Ascy's solution to the F'ed up randomness of FFXI

Here's my solution to the completely F'ed up randomness of drops in FFXI and to dealing with buggers out there.

With such a weapon, no need for any more Salvage, Einherjar, ZNMs, Nyzul or Assault, right? :)

ACP & Missions, Dancer tanking testing

Well, we finished ACP last night... late last night @.@

All in all, I give ACP a big fat "F" in terms of entertainment. In total, we had maybe... 1 1/2 hours of actual gameplay -- fighting the goblin NMs, fighting the waves of mandies, and two BC fights. The rest of the time was wasted farming for stupid random drops, or running all over Fei'Yin and the tower for absolutely no reason. Oh, and we had about 5 minutes of cutscenes, less if you read fast.

My $0.99 iPhone games give more value for money! Even going out to the movies is better.

On the fun side, at least the BC battles were actually pretty fun. The Fei'Yin battle was pretty hectic, with a goblin THF mob that actually DOES Sneak Attack on you... I liked that xD Unsleepable mobs meant that healers and tanks had a lot to do in keeping attention and keeping everyone alive. The final BC wasn't much of a challenge with the right setup and people knowing what they are doing. Even with Talint DCing halfway through the first round, we managed to pull off the win easily.

We used the "Ranged Attack" strategy for these two wins, which was really simple to pull off... Just have a tank keep running away from the Seed Crystal whenever it used "draw in", then have DDs standing outside of AoE range and slowly chip it away. Poor Talint looked like a yoyo, going back and forth between the mages and the Seed Crystal. I think the fights were about 15 minutes each time. No risk of death or losing, fairly reliable. The alternate method I've read about is the simple zerg method with a RDM/DRK chain-stunning... Both methods require very precise combinations of jobs... Ranged Attack, tank, mages, or a bunch of zergable jobs... MNKs, SAMs... which of course, leaves out a good portion of the other player base. I'm hoping there are other ways to beat this, but the moves that this boss uses, mainly charmga, make it difficult to to imagine any other combination.

Reward wise, I actually lucked out compared to other people... got a Sapphire Earring with the augments "Magical Accuracy +2" and "Str+1". Since I do not have any good earrings on my SCH, this will be added to my Dark Arts macro. I also got a Vile Elixer and Hi-Elixer, which I promptly AH'ed for some gil.

So, ACP is done... I'm still hoping to keep "Mission Friday" as an event where AP (and friends) come together to have fun and fool around while helping people get things done. This Friday... well, what do people want to do? Significant options are... get people caught up in WotG missions to the Battle of Jeuno, or start helping with CoP missions for those who need it. Post something in the comments to get the ball rolling!

Dancer Tanking

Right after we finished ACP, I borrowed Conceptx and Karou to go do my MMM Dhamel again. This time, we set things up a little differently. I had Con come as PLD/WAR with the intention of stealing hate from him and holding it at some point of the battle. Karou was to be my "bait" and a way for me gain enmity since I know that Karou likes to pull hate and take lots of damage... I mean, likes to do her job by dealing lots of damage. I asked Con not to hold back on tanking, though I did have a few advantages over him... namely, I was using +enmity food (Dorado Sushi) and a Breath Mantle. Overall, I was going in with +30 enmity vs. his +25, but a PLD has many more hate tools compared to a DNC.

As expected, Con quickly grabbed hate at first with the basic PLD tools... Flash, Provoke, Sentinel, etc. all set a high bar initially. Due to the VE nature of most of these tools, I was able to grab hate briefly about a minute in the fight from my own "provoke" and a few small cures. Karou, as usual, went all out and was able to grab hate for a bit. SAM/NIN really has a lot of tools to prevent damage... Utsusemi, casting it a 2nd time, then when that fails, fall back to Seigan + Third Eye. Still, eventually a few hits get through and I'm able to cure for more hate. Con covering Karou also helped since it didn't matter who took the damage, just that I had some to cure. A couple of cures later, I had hate and could maintain it. Con couldn't regain hate after that mainly because one of his main hate tools, curing for hate, would be pre-empted by my faster Waltzes. Karou still managed to grab hate a few times from WS's, but all that did was give me an opportunity to raise the bar even higher by curing the damage she takes.

Initial testing conclusion: Overall a success... we need a mob that lasts longer to do some real further testing to see how practical this is. I might take off the "weakness" rune or throw on the "mighty" rune to the Dhamel to see how it changes things.

Changes to equipment, macros & tactics:

- Starting from my max evasion setup, I put +enmity gear into every slot that can take it, keeping +evasion everywhere else

- My +evasion setup had a lot of +accuracy in the first place. Dorado Sushi just adds to that high accuracy

- Haste gear is swapped in for casting Utsusemi

- All -enmity gear is removed... this means that I no longer macro in my DNC body or tiara for cures. Also, no Cobra Unit gear at all due to the high levels of -enmity.

- My Animated Flourish macro is changed to also add Spectral Jig to it. Both are on almost the same timer, and in theory, Jigs have a VE component to it which would bring this up to the same level as a Provoke. This looks really strange in practice, but it appears to work.

- Use Animated Flourish every 30 seconds as soon as it is up. I can also use Violent Flourish in it's place, but that's riskier since it has a chance of missing.

- No Foot Rise is used to fill in finishing moves in the case that Animated Flourish is ready without any moves ready.

- Fan Dance is up constantly for the +enmity. I can refresh this prematurely if a few hits get through shadows.

- Gear wise, I spent about 50k gil to pick up some of the cheap +enmity items. I also customized my ACP reward for +5 enmity and +10 evasion, a strange combination that I'm pretty sure nobody else out there is using. The only other idea I had for a DNC with it was +10 accuracy, +3% dual wield. If I really wanted to hit that much faster, I'd just use my Rap harness.

A bit of a change from the normal Dancer routine, and TP gain is noticeably reduced... however, this isn't a problem as in almost all circumstances, I have more than enough TP, enough to WS without worrying about having TP to heal.

Still to do:

- Test out the true enmity properties of Jigs... does it really help? It looks really strange in battle. I need someone with a level 75 with Provoke (either WAR or /WAR) to help me run some experiments

- Try this combination out in a "real" situation. Something like ZNMs, Limbus or a mission fight. The objective would be to grab hate and stay the target for the rest of the battle.

- Figure out the right combination of jobs to be in a Dancer tank party. Most big alliance fights consist of a tank party and other parties consisting of a combination of DDs or BLMs with healers to look after them. A Dancer tanking really requires a different support team. We would actually be the primary healer in all situations. We need the other people in our party to be those who would tend to take damage (other tanks, or DDs who are prone to pull hate, possibly BLMs) Support wise, the main thing we'd need is Haste, no need for Refresh, and possibly a couple of SAMs to give TP.

Enfeebling nerf, more math, DNC gear

So, apparently during the last FFXI update, there was a significant nerf to enfeebling magic. Enfeebles are resisted a lot more, and do not last as long as they used to. This probably contributed to our Omega failure in Limbus last Saturday, though it was not the only cause.

It took a while before details of this change came to light... basics are simple... any type of enfeeble (RDM, BLM, BRD, BLU) has a much higher resist rate, and lasts only a fraction as long as it used to. This is even with a fully merited RDM with good gear, so Flayer didn't even have a chance with RDM74. This makes basically any type of low-man situation where enfeebles are used a large issue. This also explains why Rooks had so much problems Silencing scorpions in Dynamis-Bastok... it just didn't last as long as it used to.

There is some community backlash to this... Here's an editorial from one of the FFXI "Premier sites" which are supposed to have good two-way communication with SE. It's clear from this piece that there is no such thing, that SE is giving them as much of the cold shoulder as everyone else... you know, the whole lack of customer service thing I talked about in a previous rant. Just business as usual from a crappy company. :) This also made BLM soloing much more difficult, if not impossible.

Now the question is... is this an intentional nerf, or simply a bug? Why was the code changed in the first place?

1. It's a bug

If so... then at some point in the (near) future we should be seeing another emergency maintenance. There will be no need to adjust battle tactics and life will resume as per the past.

