Merc Service

The amount of ppl needed to get stuff done nowadays is really, really low compare with pre-SoA and early SoA though. You only need 1~2 ppl for T1~2 and 3~4 ppl for T3. Even for harder things like WoC/T4 you won't need more than 6~8 most of the time. In fact since content nowadays has NM hp scale up with more ppl, small groups of close friends would be in an advantage compare with big ls.

Back then when pre-ilv delve needed 18 ppl I didn't have issue putting together a group of 18 ppl with required support(multiple 4 song BRD) and DD that passed gear check. Nowadays it shouldn't be much harder with participants cut in half. I see Idris GEO being the hardest to find if you're attempting the hardest content and try to optimize your dmg output, since ergons are still pretty expensive to make. Otherwise for most things that doesn't need an idris to have decent success rate, there should be enough players around to get it done.


Which T3 are you talking about? AFAIK most T3 don't need an SCH to kill efficiently(2~3 min kill). I've seen ppl BST burn with 1hr, and I've killed a couple of escha T3 with 4~5 ppl(Tank+GEO+w/e that can deal dmg) in 2~3 min without SCH. Are there any T3 that really "need" SCH to kill?

Nah, some folks are telling OP they should be a soup kitchen when they want to be a restaurant.

I feel the exact opposite. The community is what has made FFXI such an amazing experience. It was, and to a lesser extent still is, the biggest draw for every single person I know who still plays.

There are lots of amazing people in this game even now, and if you aren't encountering them perhaps you should rethink your methods of operation. I feel like the game was intentionally designed in a way that makes you rely on other players, so this is really important. As a career WHM, I really embraced this aspect and I miss it greatly in the post-Trust Vana'Diel.

I love helping newbies in the hopes that they'll be infected with my helpful attitude and help others as well. This is how you build a game's community. Helping people is the best way to meet people.

I think the biggest problem is many people fall victim to shortsightedness. They feel left out and want that endgame loot but instead of building something from the ground up with like-minded people, they're willing to overlook moral/ethical issues in an existing linkshell in order to secure a place in it, thinking it'll get them to the finish line faster. (Or they skip socializing altogether and simply farm gil 24/7 to buy stuff from merc groups.) In my experience, these are the people who complain about how terrible the community in this game is.

To be clear I'm not judging. I've had my own experiences with this. I did a stint in Remedy. I knew the leadership was toxic but I stayed too long anyway because they were doing fun events. Thankfully that wasn't a very long chapter in my FFXI life, and I made some great friends in that shell too.

Afania I respect your point of view but you are thinking everyone is a great player. While I am a 2100 JP blue with pretty good gear ( lacking adhemar body) I don't have access to elite dds, my next best blue is below me and that's it. Our good white Mage is the one with the good blue. He main heals we lack offense. Tank is fine. Yes we can 1-2 T1 easily with trust healing but then at T2 and higher we lack the white Mage or dd to beat those melee style.

That's why during next campaign will try to get more JPS and gears for fellow members to gear up mages and attempt it. Bottom line we lack people with needed jobs to do any style thus this is blocking my progress. But it's fine, it's not there's a mega update coming up and we will all get to the other side of the ocean.

If you honestly believe that then I feel sorry for you. Many players, past and present, speak highly of FFXI's community. It's often regarded as one of the strongest in gaming and I'm inclined to agree with them.

Whether community is good or bad depend on how you view it tbh. If you view it negatively, then all you'll ever see is the bad side of community, such as ppl backstabbing each other, start drama, only play with their own group and so on. That's because you're in a "community is bad" mindset that's why all you're ever see is the bad side of community.

But if you change your mindset from "community is bad" to "community is amazing", and try to understand different pov from other players or why they act that way, you will start to see the good thing about it.

Those who farm gil 24/7 to buy wins, maybe they just don't feel comfortable to start groups or play with others?

The ls leaders are "toxic", maybe it's because it's very hard to make everyone in the same ls happy?

ppl back stabbing each other or start drama, maybe it's because they don't "fit" to begin with? From my experience, 80% of complaint about the community came from ppl try to play or group with people with completely different mindset.

Another example is that, in this thread merc service was criticized and being viewed negatively as some sort of evil deed, and if anyone from merc ls dare to defend for merc service their opinion are automatically invalidated. Maybe that's just another example of how we often view things with biased opinion and mindset? Maybe merc service is actually more beneficial to the community than handing out stuff for free if we look at it from different pov? At least my experience that "free" help is not really free 90% of time in FFXI, because there's always some sort of hidden expectation behind free help. So is free help really better than merc? I don't know.

