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Starting to remember why I left FFXI even though I love it
Roin
Member RarePosts: 3,444
Was enjoying myself, leveling up, trying out new jobs. Decided Ninja would be the one I take to 99 first. That's not happening now. Got to 70 a couple days ago, which brings people face to face with Maat. I've done the fight before on my older account years ago. So I attempt the fight on Ninja. After the third attempt you lose the Testimonial you need to even do the fight. No biggie, easy enough to get another with time.
But the Maat pretty much is impossible for me to beat at this point. Using potions, using TP trick. (Have to wait 2 hours after a failed attempt try again because of Icarus Wing debuff) He does the same pattern which results in me dying. Self Destruct > Flying Kick > Self Destruct. Tried the fight 6 times each time same thing. 1800 points of total damage on a 1250ish HP bar. (He did that SAME pattern each fight.)
Then it hit me, as much as I was enjoying myself. It was good to be back. Why am I going to pay for that amount of frustration? At the end of the day when I get home from work, I hop on a game to relieve any frustration and stress. I've had with the day, not add more to it. Even if I did finish the Maat fight. There are now limit breaks set for every 5 levels after obtaining 50 all the way to 99. Which aren't too bad, just annoying as hell.
I love some of the quality of life improvements they've made to the game. But some of the most frustrating bits to the game are still there. I admit I love FFXI, I'd even rank it as one of Top 5 MMO's ever. Yet when it comes down to it, I remember why I left the first time (2nd and 3rd as well). Because as fun as I find the game, the amount of frustration I get from it, is more, then the fun I get from it.
I sort of understand why FF ARR has the echo buff now, and no major solo bits like a Maat fight tied to progression. Because after a certain point, you just want to get it done and move on. As it stands now my new FFXI character is stuck at 70 unable to progress at all. Which puts me in a bit of a bind. Do I level something up that I really don't want to play just so I can try the fight with another job, or do I throw in the towel and cancel my sub, quitting yet again. I'm certainly going to try it again, but pretty soon I'm going to have to sit down and ask is this frustration really worth my time.
Notes: No Abyssea. Character was leveled old school style to prevent screwed skills. If I do by some grace of god manage to beat Maat, before I decide to quit trying and quit game. No job of mine will be leveled in Abyssea. Plus the old style is more fun then what I've seen of Abyssea leveling on youtube. Have not tried it personally. Most of the Combat Skills for my Ninja are capped. Katana is capped. Parry about 6 points shy of cap. Evasion 4 point shy of cap. Wearing complete Ninja AF. With two 66 Katana from Record of Eminence. Just incase anyone thought I was trying to half ass the Maat fight.
In War - Victory.
In Peace - Vigilance.
In Death - Sacrifice.
Comments
I did Maat fight in the past with SAM, THF, WHM, BRD, RDM, and the hardest of all was RDM(took me 3 tries) the other jobs I won 1st try, but I never did NIN so don't have a say. Just a quick question tho: utsusemi: ichi and ni won't help at all, also that old man is really cheatting if he is mijin gakure then continue fighting lol.
Just level samurai to 70 meikyo shisui his ass and be done like I did my very 1st time sometime back in 2004.
edit: oh snap just noticed your pic on the account is Kenshin Himura dude you have to level samurai anyways
This type of thinking in what is killing gaming.
With no lows, no frustrations, no consequence for failure, you remove any real highs, pride, and feeling of elation in success.
You end up with a game that exists just to zone out to and not think about. Virtual knitting simulators. Something to do with your hands while the brain turns off.
Don't complain about it, rise to it and win. I promise it'll feel good.
Couldn't agree more.
The Maat fight was one of the most memorable experiences in my history of MMO'ing, along with acquiring Sky and Sea access. The reason they still sticks in my mind was the challenge of overcoming repeated failures. It felt amazing finally completing them.
Agreed, if the game causes you stress, ask why? Sometimes the answer lies within yourself and not the game.
Op i am not here to insult you at all but i will say this,i have not played the game in a very long time and never beat MAAT with Ninja but i bet i could walk in there and do it.
You need a different mindset,think of it as a challenge not something that is frustrating and don't go in the exact same way each time,think of a new strat,something you are missing.
I can only speculate but i can think of a few things...
Perhaps you raced to that point and have low skills,making for low damage.There is special weapon skill at a certain skill level that might help.ALso look over all your Ninja abilities and spells there are some or one ion particular that negates severe damage but been so long i can't remember the name of it.You should also realize you could sub thief to start fight at one point and then when need to med up or whatever flee to the opposite end of the zone.You can also try to stun or sleep and of course have paralyze on him so he will not attack on intervals.
Personally i would go Beastmaster as the first job,it is very powerful and does not need to spend time raising skill levels aside from your axe of course but nothing related to BST aside from attaining some useful gear.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
You can't have subjob at maat fight its removed cause its a test of your main job.
Youtube video shows that ninja vs maat is one of the easiest though the guy in the video did'nt even use potions or icarus wing just had evasion gear and used shadows at right times.
edit: wow I tried every possible way to link youtube video and this forum won't let me do so all I searched on youtube was ninja vs maat by the way if you want to check it.