2. It's intentional

If this is the case, then let's consider why they would have done such a thing. Looking at the last update, they did add one little thing that could have an effect on resist rates: RDM Tier II en-spells.

So far, I haven't seen a single RDM use these spells yet. I've heard of RDMs going out to farm them, maybe some people buying them, but I've never seen a single RDM casting it and going out to melee. What if they changed resist rates so that it would force people to use RDMs on the front-line? Since RDMs are the #1 enfeebler out there, chances are if you want to enfeeble a mob, you'd have a RDM around, so having them use their en-spell IIs would make sense. The tier II en-spells lower the mob's resistance to the opposite element.

So... in theory, if you're fighting a NM and need to land Slow on it, have a RDM cast Enthunder II, run up and poke the mob and enfeeble it. The resistance lowering effect of Enthunder II should allow Slow and Elegy to reach their former lengths and strengths. The RDM would have to keep meleeing in order to keep the resistance lowered... and the RDM would actually have to HIT the mob, which is what Composure is for.

By the same token, this might also end up making Stutter Step more useful. While Stutter Step lowers magical resistance of a mob, in practice I've never actually needed to use it. Most mages are properly equipped with magical accuracy gear, so there really was no reason to use Stutter Step. By increasing mob resistance to a point where you'd actually NEED either a RDM or DNC in order to properly enfeeble it would be just what a sadistic developer who wants to influence player behavior would do.

Of course, this is simply a theory... it's more likely that it's #1, and they're not going to fix it since the devs probably do not play the game and aren't bothered at all by having their customers be angry at them.

Tanking Math

Last night, Fuuji was telling the BLMs that "nuking every 30 seconds keeps you safe" during Tinnin. He also said to give the PLDs a minute to get hate before starting to attack. With all the enmity math I did, I wanted to figure out how tightly you could nuke and still be "safe", and how long would it take for a tank to build enough hate before you could start nuking.

Let's make a few assumptions... we're fighting some sort of large NM, like a Tier IV ZNM or Proto-Omega. I'm using a level 85 mob for the purposes of the calculation. Let's also assume that we have a nice BLM that can cast a spell that does 1k damage. Merits and partial resists would make that go up or down of course, but 1k is a nice round number to play with.

For damage dealt enmity against a level 85 mob doing 1k damage, we have:

CE = 1.379 x 1000 = 1,379

VE = 4.14 x 1000 = 4,140

Very high amounts. That's a total of 5,519 enmity done in one spell. VE decays at a rate of 60/second, so to bleed off all VE would take 92 seconds. Taken another way, a BLM who wants to stay VE neutral can do up to 870 damage/minute. Your CE will cap at 10,000 after 8 minutes, but that is expected in any long fight. It's the tank's job to maintain CE + VE at higher than 15,000 total in order to hold hate against a prudent BLM.

So... looking at these numbers, nuking every 30 seconds isn't really that safe. You'd have to about 435 damage per nuke if you want to stay under the radar. Nuking for over this every 30 seconds would result in a net VE gain and you'd eventually be smacked... as proven by Fuuji himself last night :)

Summary so far:

- A BLM(or any DD) will generate about 5,500 total enmity for every 1k damage done

- Hence, before any serious attacks can take place, the tank has to generate at least 5,500 enmity

- DDs can do damage at a rate of 870 damage/minute and stay VE neutral, that is, they will not pull the hate of the mob no matter what if the tank is doing their job. If you do damage higher than this rate, you will eventually pull hate.

- For reference, any healer can cure at a rate of 826HP/minute and stay VE neutral according to the same 60VE/second bleed-off rate. Of course, this does not count the lower enmity effect of gear and Cure V

Alright, so now we have some numbers to work with... how cast can a typical endgame tank reach the initial 5,500 total enmity number, and can they keep it up?

PLD/NIN

This job has surprisingly the least number of hate gaining tools. The big ones are Flash (180 CE, 1280 VE), Sentinel (1800 VE) and Shield Bash (900 VE). The rest of the hate must be obtained through curing, either themselves, or other people, and doing damage.

So... spiking initial hate gain using Sentinel and all abilities, we get:

- Sentinel (1,800) + Shield Bash (2x 900) + Flash (2x 180CE + 2x 1280VE) = 6,520 total enmity

Now, the danger here is that most of this is VE and only 360 is VE. This means that if a PLD goes all out in the beginning, chances are they will be able to hold hate through a trigger-happy BLM. However, a PLD's recast timers are such that just through job abilities alone, they cannot maintain their developed VE. Even Flash has a 45 second recast... with Haste and Fast Cast gear, they can reduce the VE loss rate, but they'd have to make up the remaining VE through damage dealt.

- Side note: Having a PLD start off a fight with a 300% TP Spirits Within is definitely a good way to start the fight. This would throw up about 3,300 enmity from the start, giving the PLD a head start in establishing hate.

Of course, the biggest advantage of this combination is that with Utsusemi, you're reducing the rate you lose CE by simply not taking damage. In theory, this means that a good PLD/NIN tank that is conscious of their shadows while doing damage and curing OTHER people should be able to build up to the 20k total enmity cap over time. I'd wait at least a few minutes before seriously attacking the enemy with a PLD/NIN tank

PLD/WAR

This combination is almost never used for tanking anything big simply due to the enmity loss from taking damage. You need to reduce the CE loss as much as possible. As my last post pointed out, you can't hold hate even if you're curing all the damage you take. There is a net CE loss from taking damage then curing it again.

Still, PLD/WAR has one advantage: Provoke. This gives an extra 1,800 VE over PLD/NIN. Combine that with Sentinel, that's another 3,600, almost reaching the 10k from the get go. Since this is mostly VE, damage taken would not reduce it. The PLD/WAR would also be able to maintain their VE at a high level since the recast and enmity gain of Provoke is equal to the loss rate. A PLD/WAR could reach the VE cap of 10,000 and pretty much stay there as soon as the fight begins. This would allow all DDs to do damage immediately after the fight begins.

The disadvantage is that a PLD/WAR would never be able to build CE. Damage taken would wipe out any CE gains, even if the PLD cures herself. Hence, in any long fight, other members of the party or alliance would pull hate no matter how long they wait between actions simply because they build up CE to the point where they hit the 10,000 cap, matching the PLD/WAR's VE cap. Any action that generates VE would get the mob's attention.

So, this is a good tank for only short fights where you want to do as much damage up front as possible.

PLD/RDM

This is an interesting combination... you're still blood tanking, but you are using two things to obtain a net gain in CE.

- Reduction of damage via Phalanx

- Increase in CE generation tools

A RDM sub has a few interesting hate generation tools, specifically:

- Dispel: 320 CE, 320 VE, recast time 10s

- Sleep: 320 CE, 320 VE, recast time 30s

- Blind: 640 VE, recast time 10s

- Bind: 640 VE, recast time 40s

So, if you spam just these 4 spells, you can gain CE at a rate of 2,560/minute, and VE at a rate of 7,040/minute. A single minute of this brings you to about 6k total enmity, and 4 minutes would cap both CE & VE. Starting to attack at the 1 minute mark is about right.

This assumes that you are not suffering so much damage that it negates the CE gain. Your CE loss would need to be less than 2,560/minute, which means (assuming a PLD with 1200HP):

2,560 CE loss = 1800 x [Damage taken] / [Target Max HP]

Damage taken = 2560 * 1200 / 1800 = 1,706 HP/minute, or 85 HP/tick

This is about 2-3 Cure Vs in 1 minute... for any mob that does more damage than this in a minute, the PLD/RDM tank will not have any net CE gain (and probably run all mages out of MP)

Hence, PLD/RDM is good for long battles where the mobs do not do much damage. The time it takes to cast spells, spell interruption, etc. would make PLD/WAR a better choice for shorter battles.

NIN & /NIN

Overall, there are two ways to maintain a high hate line:

- Cap VE and have a method of maintaining it at the high level. WAR and /WAR have this capability simply through Provoke. PLDs need to do damage + cure in order to maintain and gain VE.

- Cap CE and do not let it go down. You need a way to avoid or reduce damage taken. NIN or /NIN is the best way to do this.