One more example is that whenever I brought up "time is valuable" talk about the AG/merc issue, my opinion is also automatically invalidated because ppl view me as some sort of no lifer that takes the game too seriously. So if someone that's extremely casual with 2hr a week of play time, would time be less valuable to them? Wouldn't it be exactly the opposite since time are actually more valuable to casual players?

Sorry if this post seems inconsistent(or hard to understand) with points I'm trying to make, just has lots of thought after reading Saevel and pergatory's opinion about the community. There are certainly times that I hate the bad side of community due to drama/backstabbing/ppl spreading negativity 24/7, but recently I've been trying to prevent it by trying to be positive, or try to communicate with ppl that don't like me/I don't like. And most of the time I got pretty positive result, in that case I'd say that community in FFXI isn't as bad as you think.

I didn't meant to say you're gimp or anything. It's just that most of the ppl in this game has the tenancy to do things with certain setup, and are unwilling to change even though other setup could also work. I'm just pointing out the possibility to do it without SCH if you don't have it.

You are the exact same way, you never concede your opinion and think its fact. Then you blame everyone else as if they are idiots with their fingers in their ears not willing to listen. Then you go across multiple threads and play it off like some savage internet trolls were attacking you for just posting your opinion. Makes me roll my eyes so hard.


I never asked you to defend me or my posts. As far as I saw it was your opinion as well, not you simply defending me. I'm used to barrage of internet losers trying to attack me because of who they think I represent or am. I also get hate PMs and such as well (mainly from sock accounts) and just laugh them off as I block them. If you can't deal with the internet losers then you shouldn't voice your opinion on a thread where you have people who think those that have x gear or x gil are losers or some ***. In general, people love to bandwagon. It makes them feel safe and secure and its no different on this forum.

Wow. Show me one post where I acted like my opinion was fact. Fun tip, You can't. The best you can do is take something I said and quote it out of context.

That's ok though. You can roll your eyes all you want baby boy. You're just a crybaby over afterglow who wants his own theme songs and special recognition to me. Special unique snowflake ***if I've ever seen it.

Thanks for specifically calling me out again out of nowhere though. Such a bad look for you. Warn me next time so I can lube up if you're gonna ride my *** so hard.

What I mean is I don't have 5-6 great players (support/dd) to even do a T3 melee style that's why tryin to build up mages style.

All the rage in your post... yet you say this "Had to get a cold reminder of how illogical and argumentative people were on this forum." lol. I made, maybe 5 posts? In that afterglow thread, that is all. All I did was state my opinion and the theme song thing was a joke because people like you think I wanna be a special snowflake.

Seems pretty illogical to me to attack someone and label them all from a handful of posts, don't it?

Zero rage here, it's disappointing that you can't tell the difference. I'm more laughing at the fact this is the second time you had to dig back at what i said DAYS ago to tell me how much you love rolling your eyes at me.

I don't care about your opinion of me dude. Sorry.

What I said stands. You can meet cool friends and people to play with in pick up groups. Not everyone has lots of geared friends to play with and the guy can post whatever prices he wants.

And it only took a few posts for me to figure out you from your incessant crying and attempts at justification on why you don't think everyone should have afterglow and why YOU should.

I feel sorry for you. I really do lol. I hope you have peace in your real life.

Ha, I've been a pretty vocal player in FFXI for years, I even got back stabbed by someone that I used to tried so hard to get gear/clear for on BG just because he doesn't like my opinion about SoA mission rewards I posted on the OF. As far as AG goes despite I defend for the importance of rare items in MMO, I actually don't have AG, nor I gain anything for wanting SE to give AG owners a justice. I just find it kinda ironic that despite I don't gain anything from having AG/merc group I'm still being labelled as some sort of elitist with no life just because I expressed my opinion.

You feel sorry for me? Um okay, lol. I just checked this thread and read through some of the pages, I felt I wanted to respond that is all there is to it. I didn't specifically target your post, it just came up and it was the same fashion as all the other ones. "Oh woe is me, I state my "opinion" and get trolls attacking me." Now the way you are posting in here doesn't exactly help you any. You are personally attacking me and then playing it off like you don't care/too cool.

Edit: Christ you are upset. Dude, take a step back and think before you post. Constantly editing your post with new insults as you madly smash your keyboard. It isn't that serious and I don't get why you have such rage towards me. I doubt you have me "figured out" either because of a handful of posts about afterglow. My only opinion in that thread was the trials should have been kept separate, nothing about me needing to be unique.

