Good, not so good, and >< (FFXI)

[thistlechaser]

The good: Hat hat hat hat hat! XP static hit 60 tonight, yay! Hat! Full AF! (sort of) Pants and gloves are non-AF because those pieces suck. I actually like how the AF looks from the back almost more than the front! :D Love the big knot in the bandana and eee sexyhat!

The not so good: One day, one single day, after Midgar reaches the highest level Besieged, we lost. >< How typical is that? No excuse, really. 500+ in the zone, but typical lol NA players "OMG! A HNM! I must die to it and ignore the generals!". I can't even say I'm all that annoyed, since this happens all the time.

The >< : Our XPing was made more "exciting" by a BST camping on top of us. Okay, okay, it was a RDM/BST, but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck... He was XPing like a BST (using pet against mob, thus taking TWO of our mobs), and he was on an all-BST LS (NatureOfTheBST). He was a duck, no matter that he was wearing RDM AF. He showed up an hour after us, then /telled me that we should move because we were partying on "BST camping grounds". Whatever you say, Mr. RDM Duck.

And people are so silly:

Funny, I've never been bribed on BRD, I would have expected it there before COR.

Edit: Oooooh! Info on the new WoTG Besieged system: "The article talks about Campaign being a new type of besiege system where Windhurst,Bastok,and Sandoria battle against the armies of Shadowlord. They say your alliance, war strategy will help affect the course of the battle where you actually advance to the enemy stronghold or retreat to your base." (Player translating JP magazine story.)

Wow:
"# Left Picture is assumed to be Orcs fighting in Ronfuare. They speculate that losing the fort to the Orcs may increase their number in the present-day Ronfuare.
# Right Picture is assumed to be Yagudo guarding a structure in Sarutabaruta. They wonder if perhaps players will be able to successfully drive out the Yagudo, thus eliminating their presence in present-day Sarutabaruta."

Comments

[tacrozar.livejournal.com]

Arr, where be thy eyepatch?

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

Congrats on full COR AF. Looks good. ^^

As for WotG, I'm assuming that when they say Saruta and Ronafure, they mean East/West and not Giddeus/Ghelsba. (I think they'd *have* to, considering you need Giddeus/Ghelsba/Palborough keys for the Kazham airship quest, and the level 12 BLU spells all come from the beastmen.) It's an interesting idea, although low-level players needing to dodge more beastmen in early zones could be kind of annoying. (And we'll all be low-level when working on Dancer/whatever else is there. ^_~)

I also wonder how they'll balance it with Beseiged. The idea sounds kind of like it's a cross between Garrison/Expeditionary Forces and Beseiged, with the players actually deciding some of the tactics. (But trying to get hundreds of people to cooperate on a strategy? Yeah. ^^;) If it's more like Beseiged, though, where the enemies attack after gaining a certain amount of strength, they'll need to balance it so that it's not happening at the same time as Beseiged. I'm thinking they'll need to make Beseiged adjustments over time as people lose interest or have their attention divided. It'd suck if we lost a lot of ToAU functionality because people moved on to WotG.

It's a really neat idea. I'm just dubious about the implementation. Also, I'm not going to be fully at ease until I see male Dancers. I don't really like the idea of a gender-specific job. So far, everyone's been able to do everything. True, some races have an advantage over others, but there's nothing stopping a particular race from trying a job, and you get rockin' Taru PLDs like Nif. ^_~

Apologies for all the rambling. Work is boring, and I'm obsessive. ;p

[philia.livejournal.com]

Also, I'm not going to be fully at ease until I see male Dancers. I don't really like the idea of a gender-specific job.

Thank goodness someone else has said this. x.o Because if they do that for dancer, that means one of the two jobs left (and I'm going to step out now and say that /if/ it happens, the other will come from San d'Oria) will be male-specific and that's just not fun. :/

[gbeans.livejournal.com]

Hell, at this point we have yet to see any female Dancers that haven't been Hume... ^^;

And I'm putting all my gil on it being a female only job. It's not my preference, but SE has danced (har) all around females playing this job... I think the idea of a males only Strongman was kicked around... Though, I could see a Strongman being like a circus performer and maybe doing some of the same thing with different names. (Like how Archery and Marksmenship are exactly the same WS with different names on them...)

[philia.livejournal.com]

I think the only reason they're showing up as Hume females at the moment is because it originated in Bastok. I think that's the only reason it's been so specific. Of course, this excuse could also be used on why it's been seen on just females at all, so, well. ;_;

But, yeah, as much as I'm hoping, I'm thinking Dancer will be a female only job, which is a shame. It's always been nice to see that player intelligence > character strength and weaknesses, but I guess we might not see it.

Besides, it'd be funny to see Aven in dancer AF. X3

[gbeans.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't get my tail in a knot about Besieged. You make it out like we started at full strength and the HNM is the sole reason we lost. That wasn't the case at all. We were missing a General and our NPC count was sorely depleted. (Or didn't you notice that we only started with, what, 8 items?) Yes, we had about 550 in zone *at the end*, but the 8++ are designed to be a bad situation with the zone completely full, people bouncing off the gates, and a full compliment of Generals and NPCs.