Of course, the danger with relying on Utsusemi to keep CE up is that if a hit does get through, you end up losing a ton of CE due to damage taken. The best way to guard against this is to have a 2nd layer of defense so that even if a hit gets past Utsusemi, you take minimal damage.

Now, instead of going through the math, I'll just talk briefly about a few other jobs

NIN/DRK:

Lots of high CE (Sleep, Aspir, Stun) and VE (Bind, Absorb-spells, Last Resort, Souleater) spells job abilities. Ninjitsu spells generate a decent amount of enmity as well, though you trade off VE for CE. Can hit CE cap easily and much faster compared to a PLD/NIN, though maintaining VE would be difficult. Would need to spam Absorb spells, Bind and Ninjitsu to maintain a high VE. You can probably start attacking about a minute into battle if the tank starts by spamming job abilities. Would also lose hate much easier compared to a PLD/NIN simply due to taking more damage.

NIN/RDM:

Now... this is interesting... I don't think I've seen anyone talk about this combination before. It would essentially be similar to both NIN/DRK and PLD/RDM. You'd lose the high enmity from Stun, but you'd gain Stoneskin, Phalanx and better be able to reduce CE loss if you take hits. You'd use the same casting cycle as PLD/RDM, Dispel, Sleep, Bind, Blind, etc. Might be a better choice compared to NIN/DRK simply due to Stoneskin.

RDM/NIN:

This is a very similar scenario to PLD/RDM, except with more damage mitigation tools to stop CE loss. Utsusemi, Stoneskin would cut down CE loss to almost 0, assuming you're not fighting something that hits too fast. It would require a good RDM who can both track shadows, and keep track of how much Stoneskin is left and when to recast it. Properly played, RDM/NIN should be able to hit both the VE & CE cap and keep it there, allowing all damage dealers to go all out.

NIN/WAR & WAR/NIN:

The WAR side of things basically gives you Provoke as the VE tool, assuming you provoke every 30 seconds. After that, hate gain is entirely through damage (and to an extent, ninjitsu in the case of NIN/WAR)

The disadvantage of these combinations is that if a hit gets through shadows, you'll lose CE very fast simply by taking a lot of damage.

DNC/NIN:

The main disadvantage of DNC/NIN is that the job is slow to build up enmity. We can maintain VE using our job abilities, but any net VE or CE gain needs to come from either damage dealt, or damage cured. A Dancer attempting to tank needs to strike a balance between keeping TP to cure, keeping Finishing Moves to use Animated Flourish, and using TP to do damage.

The advantage is that besides Utsusemi, we have Fan Dance that can help reduce damage taken and slow down the CE loss, giving us an advantage over NIN/WAR or WAR/NIN.

Overall Conclusion

Basically... RDM/NIN and NIN/DRK are your best bets for tanks that can get up to a high level of hate quickly and maintain it. PLD/NIN is probably the next best bet only because it takes a longer time to generate hate compared to the first two jobs. However, PLD/NIN has the advantage of being able to cut down on CE loss due to taking less damage. Throw in a Scholar or Blue Mage for some Stoneskin and you'd really help out in that department.

NIN/RDM is a combination that I think has a high possibility of being a more reliable tank compared to NIN/DRK. You'd lose access to Stun, but you'd gain more safety with Stoneskin and Phalanx and hence, lose less CE over the long-term.

WAR/NIN and NIN/WAR can maintain VE, but they do not have enough hate tools to really compete with the other three tank combinations, and would lose hate too easily from simply taking hits.

DNC/NIN is a combination that has yet to be tested out. From the theory, I can already tell that it would be harder to get going in a solo tank situation as it requires someone *other* than the Dancer to take damage in order to generate hate, and it takes a longer time compared to NIN/DRK or RDM/NIN to generate both CE & VE. This could lead to risky situations if the other party members are not jobs that can take the beating. In a co-tank situation, we'll have to see if a DNC can grab hate from the other tank and hold onto it.

Overall, it is safe to start attacking after about 2 minutes of the tanks engaging. After 4 minutes, all tanks should be at their respective hate caps. As long as you stay under 870 damage dealt per minute, or 826 HP healed/minute (individually, not alliance total), you'll be fine and not have to log out to clear hate.

DNC Gear

I picked up some +enmity gear last night to experiment with Dancer tanking... Grabbed a Harmonia's Torque and Eris Earring for now... I already have the Etoile's Bangles, and a Warwolf Belt from BLU. I also have a regular Breath Mantle from my brief period leveling PLD that I'll experiment with before investing any more into this theory. Connie pointed out that Dorado Sushi has +enmity on it, so I'll try some of that out.

I'm planning on customizing my ACP armor (assuming we actually finish this) with +5 enmity and +10 evasion... a very strange combination compared to what I'm sure other people are doing. However, I really do not have any use for this armor. On BLU, I'm set with AF+1 & Relic. SCH I'm set with relic + AF. On DNC, I'm set for a Haste body set, and I'll *eventually* pick up a better accuracy/attack body piece, either the Enkidu's harness or the Etoile body. Meanwhile a +enmity piece be interesting to experiment with, and +evasion would help shadow recasts.

Oh, and congrats to Zu for his pink harness... now he'd better get on more often and use it or else I might lose one of my daggers... in his back!

ACP review, weekend of fail, tanking

Came across this little review on ACP:

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3173796&p=1

Love it... "F" rating.

Only other thing I have to say: Good trick asking us to pre-order this expansion. It worked. Not only did you get money one billing period before you released the content, you also successfully tricked people into buying something they would never have bought had they read the reviews.

Weekend of fail

So, weekend of fail continues with a Limbus failure... 2nd failure in a row... or is it 3rd? I'm losing count. I do remember that the last time we succeeded we got crappy drops that almost went to the floor. Of course we get another chip drop from a pod bringing us to 3/4 for another attempt, though I'm wondering what's the point if we can't win.

I'm *hoping* that this failure was due to the whole enfeebling nerf that SE introduced with the last patch... From what I'm reading, enfeebles(Para, slow, sleep) aren't lasting as long as they used to... I'm guessing that they're half as effective too?

Up to the Fei'Yin BS run-around and fight for ACP, so... who knows, maybe that will get done eventually.

Tonight is supposed to be the Tinnin ZNM... I'm predicting one of the following will occur:

1. Enough people do not have 500 zeni so we can't do the event

2. Wipe to Tinnin

3. Tinnin's drops consist of Shusui and nothing of value

Would be an appropriate way to continue the week of fail.

Tanking

So I've pretty much decided to abandon PLD again due to the huge amount of idiots out there, as well as the annoyances and frustrations of FFXI taking the toll on me. My chainmail armor is in storage, but I'm still holding onto my PLD27 gear since I have a ton of storage now with that Mog Satchel in case someone decides to put together a lowbie party. I'm sure there's someone else out there who will tank if necessary on PLD :P Instead, I'm looking again at the possibility of Dancer as a tank from a different angle. Also, this might be a good enough distraction from the annoyances that are pissing me off to keep at least some interest in FFXI.

The main reason the idea of a DNC tank came about due to the group 2 merit "Fan Dance" that had a description of "increases enmity". Also, the Etoile Bangles have +2 enmity, very strange compared to the -5 total from the Dancer's attire set. Add to that a Dancer's naturally high evasion and high amount of hate from curing, there is a possibility that suitably equipped and played, a Dancer could tank.

Previous testing has lead to some success... I know I can solo a large number of mobs that most jobs would simply run away from. Now the question is can I maintain the attention of a mob in anything other than a solo/low-man situation? I've gotten a lot of practice with soloing and using the full abilities of a Dancer since the last time I tried this. I already know that Dancers aren't suitable for mobs that have magical attacks that can one-shot me (use a PLD)

Most people know about the enmity research done by someone else banned from the game about Cumulative Enmity (CE) and Volatile Enmity (VE). The research pretty much quantifies how NIN/DRK and RDM/NIN tanks work, and why PLD/NIN is better compared to PLD/WAR. Let's see how this research can be applied to a potential Dancer tank.