You could use w/e best job that's available for harder things. Some groups use a lot of BST because that's what they have. I killed a lot of escha ru'aun T1~3 on COR instead using BLM/BLU/BST because that's my best geared job that can do dmg, and it still worked pretty well.

Regardless gl on T3 :)

Blah blah blah, stfu and blacklist me like I asked you to the last time you went on a spasm over something I posted.




Right so out of all the other conversation points and bits in this thread, you decided to outright post a mini-rage to me and gloat about how you roll your eyes at me? And then you call me the troll? I'm the bad guy for saying pickup parties are fine and someone can charge what they see fit?

Cool dude. Cool.

The best part is that you had zero cause to call me an *** or roll your eyes at me. You can comb my entire post history for something nasty and negative, you won't find it until I just called you out for being a crybaby about afterglow.

Now whose response time is super on par? Nice play at the victim card too btw.

I recall you having vocal opinions and I respect that. You just kinda backpedaled with that post and tried to throw me under the bus to somehow appease the angry mob it seemed like. They will label your whatever they want, theres a lot of crazy weirdos on this game and especially this forum. Don't let it influence your opinion though, at least that is how I look at it. That person that personally attacked you isn't exactly on some pedestal from what I've seen of their post behavior.

There are definitely many players with same opinion about rare items in MMO. But most of them won't speak up because they know how much hate they'd get if they express their opinion. I know enough R/E/M rage quit players in 2013 that never post their opinion on the forum, they just silently quit the game.

I wasn't trying to throw you under the bus, sorry if it sounds like it. I said I "feel dumb" because I could just do the same, not say anything on forum and enjoy my (possibly)easier AG after Feb update. Instead I choose to pop on the forum, shoot myself in the foot for wanting hard requirement for skill 269 weapons, just because I feel it's better that way. Now now if they really make skill 269 weapon hard to get I'd need to grind my *** out to upgrade it lol.

If this isn't "dumb" for wanting more grind in FFXI AND get myself a bad name then idk what is! :p

There absolutely isn't anything wrong with voicing your opinion. Especially if you do it in a educated and well thought out manner. Understanding that not everyone will agree with you is equally important.

Or you could just roll your eyes at people and call them an *** because they don't agree with you, and then proceed to look for every opportunity to say something nasty and disrespectful to them at every turn.

Not naming any names.

:)

On Topic:
The prices for T1's are pretty damn high but the rest aren't TOO bad I guess if you were that desperate. So many people flooding in daily even still I'm sure he will get buyers as gil Isn't even hard to make right now.

Btw, page 6, best advertisement ever. :p

I hope when my final fantasy explorers megathread starts getting used that it gets bumped this often with pointlessness.



Just kidding no I don't lol. I bet this dude loving the free bumps though lol.

Damn son, just stop lol.

Still haven't used that blacklist feature yet eh?

Why should I? Now a respond 5 seconds later, you spamming F5 to see my post? Here I'll throw you a bone,


I don't look for every opportunity to say something about/to you. You are barely ever in my thoughts and as I was reading this thread I stumbled upon your post. In my very first post in this thread, I said one thing to you and another to someone else who specifically brought up my name. I didn't single you out at all lol.


You specifically targeted the whole forum in your post, so anyone can respond to that remark. I'll quote it again for you:


Saying how illogical and argumentative people on this forum are and you go and do the exact same thing, makes you very hypocritical. Even more evident when you constantly use personal attacks against me and you keep posting over and over when the discussion should have already ended lol. You've gone from wasting your time trying to reason online with people to wasting your time insulting people online.

tl;dr;notworthmytime

Still haven't used that blacklist feature yet eh?

lol I'm sure you read it. Anywho, no I don't typically use the blacklist function because it doesn't bother me that much. The only people I've bothered to blacklist were hateful spammers like foneware and others.

Blacklisted him instead then. I have respect for other people's threads/viewing and most of all respect for myself to block people who clearly have a hard on for me and make it a life goal to put me on blast then act like I did it.

Nobody wants to see a pissing contest 24/7 and I'm not about to get mods involved again. Dude can't even take it to tells, private messages or block me because he thrives on it. I asked him to several times.

Oh well.



Sorry for anyone that had to witness that ^^/

Nobody is buying that BS dude, but glad you are deciding to stop. lol @life goal, this is like the second time I've called you out on your little shtick that you do (which I'm sure you'll go to another thread and claim you were attacked by the evil trolls.) I don't ever quote or post to/with you in any other capacity. If you wanted to take it to tells/Pm you are welcome to and had you suggested that we could have. Instead you decided to act like a baby and everyone can read that for themselves lol.

Can we please go back to the purple lightsaber argument? This one sucks in comparison.