I'm disappointed as well that we couldn't have held onto the coconut a bit longer, but I'm not going to rail against Midgard's NA crowd for being in a bad situation at the start... If you want to get angry at something, be angry at everyone (yourself included) who didn't go out to rescue the NPCs that have been sitting in Troll and Undead cells. The NPC that gives the Demoralizer has been sitting in Trollville for about 3 days now... That hurt us just as much as the 20~ NMs that are wandering around during the 8++ Besieges. Get upset that people are actually focused on one if you want, but really, there's a ton for them to choose from. If it wasn't Hydra it'd be Gululo Ja Ja or whatever his face is. Or Sagelord. Or the multiple Phantasmal Puks. Or Brontobugard... You get the idea... And thinking on it, y'know what we totally don't need and should be happy SE hasn't given us? A Frog NM...

As a sidenote, it's complete crap that I Flashed that bugger on the plank and he still snatched the coconut =.= I couldn't get hate for anything :/

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

I thought that the blond girl in the sketch was Elvaan, but looking at it again, her hand is over her ear so I can't tell. I assumed she was because she had a long torso and long legs, but it's probably just the way she's drawn.

I continue to hold out (slim and possibly unreasonable) hope that there will be male Dancers, if only because the color scheme of the AF is almost the same as Bartz's Dancer costume from FF5. Also, the only gender-specific FF classes were in FFT, and we already have female Bards.

(And we've *seen* Aven in AF. I wish we could unsee it. ;p)

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

Zazarg apparently was rescued before the Beseiged, but didn't make it back in time. I'm not sure what the turnaround time for NPC rescuing is. Obviously right before a Beseiged is not the optimal time, but someone was trying.

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

I checked the wiki and it doesn't mention any sort of turnaround time, so I really have no idea what was going on. ^^;

[naikitty.livejournal.com]

Dancer - Bastok
Chocobo Knight - San d'Oria! >_>/ ... Hey, I can dream, can't I? ; ;

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

They have to run back on foot, so it takes them some time. We should get the generals chocobo whistles!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

And Windy - Time Mages!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

It'd suck if we lost a lot of ToAU functionality because people moved on to WotG.

And that sort of makes sense to me. The XP bonuses and stuff in ToAU are not a right, they're something we need to work for and earn. If people ignore it, they should lose the good parts from it. :/

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ah, I thought she was elvaan, too.

While I wouldn't mind Dancers being female-only, I would be surprised if that happened. FFXI isn't WoW -- you don't need multiple characters to try out all the different jobs. Would they change that now? (Maybe, but I'd be surprised!)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I'll get one after I shoot my eye out~!

[kamalloy.livejournal.com]

Well, it's not so much ignore as there are only so many people on at a given time, and not all of them can drop everything and do *two* different events. That's what I'm worried about - not enough people.

[tacrozar.livejournal.com]

Remember though to leave the good eye remaining aka the one you aim with.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yeah. :/

[deckardmagnus.livejournal.com]

The thing about them incorporating another Besieged-like system into the game is... what happens when people start ignoring the old system? I mean, if Expeditionary Forces were the only thing that kept regions under a nation's control (like how Besiegeds are the only way we keep the candy), then we'd never have any nationally-controlled regions.

My major argument against Besieged from Day 1 was that it would eventually be something people lose interest in, especially as new content is available. It's already hard enough to keep the Candescence against an 8++, what happens when we can't get 300 people to do any given Besieged because of new content?

[quistie.livejournal.com]

Possibly a dumb question...but why are people speculating that Dancer would be female-only job? I haven't seen/read any announcement to that effect.

[quistie.livejournal.com]

Well, Besieged has been going strong for a year and a half. Of course people might lose interest in Besieged, but that holds true for any content this or any other game can generate, anyway. That people are still actively attending Besieged after all this time means that it does have some staying power.

I do agree that once the new content comes out, ToAU stuff might get ignored, and I suspect that few people would attend Besieged that first week or two. But I doubt Besieged would just fizzle out altogether in the long run.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

They put a story up on POL about the job (one of those in-character stories to explain to people about new jobs). They used only she/her, plus "maiden" and "mistress"(? something like that). Only female things.

[iniadelphinae.livejournal.com]

You mean we might not be subjected to Elvaan males and Galka as dancers? That would be lovely, but I'll be peeved if it means I miss out on a job like Chocobo Knight because I'm Mithra.

Also, that random person stole my mule's name. And RDMx2 fails - it's not like Refresh and Haste stack.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Someone voiced the idea that they might make two jobs that are "exact" copies of each other ability-wise, and make one male and one female. Say Juggler and Dancer. That idea seems kind of silly to me, though it would fix the issue of missing out on playing a job just because of your gender.

And yeah, the whole party wasn't much of a temptation. NIN, DRG, RDM, RDM? Sign me up! 50K bonus! Woo!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I'd still go to Besieged! So long as there's still free XP/IS, and it's not too hard to get out of the past (back to the future!), I'd totally be there.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

If people don't do Besieged, then the Candysense will be lost and all the merit parties will cry. If some people do lose interest and we lose even more often, we'll just be hurting ourselves. But, to me, that's as it should be. The bonuses that come from us holding the Candysense aren't a right, they're something we have to earn and work to keep. If people don't want to do that work, they lose the bonuses.

It does sort of suck for the people who do still fight in Besieged, but what can you do? Some servers just suck. :/

[quistie.livejournal.com]

Great Scott! The Trolls are attacking! We've gotta get you back, Thistle, back to the future!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

*rolls* Yes! :D

[reynardstruan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, some servers suck all right.

Alexander has a group of blms & rdms who intentionally nuke Gurlurfur in order to piss off the people who are trying to kill him. Gurlurfur has died exactly once on Alexander. I was there for it.