Curing enmity gain

The #1 reason any Dancer gets hate in the first place is through curing. That's one reason why most Dancers sub NIN in the first place... we can and do cure that much.

So, let's take a simple example of a DNC 75 curing 400 damage (either to herself or someone else). Using the formulas at http://kanican.livejournal.com/30142.html, we get:

CE = [CE modifier] x [HP cured]

VE = [VE modifier] x [HP cured]

At level 75, the modifiers are 0.727 & 4.36 respectively, so:

CE = [0.727] x [400] = 290

VE = [4.36] x [400] = 1745

Damage taken enmity loss

At some point, a tank will take damage, even subbing NIN. Let's see how badly that affects the amount of enmity you have. Now we're using the damage taken formula from http://kanican.livejournal.com/31613.html

For comparison to the curing section above, I'm using the same 400 damage taken

CE Loss = 1800 x [Damage taken] / [Max HP]

Right now, I have about 1200 HP on Dancer, depending on sub, so we have:

CE Loss = 1800 x 400 / 1200 = 600 CE lost

Cumulative Enmity

The Dancer enmity table at http://kanican.livejournal.com/20722.html shows that the only way a Dancer can obtain CE is through curing. The other way would be through damage, but I'm not going to argue that a Dancer can keep up with a dedicated DD, especially when the focus is curing and holding the attention of a mob. A Dancer with no gear, no merits attempting to tank and cure herself will quickly lose out to other people in terms CE generation since you end up with a net loss of CE over time.

CE Conclusion: The difference in enmity lost vs. gained in curing is too great to be overcome. 290 vs. 600. The most enmity gain through equipment and abilities is +100, which would double the CE gained which is still 20 CE short of the amount lost for curing the same amount. Simply put, pure CE tanking will not work. Getting hit means a net loss of CE. We have to avoid being hit in order to maintain CE at a high level.

However, it is good to know that a single Curing Waltz III is approximately equal to a Provoke in terms of VE.

Volatile Enmity

Now that we've determined that the only way to accumulate CE to hold hate is basically not be hit, let's take a look at VE instead. Just like CE, VE has a cap of 10,000 units. The main difference is that VE decays over time at a rate of -60 VE/sec, or 1,800 VE/30 seconds. This is also the total enmity, and the recast time for Provoke...

Tests have shown that taking damage only affects CE and not VE. The only way to reduce VE is to wait for it to decay (I think?). Still the loss rate of -60VE/sec is quite high and difficult to overcome.

Taking another look at the Dancer enmity table, we can see that the Flourish I category all have the same spike VE at 1,500 VE. These abilities are on the same timer, between 20-30 seconds. Desperate Flourish & Violent Flourish both have 20 second timers, but have a possibility of missing, while Animated Flourish has a 30 second timer, just like Provoke.

One thing that is amusing is that Spectral Jig has 300 VE. This has a recast time of 30s, which means combined with Violent Flourish, we can match the 1,800 VE/30 seconds to counter the decay. Job Abilities are instant, so there isn't really any time lost... Still, it would be amusing to watch your tank disappear every 30 seconds!

Now add on the VE from any cures and we have a high rate of VE gain. If you figure a Dancer using Animated Flourish + Jigs to maintain their VE floor, any form of curing done would be increasing the Dancer's VE. At about 1,800 per Curing Waltz III, a Dancer can get to the 10,000 VE cap in about 5-6 casts. Divine Waltz would do this just even faster, taking only 4 Waltzes hitting 6 people for about 100 HP each to hit the cap.

(This also explains why in Dynamis and Einherjar, I'm always the one who ends up being targeted by mobs when they wake up. I spam Divine Waltz to keep the HP of my party near full, and that generates a ton of VE compared to the 180 CE of Sleepga II, or even the 1,800 VE of a Provoke)

The problem with using Cures to gain VE is that the Dancer has to have someone to cure for it to work. This means that someone, possibly the Dancer or another tank, has to be hit. The best case scenario is fighting a mob with a lot of non-crippling AoE attacks that hit everyone in the party. Spamming Divine Waltz on a lightly damaged party would easily get to cap VE.

VE Conclusion: Keeping VE up is pretty much the only possible way a Dancer can really tank. First, we need to constantly use Animated Flourish (and Spectral Jig) to counter the VE decay rate, then we need to basically cure to increase VE to cap. Once we're at VE cap, we can actually back off from curing as long as we keep "provoking" every 30 seconds to maintain VE. Almost no Dancer that I know of (including me) has attempted to maintain hate in this way... Perhaps it's time to try it out?

Merits + Gear

This entire exercise started due to Fan Dance and it's enmity attributes. So far, when I've been attempting to tank, I've been using Haste Samba, Curing and only switching on Fan Dance when trouble starts. This is not the right approach for a tanking Dancer.

From testing, Fan Dance gives +15 enmity. This means that the 1,500 VE Animated Flourish is bumped up to 1,725, almost matching the VE decay rate. Throw in some extra gear and a Dancer can probably get up to the VE cap significantly faster with Fan Dance up. While Enmity gear that is usable by a Dancer is rare, this is what I've found so far:

- Etoile Bangles - +2

- Warwolf Belt - +3

- Harmonia's Torque OR Ritter Gorget - +3

- Heroic boots - +1

- Eris Earring - +2

- Mermaid's Ring - +2

- High Breath Mantle - +5

For a total of +18 equipment-based +enmity. Add that to Fan Dance and we have a total of 33%. If you customize a Mirke Wardecors for +5 enmity, this bring is to a total of +38%. This would be a significant increase for enmity gain. So, keeping Fan Dance up at all times when a Dancer is trying to tank would help significantly for keeping hate.

Plus, there's the side effect that Fan Dance significantly reduces physical damage (90% reduction, going down by 10% per hit the mob gets) which helps reduce the amount of CE lost :)

Subjob Choice

Not much to talk about here. Subbing NIN means that you can slow down CE decay simply by not taking many hits (-25 CE per shadow compared to the -600 CE for a 400HP hit). SAM sub is really just about having Meditate around for extra TP, but the 60 extra TP every 3 minutes does not counter the CE loss from taking more hits.

WAR sub would be an interesting choice. This would throw in a few extra VE abilities (mainly Provoke & Warcry) making it a lot easier to reach the VE cap. It would also add in the Defender ability to reduce damage taken, though I'm not sure how effective it would be. For shorter fights where spike VE is needed up front, DNC/WAR might be necessary to grab hate during the first few seconds of the fight.

Overall Dancer tank conclusion

So, the best tank that you really want is one that can keep both CE & VE at the capped amounts. If you start a Dancer off as a tank from the beginning, you can end up with a high VE tank, but damage to the Dancer would prevent CE from building too high unless you had other party members in range to take damage and be cured by the Dancer. A co-tank situation might be best, where a Dancer starts off by accumulating CE by being the main healer of the alternate tank. Once enough CE is built up (which from my experience, already happens easily in long fights), the Dancer can actually take over tanking simply by throwing in Animated Flourish + Spectral Jig to stop VE decay. A couple of Waltzes should hit the VE cap and let the Dancer take over.

What next? Well... for starters, I'm going to pick up the +enmity equipment I described above. Except for the Ritter Gorget, all items are available on the AH for fairly reasonable prices. I'll probably hold off on the Mermaid's Ring until I determine that this actually works. Next, I'd have to find a mob to tank with on an experimental basis... For starters, I'm thinking of the Ermine's Tail NM. Connie, Utty and Karou have all helped me for this fight, and for the most part, I'm already the tank for this, but it requires them holding back (or subbing THF to plant hate on me) I'd like to see how different it would be constantly using Animated Flourish (or Violent Flourish)

After that... well, time to take my Dancer to some big fight and play with it there. Preferably a non-critical situation where having me intentionally pulling hate will not result in a wipe. I'm thinking either another Tier III ZNM fight, or possibly a mission somewhere...

Had enough of SE "probability" BS

ok, that's the last straw. I was originally going to put together a post about AP having fun, doing things together with mission friday and tease Vanh about coming back. Instead, mission friday turned out to be a complete disaster.