Totally agree one of the best mmos that i have played but seems we have opposite reasons for leaving they started making the game alot easier. I miss the difficult challenges and the feeling of accomplishment afterwards.
Devs are focusing to much on casual players now a days, which i understand they want to make as much money as possible. Seems like difficult and challenging games are the niche now a days
I can't and won't say the bit in blue is the case... because I don't know. However, it wouldn't surprise me at all if it is.
It's something I saw a lot back when I still played full-time, even before Abyssea. Particularly when they introduced level-sync'ing.
More and more people weened on the "end-game is all that matters" mindset ingrained in them by MMOs like WoW and its ilk, began coming into FFXI, and tried to shoe-horn that playstyle into it, rather than adapting. The result was people power-leveling their jobs, but failing to keep their skill levels capped, or even reasonably caught-up - along the way.
It inevitably gave them issues when trying to take on content at their own level...
As time went on, of course, and people came to the game, - either new or returning from a long break - the routine of "power-level your job(s) to cap and then work on skillups" was already "the norm". It's just "how you played the game", and so that's what people did... in many... perhaps even most or even all cases not realizing they were handicapping themselves later on, for the sake of seeing that level increasing quickly.
This won't be a problem for people who've already done their leveling, of course. Thing is, these are the people telling new players that "this is what you should do" upon starting or returning to the game (it happened to me when I came back to the game after a few years away, so I speak from experience). They have no idea that they're basically instructing players to gimp themselves in the name of "getting to level cap faster".
I could say "it needs to be turned around", but I think we're beyond that. FFXI is fubar'd, and has been for a while now. It is worlds away from the amazing experience it once was, and far beyond being fixed. An emulator based on pre-Abyssea is the only way you're going to re-capture that original experience.
Yes you are correct sorry,like i said been a long time i don't remember that well,no sub job makes sense.
Yes i know a lot of people used to semi cheat with Icarus and the other buffs like the TP buff necklace i think was Opo opo or some thing like.
Asians always had it easier in the game,i know lag can be so bad in those fights ,i often came out thinking wtf just happened.I would leave with like 650 hp then look down at my stats afterwards and see i was actually at 50-100 hp,so somewhere in there the system lags badly and misses a lot of game play.
It seemed to like it happens at one particular moment in each fight,it just lags right out but funny to see you were near dead and did not know it.
I still consider this game the best of all time,however not what he slowly became around the time of Abyssea,Square Enix really changed their ways a lot.If they did not get greedy and start all that instant leveling nonsense in Abyssea just to sell xpacs,i would maybe still be playing to this day.Well i also don't like their WOw esque gear tiers either,that idea does not sit well with me.
Vanilla ,it was never about your gear but more about your group working together,it was just fun to play alongside others.Sure for some it was fun to farm the elite items and use them but they were not the difference makers as witnessed by RMT who used to play with total noob gear and did quite well.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
I've gotta agree with this ^.
Games at their heart are primarily teaching tools. They're made to stimulate your brain, not to shut it off. Even games primarily based on luck tend to have some component that requires you to think about your decisions.
However, since more and more gamers get frustrated by using their brain, or disinterested, it's becoming more and more rare. It's especially noticeable for any team-based games (because you are forced to rely on people who refuse to think about what they are doing, i.e. mobas).
Not every game needs to be Boshy-level difficulty, but having challenges in games is a really good thing. Something that should be embraced instead of shunned.
FFXI could be the best game on the market right now but it's been horribly mismanaged pretty much since launch. Abyssea was the biggest nail in the coffin for most and even though Adoulin is very good you are still forced to go to Abyssea often for old overpowered rings and such.
They need to delete all the silly forced questing a new account has to deal with. Think about it, you can literally go from 1 to 99 in 2 hours but new players still have to unlock level 55? Instant cheap travel everywhere but you still have to quest chocobos and airship passes? Still have to quest the ability to subjob and unlock classes like dark knight when default Monk is better in every way?
Balance has always been a huge problem for SE since launch and continues to kill the game to this day forcing everyone to go Ranger one patch then Samurai the next with a whole lot of support classes that don't compare to Bards. This game needs a new crew if it wants any chance at thriving.
I wouldn't call it a "necro", considering the OP is still quite relevant to anyone who finds themselves in a similar, or at least comparable situation. There's still a feasible discussion to be had on the subject. And really, if I'd started another thread with a similar topic, guaranteed, there'd be someone responding with: "Why start a new thread? Why not just post in one of the many threads that already exist about this topic?" It's a catch-22.Lets keep in mind here that they buffed Maat about a year ago so he's not the big pansy you all remember. I'm really not sure why they did but he is much harder now. The fight focuses much more on defense compared to the old TP wing and zerg of old.
I beat Maat originally back in 2006 and just recently leveled a Salvage mule to help with Alex for my Mythic. I ended up having to level dancer to 70 just to do the Maat fight because I went 0/16 on thf fight trying both kill and steal strategies. Ended up 1/3 on dnc.
Wait they buffed him? That's kind of crazy. I know a couple years ago they made the testimony re-usable a couple times but I figured they were trying to make things easier for brand new players not harder.