilart content is 2 weeks. If you wanted to do Chapter 1 through 8.4 and worked on it every weekend and evening, I'm guessing it would take a month.
Don't hate CoP because it had the gall to actually be lengthy and require effort to complete. You stopped right on the edge of where the story starts to get really good. (And CoP does have a great story, it's my favorite mission story by far.) You stopped because you got intimidated by what would be required of you to continue on. You should look at the example Sylf's group is setting of tackling each mission head on rather than pussy foot about how it might be too hard / time / gil consuming. Meds costs have come down *considerably* since TAU came out. Don't be afraid to challenge yourself.
B'sides, watching you lash out at CoP as often as you do when you haven't even gotten to the difficult parts yet is kinda ^^;;; You don't have much room to speak yet :} And you've certainly enjoyed the benefits of CoP whether you'd grudgingly acknowledge it or not.
The CoP designers should be commended for creating an expansion with as much depth as it has without just creating a new part of the map and doing it from the ground up. The roots of the story integrate well with previous laid story threads that you can find all over the place. CoP was wonderful for giving us new armor that was unique. I remember all too well what a hodgepodge my RNG armor was before Noct came out. And you'd be hard pressed to find a pre-AF WHM, SMN, or BLM not clinging to their Seer's tunic. And let's hear it for the Eisen-gear. Tanks finally get something else to wear b'sides Chainmail and Centurion. Hell, even the highbie stuff was unique. Good examples are Yinyang Robe and Archer's Jupon. How about those Rostum Pumps or Reverend Mail (more of a toy, but there's nothing else like it)? Brutal Earring is pretty darn nice for any melee to have. If they'd made the TAU Crit%+ throwing weapon active in all zones instead of a latent active in a handful of areas you'd have your winning piece of armor right there. I'd say TAU has given us more *stuff*, but CoP has given us more *quality*. I prefer the quality. The stuff is great for filling my cramped safe. It'll get tossed when I no longer have room to play around with it anymore.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 01:19 pm (UTC)Glad you're enjoying the ToA stuff so much, and that hat is kick butt. :) Does it ahve any good stats? Or is it kind of silly, mostly decorative? If so--wow...very decorative indeed. :)
I can't really say much about CoP, but even the little bit I did seemed like far more work than payoff. And the stories of people spending millions of gil on single missions were enough to make me cringe. Personally I think you should do what you enjoy, and leave it at that. Games are meant to be fun after all, right? ^____^
Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 01:58 pm (UTC)Going to disagree with you there. It's for people who don't want to have to go through hell and high water for a game. It's hardly instant gratification, and I've put the amount of work I'm comfortable putting into missions into it. (Sneaking and invisibling through a zone you have no map for is annoying. It made my heart race and my hands shake. Anything that gets a RL physical reaction like that from me is over the "work" line in my book.)
FFXI is supposed to be a game. It's supposed to be fun. Some people found CoP fun, the vast majority (if one listens to various message boards and LJ) do not find it so. Glad you did.
Having said all that, it's great for the casual player ... and to get on with their life.
As opposed to putting tons of planning time in and many tries/dying to get it right? For me, that is not a game. It is not fun. It is work. The fact that I do not want to do something work-level annoying (not to mention, multiple deaths which would require me to XP to make up the losses -- also annoying) in a game does not make me lazy (as most of your comment implied). It is, I feel, one of the few smart decisions I've made in my FFXI time. Usually I just keep ramming my head against things I don't enjoy doing until I get them done, and come out stressed, unhappy, and ready to quit in the end.
You stopped right on the edge of where the story starts to get really good.
I don't care how good the story is, for me personally it is not worth it. And I'm hardly alone.
You stopped because you got intimidated by what would be required of you to continue on.
No. My CoP static broke up. And you think things like Assaults are hard to do with randoms? And no, I'm not going to organize a LS group. See the point above.
B'sides, watching you lash out at CoP as often as you do when you haven't even gotten to the difficult parts yet is kinda ^^;;;
I don't have to be murdered in my sleep to know being murdered is something I would not enjoy. I have ears. I listen to the experiences of other people doing this.
So it seems to come down to player-type. You have CoP and dislike ToA, I have ToA and dislike CoP. Thank god they're both not CoP-level stuff, and I suppose you can be thankful that CoP wasn't like this.
However, don't be angry because people don't like what you like. People differ. I can happily sit and craft for 14 hours straight, while you've said that makes you crazy. Some people can XP for 24 hours without sleeping (*cough*Mada*cough*), while that would make me /wrists. I hate CoP, and if by some chance I fall into another CoP static and actually finish it, I'm sure I'll still hate it.
Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 02:01 pm (UTC)Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 02:39 pm (UTC)Glad you liked CoP. Now let the rest of us enjoy an expansion without judging us by our preferences.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 02:49 pm (UTC)I loved CoP's storyline, but I hated the missions dearly. My favorite part of it is Bahamut, and I can't stand walking to actually get there. I think it was worth the effort I put into it, but I can see where the complaints come from.
Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 02:59 pm (UTC)*When I say no rush, I mean it. I don't think even all of us are up to the BC point yet. Ead is, and Aurian might be? But Draque isn't as far as I know.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 03:01 pm (UTC)Just in time for Halloween~!
I think it was worth the effort I put into it, but I can see where the complaints come from.
Good to hear! :)
Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 03:03 pm (UTC)I'll poke at the cutscenes this week. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 03:03 pm (UTC)Other than when he tuned out yellow (and, eh, male) I haven't wanted to kill him at all! If only he were female I'd breed him to his father right now and start over, hoping for a color.
and that hat is kick butt. :) Does it ahve any good stats?
Something like +3% HP or MP. Not sure what the HP vs MP is based on. Some people say job, some say level. I haven't tested it at all, I just like how it looks. :)
I can't really say much about CoP, but even the little bit I did seemed like far more work than payoff. ... Games are meant to be fun after all, right? ^____^
Couldn't agree more! :)
Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 03:05 pm (UTC)Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 03:09 pm (UTC)Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 03:12 pm (UTC)Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 03:17 pm (UTC)Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 03:17 pm (UTC)Sometimes it's fun to do crazy impulsive things, like take on the new BC with only 4 people. Sure, three of us died, but we made it. ^_~
Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 03:24 pm (UTC)Of course...it would be just as unsatisfying to get a Staff of the Magi, a Vorpal Katana of Wounding, and half a million gold...I think that the 'ideal' difficulty would be somewhere between the CoP/ToAU poles. :)
And...my analogy probably means nothing to you, you're not a D&D goober like I am. Oy.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 03:26 pm (UTC)Yeah.
...
What?
no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 03:26 pm (UTC)Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 03:28 pm (UTC)Maybe we could have Nai go through when we do Des. Des could tank and Nai could DD...
Sometimes it's fun to do crazy impulsive things, like take on the new BC with only 4 people. Sure, three of us died, but we made it. ^_~
Hey, we were a party of 75s and still had deaths! So you're ahead of the game! :D
Re: An essay reply to a sentence... part 2
Date: 2006-10-23 03:28 pm (UTC)<3
no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-23 03:30 pm (UTC)