What I had in mind was that we'd get together, go out and farm items together, fool around a little and make some progress and at least complete the Fei-Yin fight.

What happened was that everyone ended up basically on their own at different stages, and were either waiting for others to catch up, or trying to catch up. People went afk, logged out and came back later, or were struggling to stay awake in a 5 hour ordeal. What made things worse was the completely fucked up random probability of items dropping, turning what should have been an evening of fun to people getting bored, frustrated and going to sleep without a single thing accomplished.

I just spent Friday evening running around alone in a bunch of zones one-shotting low level mobs for 5 hours straight. This expansion is complete BULLSHIT. This isn't a game. It isn't even work. Work is productive, you get things done. This is some idiot's fucked up excuse to put a completely fucked up, unnecessary grind instead of actually using their imagination, or stealing someone else's idea to put together a challenge. This is nothing but a time waster, just like the original Genkai 1, just like the collecting of items for WotG missions. There is no challenge. There is no intelligence. There is no gameplay.

This sorry excuse for "gameplay" is evident in everything that FFXI offers. Sure, there's an initial challenge in figuring things out for Nyzul Isle, Salvage, Dynamis, etc., but once the challenge is overcome, any possibility of a reward is all based on "luck" or "probability" instead of actually giving solid rewards for figuring things out. It's all just a scam to draw out more subscription dollars instead of creating real content.

It's bad enough that this sort of random reward system is present throughout FFXI endgame... but this is simply a MISSION that players are trying to do. It isn't some crazy, powerful weapon... it's content that we actually paid for. Paid a high price in real money. I already covered what a rip-off I think this expansion is, but I was already suckered by SE in their whole "preorder the expansion" bullshit. I'm not falling for that again. Next time you go to the movies... just think... they could have also asked you to mop the floor and clean the toilets for the price you pay for your tickets. Actually, cleaning the toilets would at least have been a better use of time compared to this.

Sure, at SOME point in the future, they will put an update together that says "adjusted drop rate for X item" in order to appease people, but by then, 99% of their subscription base would have gone through it anyway, and this would be an empty gesture to show that they "care for the community."

I'm sorry... I have better things to do with my time... for example, watch CSPAN, read the tax code, watch paint dry.

I think at the end of this month I have some serious thinking to do, along the lines of a certain Vanh taru.

Random Friday updates

It's Friday afternoon... I try to do as little work as possible on Fridays so that I don't screw things up and have to work and fix it over the weekend. Hence, here I am blogging!

Random stuff...

Picked up some new equipment for my computer. I'm upgrading from my old 20" LCD to a new 24" widescreen LCD, adding 320 pixels of horizontal width to my screen. The FFXi chat box looks kinda silly at 1920x1200, with the longest chat line only coming halfway across the screen.

I also picked up a new set of 5.1 speakers to replace an older set of 4.1 that I could never hook up properly. The change in sound is significant! I didn't realize that there was so many subtle tones in FFXI's music. Lots of little extra sound effects too. That's why I was asking last night during Salvage if the music was the same as Nyzul Isle... to me it actually sounded different, a lot more detail xD

What else... picked up a new optical audio cable since one of my older ones wasn't letting enough light through. Strange that the most expensive cable I had bought in the past (simply cos there was nothing else around) was the only one to stop working. It's kinda annoying how optical cables vary in price so much... I managed to find one for $9.99, but it was much longer than I need... oh well!

Anime

Spring 2009 season starto! I'm just finishing up last season's series right now... Finished up Marimite, Gundam 00 S2 so far. Sora wo Kakeru Shoujo is still going on since that's a longer series, and some series have fallen off the plate.

For this season, I'm downloading the first episode of everything again and trying it out before deciding what to watch... so far, on my "will watch" list is:

- Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood - A retelling of the original series! Who hasn't heard of FMA? xD This time around it seems like they're doing a lot more emphasis on the comedy of what will end up a dark series.

- K-On! - Slice of life high school comedy/drama. Four girls in high school putting together a band. Episode 1 looks pretty fun so far, so this series has lots of potential

- Eden of the East (Higashi no Eden) - So... just imagine that you're a girl on vacation from Japan... you're in front of the Whitehouse, admiring it when the scary police start to question you. Suddenly, a naked man comes streaking by and into your life, then a terrorist bomb goes off in Tokyo just before your flight back takes off.... yes, it's another crazy series xD

- Valkyria Chronicles - Based on the PS3 game, this anime is actually doing a really good job of replicating the art style of pencil-shading that was used in the game. I'm playing the game while watching the anime, and so far, the anime version tells a much more interesting story with little cute details that aren't in the game.

- Shangri-La - Global warming gone wild. Carbon credits have taken off and become a weird trading market identical to stocks. The world is flooded with heavy-handed government/military organizations vs. refugees who are... erm... against reforestation. Oh, and a girl who has a boomerang that can cut through tanks. Another weird series!

FFXI

Random FFXI update... MMM is giving me an annoying time. That stupid Dhamel NM doesn't want to go down sometimes, with fights that either end in 10-15 minutes, or don't end at all as it spams Healing Breeze... I'm getting really annoyed with this. Big thanks to Connie who comes along to help, but even with his help we don't always win >.<

Salvage last night... another interesting system with lots of possible high-level strategies and on-hand tactics. Last night was the first time I was actually paying attention to what had to be done and what we were doing... we actually got a Marduke level 15 body piece (congrats Dexie) so it wasn't a completely wasted run. DNC works really well for Salvage since I'm nearly fully effective with just Job Abilities unlocked.

Soooo... supposed to be mission Friday tonight... we'll see how this goes. From what I'm hearing, we may be stalled since the stupid ACP missions require dumb luck just based on drop rates. Since we can't control that, there's a possibility that we'll end up stuck farming all night... we'll see what happens... (and who shows up)

Next few weeks... probably wanna do some WotG stuff for people, get people caught up, then look at helping people hammer out Zilart of CoP missions. Post a comment if you have missions you wanna do :P

[Taking a break] [Short time]

Last night I logged out completely exhausted from an entire night of ZNMs... I think I'm overextended at this point. Too many events going on, too many conversations, too much in /tell and too much trying to think about everyone to get them all up-to-date and involved. I'm making too many mistakes, which leads to failures (hi Limbus), people getting killed(baibai DD party vs. Armed Gears), or people feeling like they are being left out.

So... I need a break... time to cut back a little and not do as much. Good thing is that for most events where I'm heavily involved, there are other people who do a much better job of leading things.

Events I'll definitely continue doing:
- Dynamis - Simple, just come, contribute, try to get killed.
- Limbus - Utty is really the one who knows everything about Limbus and calls the shots.
- ZNMs - Fuuji is da man for this one. I just shuffle papers.

Events I may show up to:
- Einherjar - Scheduled time is really inconvenient... I'll probably stop going to this unless I happen to be completely free during that time for some reason.
- Salvage - Want to at least try it out a few times just for the challenge... Not sure if I'll do this event for the long-term though. The only thing I'd want out of it is the Mythic Weapon for Dancer, and I'm pretty sure that it's not worth the time investment.
- Exp - This will depend more on my mood... sometimes I want to just grind mindlessly for a few hours if I get into the mood for it, but that mood seems to come randomly. Same for leveling a lowbie job... sometimes the mood strikes me, but that's pretty rare.

Events that need someone to take over:
- Nyzul Isle - After leading the group around for this long, I'm getting tired of having to gather people, remind people to login (/stare Zurar) and finding replacements for no-shows to get a group together. Need someone to take over for the setting up of the event, as in getting people logged in, setup a party so that we can start. Nyzul is 7:30pm PST on Sunday. I can still lead the actual charge during the event and giving instructions what to do... anyone want to step up for this?
- Mission Friday - Yes, I know we haven't really started this... but I'd really appreciate it if someone wouldn't mind stepping up to help me get people organized... First mission Friday starts 7:30pm PST with item farming for ACP.

So, anyone out there who can give me a hand? If I don't respond to your tells during events, that probably means that I either missed it entirely, or your comment/question is something that needs to be addressed with everyone that I'll bring up in party chat.

Mission Friday, schedule update, exp/merits + more

So, it looks like my previous post was almost as emo as a certain cat, to the point where it made a certain taru misunderstand things are going. I figured that I'd put together another post with the reality of things :P

Actually, quite a few things have been going on, and even more are scheduled, so... here's an update

Mission Friday

So, this came out of mostly a desire to go finish the new add-on, "A Crystalline Prophecy" in a fun manner with friends instead of doing stuff alone and hoping for a pickup party. The idea is that we'll start doing missions on Fridays, starting with ACP, and working out other missions that people need... preferably for as many people as possible who need them.

This Friday: ACP starting with... well, the very beginning. Just get your opening cutscene in Lower Jeuno. I'll teleport people around around while we all farm the necessary items for everyone (main or sub THF if you have it) and progress through things. We'll see how far we get. I'm hoping to get to at least the Fei-Yin fight.

If possible, read up on the various tasks from the wiki page.

Next few weeks would be to finish up ACP, then work on WotG quests for people to get everyone up to date with the last update. This means the nation quests just past the battle for Jeuno. Beyond that... we'll see... maybe some nation quests, Zilart missions, helping people with CoP or ToAU missions.

Schedule Update

Some slight changes to the schedule

- Nyzul Isle - Sunday only affair, 4 runs, starting at 7:30pm PST

Participants: me, Ghiren, Zurar, Karou, Utaru, and need a 6th helper... Dexie if possible, or Kurai if he actually comes back :P Fuuji has KS99 so chances are he won't be around to help.

- Salvage - Thursdays

This might actually start up this Thursday... I'm not certain I'd actually get anything out of this since none of my jobs actually benefit much from Salvage armor... plus I actually don't like having incomplete armor sets and there's no way I'd be able to afford the body piece. The only thing I actually want out from Salvage is to get a Terpsichore, so we'll have to see how the event goes and how we end up splitting up Alexanderite before I decide how much I commit to this.

All other events seem to be holding steady... ZNMs, Dynamis, Limbus, Einherjar. Also seem to be getting back on the exp treadmill, at least for the time being. Prime exp times are either Saturday afternoon, or Sunday afternoon if I decide to hang out at home, and possibly Tuesday nights.

Exp/Merits

Thanks to Connie's exp parties this past weekend, I'm finally capped on Dancer merits. My Dancer merit choices are probably a little strange compared to what "ordinary" Dancers choose.

Group 1:

- 4x Haste Samba Effect (9% total Haste Samba)

- 4x Reverse Flourish Effect (+12 TP per Reverse Flourish)

- 2x Steps Accuracy (+6 accuracy)

Most people go 5/5 for Haste & Reverse Flourish. I decided to put two into Steps Accuracy as missing even one Step bugs me. So far, this has been working well and I now rarely, if ever miss steps, even in pure Haste gear.

Group 2:

- 2x Saber Dance (4:30 recast time)

- 5x Fan Dance (2:30 recast time)

- 3x No Foot Rise (3 Finishing Moves)

Most people go 5 on No Foot Rise, and usually try to max out Saber Dance and pretend to be a DD. I chose 3 merits for No Foot Rise because I intended to use this as a fill-in for if I ever miss a Step. If we're waiting before an event starts, it makes no difference if I'm using Reverse Flourish on 3 finishing moves, or 5, since I'll eventually hit 300% TP. When combat actually starts, the Steps & Reverse Flourish timer is such that I'll use Reverse Flourish for every 2 steps/4 finishing moves and optimally never use No Foot Rise. However, if I ever miss a step, which does occasionally happen, I can use No Foot Rise to make up the remaining Finishing Moves and use Reverse Flourish on schedule without wasting any moves.

5/5 on Fan Dance makes a lot of sense considering how much hate a Dancer can pull. It's my favorite move actually, turning a Dancer into a make-shift tank that is doing a ton of healing. It has saved my life many times in Einherjar and Dynamis. However, cutting off Sambas means that very often I'd want to deactivate it once danger has passed. Reducing the downtime of Fan Dance cuts down on the window which I'm vulnerable. Between Fan Dance and Utsusemi and high evasion, this makes for a very strong front-line healer/soloer combination.

Final two merits went into Saber Dance. I definitely wanted one to unlock Saber Dance, and I threw the second one there too just to be able to activate it again a little faster. Closed Position is good for soloing, but not very useful in party situations where the mob may not be facing me. The +3 accuracy and evasion will not make too big of a difference as if I'm facing a mob which 3 evasion will make a difference, chances are i can't solo it in the first place.

Other Dancer merits I've already unlocked are:

- 8/8 Dagger

- 4/4 Evasion

- 4/4 Critical hit rate

Overall, Dancer is really shaping up nicely. I still have a few pieces of gear I need to round the job off, including:

- Etoile gear... finishing the set, but especially the tights which will be a full-time piece replacing my Cobra Unit Subligar due to the 3% Haste

- Enkidu's Harness & Subligar - Finishing off my accuracy/dd set

- Ermine's Tail - +8 evasion, high damage dagger - This would replace my Behemoth Knife as my full-time off-hand dagger. Drops from that MMM Dhamel NM Purushamriga. This was the mob that Kurai & I were always looking for help in fighting, but thanks to Zurar & Utty, I've set up my maze in such a way that I can solo it on DNC/NIN. It takes a long time to beat it down since it has over 10k HP, has a TP move that heals for over 2k and hits for over 300 per hit, but Fan Dance and my evasion equipment let me slowly chip it down. Now I just need a drop >.> I've already gotten the RDM rune from the hoardbox, so... hopefully sometime soon >.>

Other merits

I'm now looking at doing the following merits:

- Go for 8/8 Max HP

I think this will help all my jobs... BLU, DNC for having a higher HP, and Scholar benefits indirectly since this increases my Sublimation cap. Max MP looked interesting, but I still believe that MP regeneration rate matters a lot more compared to max MP. The only job that really benefits from tweaking max MP would be RDM

- Possibly: 4/4 Spell Interruption Rate (for a total of 8%)

I'm not sure how much this will help preventing enemies from interrupting Utsusemi casting... I normally do a Violent Flourish to stun if I'm having trouble, but of the "other" category, this seems like something reasonable to round things out

- Attributes, I'm not certain... possibly increase Dex, Str or Int. Dex helps accuracy, WS damage on DNC, and Hysteric Barrage on BLU. Str helps damage and a lot on BLU, and of course Int for nuking on SCH. I probably won't touch this for a looooooooooong time

- Scholar: Not many really good merit choices, unlike DNC

* I've just unlocked Stormsurge for my first SCH merit... I can now give people either a +3 to any one attribute(+3 Str for Firestorm, +3 Int for Hailstorm), or +1 to all attributes. I'm debating whether to continue pumping merits into this... max would be +7 to a single attribute with max merits

* Of the remaining SCH-specific merits, not many are that appealing... I suppose if I had lots of merits to spare, I'd put some into Helix magic accuracy and unlock Enlightenment, but neither of those are that interesting

- Blue Mage: Been neglecting merits on this lately...

* Merit Diffusion down all the way to 10 minutes

* Finish up sword... I'm 2/8 right now, so bumping this up to 8/8 would help overall

* Finish up Assimilation for more BLU spells

* Merit Chain Affinity recast down... this does more for spells compared to everything else in group 1.

Exp

So... I'm still looking at leveling PLD at SOME point... mainly due to my desire to have a tanking job for a change of pace, but also because... well... the armor looks good! I thought PLD AF looks very noble, plus among the various ACP pieces, I thought the PLD/heavy DD piece looked the best.

Problem now is finding time to level this job ~.~

Other

Well... talking about ACP armor, I think I've pretty much decided that I'll hold off on the reward until I finish leveling PLD. Besides the fact that I like the looks of the Nuevo Coselete, I don't have much use for the other pieces...

- Mirke wardecors... has +dex, +str, and I could put on accuracy, fast cast, or evasion, but for DNC, I mainly use my Rapperne harness as is due to the +haste, and I'm hoping to eventually get an Enkidu's Harness or Etoile Casaque which are both significantly better. My BLU is better equipped with the Magus+1 and Mirage bodies for the Blue Magic Skill or Refresh

- Royal redingote... +MP, +Int... and I can throw on magical accuracy and magical attack bonus. However, Scholar's Gown has "enhances dark arts" which is a +15 skill for all BLM-type magic. The relic armor increases the effect of Sublimation, so there really is no place for the Royal Redingote

Other things... besides the other things that were mentioned in the last post, this update also brought about something called "Allied Note Notorious Monsters", or ANNMs as people are calling them. Apparently these are popped NMs similar to the ISNMs, using Allied Notes and are fought out in the field instead of in instanced battlefields. So far, some testing has been done and the rewards are significant. Besides exp, we have:

- Augmented regular gear like Errant pieces... and good Augments too, not the dumb ones

- Expensive crafting materials such as Angel Skin and O-ingots

No exp is lost if you die while fighting the NM, and it only costs either 1500 or 3000 AN to do the fight. Unfortunately, everyone in the party/alliance needs to buy the key item for the fight using AN, so it isn't as profitable on a per-person basis compared to ISNMs, but AN is a lot easier to come by. Perhaps sometime we can go poke around with this? More information is available on the wiki.

Otherwise, it's life as usual in FFXI... maybe a little busier due to the update + add-on expansion.

SE QA fail, update impressions

Two parts to this post... first about SE quality, then my impressions about the update content itself as well as the recent RMT activity.

QA - or lack thereof

One thing that really surprised me is the lack of testing... the big one is ranged attacks being ineffective. You have essentially one entire job (RNG) and two other jobs (COR & PUP) being disabled, which meant that they needed to have another emergency maintenance less than a day after their update...

Seems to me that they did not do any significant testing at all... more of a "it compiles, ship it" attitude. A few ways that this issue could have been caught:

- Automated regression testing: Have every job go out and do some basic moves. Ranger shoot arrow. Does arrow do expected damage? If not, raise a red flag. This can be easily done with basic software testing tools, many of which are cheap or even open source.

- Human testing: Have a human QA member login to every single job, test it out and do some basic activities... This should be a part of the basic release process. You can outsource the testing to India, China or Egypt for cheap

- Targeted testing: Your developers know what code they're mucking around with for the next update. Test those functions that you change before you ship. You've had months to do testing. >.>

So... I don't really think that SE has a real QA team behind FFXI. I don't think the developers play the game at all, and if they do, it's quite obvious which jobs that they do not play since this past update's bugs are easily caught with a few minutes of playing.

And there's really no excuse for this lack of QA. Assuming FFXI only has 500,000 players, each only having one character at $13/month, this means that they are bringing in at least $6.5m/month, or $78M/year. Let's take 5% of that and put it into QA and customer service. $3.9M/year can pay easily for a team of 20 highly qualified software developers, or a team of 50+ off-shored developers to do basic QA. You'd really only need 5-10 smart people with the appropriate tools to do basic automated regression testing.

Update/Changes impressions

Besides the failure of QA (and update speeds... geez... someone teach SE about buying burst bandwidth or peer-to-peer networking), here are some impressions on the update:

- Job changes:

Pretty good changes to WHM & RDM now. I'm especially happy about the WHM changes as it significantly boosts the job, making it the #1 healer to have, and even tempting me to go level it now even though I already have 3 healing jobs.

Composure is definitely a boost to RDMs. Knowing what a pain it is to keep a Refresh/Haste Cycle going, plus the general inefficiency of casting Refresh on yourself, this job ability significantly enhances the job.

- Campaign changes:

General failure... Reducing exp from attacking fortifications is a horrible idea. The exp from that isn't even that good compared to fighting real mobs, and if people try to afk, they'll normally end up dead once the first wave of campaign mobs comes by.

Not allowing people to skill up at all on fortifications seems unnecessary... with level sync already gimping people's skills, this just makes it that much harder to level a job up, especially for those people who have jobs that do not easily get parties. I'm just glad that I don't have anything to really skill up. I guess my Scholar staff skill will remain low

Personally, I stopped doing campaign months ago... this definitely isn't encouraging me to start again, and if I do, I'll be avoiding offensive campaigns. In the past, I preferred defensive campaigns since offensive campaigns often had long waits between waves of mobs. Now, with less exp for beating up fortifications, there's even less reason to go on the offensive.

- MMM changes:

Somewhat of a failure. They secretly nerfed the amount of marble reward you get for completing mazes. This means that it takes twice as long to farm marbles to set up your mazes. In return, I *suppose* you can share already created mazes with other people. I expect that this will likely make MMM even less attractive as you have to grind twice as long to get a chance at an item.

Supposedly there is an adjustment that the longer you go without doing a maze, you'll have a higher chance of a better reward. This means that if you don't do MMM on your maze for 4 days, you'll have the highest chance for a reward. We'll have to see if this "higher chance" is worth it or not. Drop rates are already horrible for this lackluster event

However, I *do* like having more music to choose from though :D

- Gobbiebag

I have mixed feelings about this... in general, the gobbiebag upgrades have become more and more expensive with every next upgrade, so it isn't too surprising that these final two upgrades are very expensive. However, the fact that the materials also compete with Salvage crafting materials and hecatomb materials seems to unfairly penalize players who are trying for those pieces of gear.

Personally, I'm holding off on this upgrade until after the initial inflation & rush... I'm sure people will end up farming these items and the market will take care of itself in a couple of months. Meanwhile, we can just use our Mog Satchels, which are...

- Mog Satchel/Security Token/RMT activity

Mixed feelings about this too... for two reasons.

1. The security token itself is a good idea. It will cut down customer service expenses to SE (and probably end with laying off of many GMs and phone customer service reps) as it will cut down on the number of accounts being compromised. One-time pads are the most secure mechanism there is, though having a physical device is a pain. I'm fairly certain that they're not making money on the manufacture and distribution of these tokens either. I'm hoping that they go the Blizzard way and release an iPhone app for it sometime too so I don't have to carry around a device I'm sure I'll eventually lose.

2. On the other hand, tying it to the Mog Satchel is a cheap trick. Everyone wants more inventory, and hence will buy the token just to get the Satchel. This really stinks of RMT. Everyone will be buying the token not thinking "oh, this will protect my account", but rather "I need to get this in order to get my extra inventory slots". It sets a bad precedent.

- Crystalline Prophecy/More SE RMT

If the security token set a bad precedent for RMT, then this questline is even worse. This "mini-expansion" hasn't even been out for 24-hours and people have already finished it. I pre-ordered it after last month's billing period was over and I've gotten the first cutscene. I'm holding off actually doing it until the initial rush is over, and to figure out when I can do it with some friends. The cutscenes look really good, on the standards of WotG, and it looks like it will be a nice trip down memory lane for the original Zilart story-line. However, for the rest of the expansion... well, as far as I can tell, the whole content consists of:

- Farming for multiple Rare/Ex drops

- Farming for "Key item" drops

- 3 popped NMs

- 1 level capped run around a zone

- 2 BCNMs

And... you get your choice of one of 3 pieces of... well, decently nice armor at the end. Overall, it seems like it would be a long quest-line, but not worth spending $10 for. I mean, there are tons of other long quest-lines in the game that have armor rewards at the end (Opo-opo Crown for example), but they do not require you to pay for it. Where is SE going with this? Would they have released 5 mini-expansions in the past for each of the Serpent General quest-lines, each for $4.99? Where will it stop? I know Oblivion had their $2.50 horse armor... is SE going the same way with micro-payments? How much would you pay for a Ridill? $50? $200? How much for 10 merits? Can I order a fully merited level 75 RDM for $500? Wait... isn't this just RMT? Should I report SE to the STF?

- Equipment Augmentation

Haven't tried this myself... from what I've read, it's another waste of time due to the randomness and possible negative stats that can be added to the equipment you try to improve. Plus it makes the equipment Rare/Ex, so you might end up turning that very expensive Peacock Charm into a useless paperweight

From looking around, it seems that there are many mixed feelings about this update and the mini-expansion... here are some other links for other opinions.

- Talint's view on the update and the lack of understanding the dev team has on their customers. I love this quote from him: “they introduce ridiculous content with the intention of making it easier down the line”

- Erica's view on the "Crystalline Failure"

On-again, off-again PLD + asking for help

Kinda funny... I went on PLD in a real (non-PL) party for the first time on Saturday, found that I liked it and that I was fairly decent at holding hate while staying alive... Good Qufim party, then I had a decent jungle party on Sunday. Sunday night, I saw Dexie on PLD, inspiring me to go take the job to 75.

Then came Tuesday which I met the party of fail. 2x RDMs in Qufim (level 19 & 20), neither of which cast enfeebling spells, neither of which knew how to manage MP, standing up and cure bombing me with Cure II constantly. Worst of all, neither was meleeing, both standing back and pretending to be... well, I can't even say WHM here because any good WHM would be casting basic enfeebles like Paralyze.

Oh, and the THF that aggroed unnecessary, even when I was carefully showing people how to walk around mobs... Jungle party had a THF that refused to pull, which was strange, but there was a 2nd THF so I didn't immediately /blist.

So... Chainmail armor is with the storage NPC again until I build up enough tolerance to possibly deal with idiots. Seems like I have to get past level 37 before dumb players stop partying. Playing with strangers is always annoying since you never know what you're going to get, which brings me to...

Asking for help

Kind of a follow-up to the comments from my previous blog post... I have to agree that shouting for help almost never goes well. That's why I've never EVER shouted for help in Whitegate... the most I've done is responded to someone's shout, and even then, it's a hit-or-miss proposition.

How it relates to you all... well, why don't you ask US for help? We're on shell, we're around, sometimes on AIM, and often we're not doing anything. We'd be willing to help you, but you have to let us know what you want to do and when.

I've asked for help tons of times... here's a list of what I've asked for and accomplished almost purely with AP members:

- Many, MANY BLU spells... Refueling anyone? Cannonball?

- Subligar farming

- Swift Belt (soooooooooooooo many times)

- CoP, ZM, ToAU missions till completion

- BLU testimony (I think I stopped at 7)

- Unlocking Blue Mage

- Getting ToAU access in the first place (thanks Syrinx!)

- Teleport scroll quests (thanks Utty!)

- Even now: MMM marble farming

And of course, helping with lots of similar things... lots of subligar, random missions & quests, NM fights, and making sure people get up-to-date on WotG missions, doing the dragon BC countless times, and dragging people around the past when they just got the expansion.

So... for those of you who want help for things... why not approach one of us? Or all of us? Ask on shell, send a /tell... you more or less know our schedules. Catch us online, set a time and get things done!

Also, let us know what you need done. I did Divine Might completely out of the blue cos AP members knew I needed it, and they knew a group going. If I had known Karou needed the last ZM mission, I could have told you that Lyric was doing it just last Sunday and was talking about gathering people on vent during Dynamis on Saturday. And of course, it helps to be reachable... like I couldn't tell Zurar that there was a ZM mission going on cos he wasn't online.

Well, going forward, I'll probably be doing WotG missions in the next few weeks to see what's been pushed along in the plot. So... come along with me!

Semi-frustrated/bored of FFXI again

Yes, I'm bored of FFXI again... seems like I go through cycles of lots of interest, then getting sick of stuff and backing off again.

Let's see... what's annoying me lately...

1. More people leaving, and not by getting banned

2. Super-low annoying drop rates as usual

3. Losing fights where we should be winning

4. Difficulty of gathering people to do things

Of these, some are just seasonal... #1 & #4 are... well, I guess related. As people stop logging in for one reason or another, it gets harder to do things. Some people I'm hoping will come back SOON (/stare Vanh), while some others are just LAZY and don't even login without me bugging them even though they know they have events! (/stare Zurar & Ghiren)

#3 losing fights is... kinda related to #1 & #4 too. Another bad series of floors in Nyzul means that we can't get to the boss floor (Zurar is cursed). One more person would have made a difference during our last Omega. Losing another pop set like that is very annoying, especially since the last pop set dropped crap >.> For someone at the top of the list for Limbus, it seems pretty hard to actually use those points!

#2 is... SE as usual -.- Low Dynamis drops, horrible ZNM drops are normal matter of business... However, some things did look up for a brief period of time...

On the flip side...

Some nice things did happen at least. Nyzul went 3/4 for item drops, with Dexie finishing her full 15 armor pieces last night. We also got two Askar pieces, which is a nice change from the Goliard & Denali pieces that we've been getting lately. While I appreciate getting armor, the fact is that we have 4 people who want Askar, compared to just 2/3 for Golaird and Denali, so it would be nice to get more Askar drops overall.

Also in Nyzul, finally a Wamoura fight ended with me picking up Exuviation. At long last! The mob actually used it just before it died, so I guess I lucked out there. Next time I come BLU to some big event, I'll probably end up killing myself as I'll want to experiment with it... This spell is Erase + Cure II in one, and supposedly it generates a ton of enmity. Supposedly if I add in Diffusion and use it on a party, it would generate as much hate as Invincible. I'm thinking I'll show up at the next Mahjlaef the Paintorn fight and see how crazy it gets.

Also, finally Connie & Zuzu got their first pieces from ZNMs >.> Their lists are pretty difficult to complete, but I'm glad that they are finally getting some pieces...

Finding motivation

Bigger problem is finding motivation to get around and do things... It's getting a little tiring to login to do the same things over and over again without much progress for anyone involved. Needs more drops... let's start finishing some things at least >.>

Last night I very nearly didn't bother doing Nyzul as I was getting tired of the disappointment. Also, we didn't have the usual people, and I wasn't in the mood of checking out the expertise and explaining Nyzul's do's and don'ts to another person. No offense to Caselin, but I've found that every group does things just slightly differently, and Nyzul is something where every second counts (as we saw with our win last night with 3 seconds left on the clock). If Ghiren didn't login to AIM right then, I'd probably have started watching TV. Also, Karou, please go read up on lamp floors in Nyzul. It does matter to have an extra set of eyes out there searching the floor for lamps, especially if it is a large 5-lamp floor. Also, we do not know what type of lamp floor it is until we find and check a lamp, so you can stop asking once we zone in.

Einherjar is an event that I probably won't end up going to much simply because the time is right during my dinnertime. Dynamis is another event that has a start time around my dinnertime, but Dynamis is much longer, so I can have dinner and come back later. Einherjar is 30 minutes at most, and even accounting for the gather/travel time, the start or end times is during my dinner -.- I don't like missing dinner :P

Job wise... I still have a few more merits for Dancer to finish off... I'm also interested in doing some Scholar & Blue Mage merits... I've just been tired and haven't bothered seeking at all. For Paladin, that's another thing I'm having problems finding motivation to do... Sad part that it's easy too... I just need to find some time, then buy some armor and a sword.

Get off your butts!
Meanwhile, here's a /prod to some people out there... specifically, Conceptx, Karou, and Zurar! Go get you CoPs done! You're not only missing out on content, but also on some of the better gear (Rajas Ring anyone? Also, Tav Ring? Wanna save on Warp scrolls?) and what I think is the best storyline of the 4 major storylines in FFXI (Zilart, CoP, ToAU and WotG)

Also, consider the following: You each have 2 level 75 jobs, and you have people who can help you. Further more, since level sync was released, you don't even need to buy level capped gear! Compared to when me and Utty did it, you're in a much better position! When we did it:
- We were on our first jobs
- We were not even level 75. I didn't even get past Genkai 5 when I finished CoP
- When we had to get help, people had to mule or buy level capped equipment
- From start to finish, it took us only 2 months of meeting once a week. During which time I had to exp heavily in order to even keep up with the level capped missions.

So get out there and do it... It's simple really, set a day & time to gather together for a specific fight. Before the fight, it is up to you individually to go get the necessary cutscenes done. Ask the rest of us before hand to help you with the fight. Go buy or farm the necessary materials before every major fight, get a few fights done at once, then do all the cutscenes on your own Here is a good guide for everything you need in order to pull this off:
http://promathia.runtimerepairs.com/