Ratcheting down FFXI

Last week was a busy one for missions... besides finishing the two mini-expansions a few times, I also did some work on the WotG missions. Currently, I'm at the following stages for the WotG missions:

- Bastok Quest 7: Fire in the Hole

- Sandy Quest 8: The Price of Valor

- Windy Quest 8: The Long March North

This is about 2/3 of the way through all of the current WotG missions/quests. Need to find some people to go do the rest of the missions with me. The quests where I've stopped are all places which require a party to fight. Not necessarily a full party, but they are not solo-able. I'm far enough along all the quest lines that I can probably help almost anyone catch up.

With FFXIV announced, frustrations with SE's attitude towards FFXI (covered many times in the past), and completing the little content that remains in FFXI, it seems to me that my time in FFXI will be coming to an end soon. Of course, SE seems to be speeding the process along with the complete lack of customer service and going out of their way to ban paying customers. I'm a very goal-oriented person, so I figured that I'd look at my current goals in FFXI and see what I want to continue to pursue, and which goals I'm going to give up on before the end.

Current personal goals (as of August'09)

- Finish the WotG storyline

- Complete DNC relic set (5/6 now, need Etoile Tights from glacier/tav)

- Complete Homam set (4/5 - Need body)

- Get PLD AF+1 feet (Need Temenos item)

Pretty short list.. of course, the first goal is at the mercy of SE's timetable, and the other two goals are completely at the mercy of what I'm calling "SE randomness". There's a high chance that I won't finish any of these goals since the CC I'm using to play FFXI expires in October, and it doesn't support their new "verified" BS. I'll have to change CC numbers to continue to play, and that's generally considered a bannable offense these days. I doubt SE will be releasing any more real expansions, and I'm hoping that they finish the WotG expansion sometime this decade.

This goal list has shrunk a lot. If I can finish the above goals, I think I'd be satisfied in calling FFXI a "completed" game. Some of my goals have been accomplished (Enkidu harness, finishing ToAU, CoP missions, etc.), while the following goals are being dropped:

Dropped Goals

- Ermine's Tail -- I think MMM is one of the biggest failures in the game. Either I'm getting the map wrong (possible), or the drop rate is just plain stupid. In either case, I've picked up an Adder Jambiya which might actually be better considering that it not only has evasion, but also has the added effect of reducing a mob's evasion and doesn't have Beast Affinity so I won't be intimidated when fighting birds -.-

- Nyzul Armor -- There was a time when I had a hope that we could get 15/15 armor for everyone in the group. Now, after months of doing Nyzul, I'm ready to quit. We've gotten full sets for Ghiren, Zurar, Karou (all Askar), Kuraikaze (Goliard), and me (Denali). I'm really close to finishing Goliard too, lacking just the body, and still missing 3 Askar pieces, but at this point, I'm more than happy to walk away from this event. I only wanted the missing pieces for completion, but I don't really need them. Closing out Nyzul would mean that Karou could go do more climbing, Zurar could go get Captain rank, and anyone who wanted to could farm Assault Points for either items, or Salvage. At this point, I just really want to get Spengler a couple of pieces for helping us out for the past few weeks.

- Joyeuse -- After spending a couple of hours trying to help Vanh with this last Friday, I realized that there is no way that I'm going to spend hours sitting around waiting to fight a placeholder every 16 minutes for a little sword. I have better things to do... for example, watch grass grow. Having any sort of competition does not help either as I hate going against someone else. This would mean someone would go away disappointed, either me, or the other person. Instead, I'm sticking with the Adder Jambiya for DNC, and my new Justice Sword for PLD. Oh, and if I don't get a Joytoy, that means I don't have to bother meriting sword since I won't be using it on DNC :P

- Roundel Earring -- The funny part about the Roundel Earring is that it is a rare drop from a BCNM that can only be accessed when Windy owns Castle Oztroja [S] in campaign. Given how much Hades sucks in terms of campaign, we've never actually owned this zone, meaning that every single Roundel Earring on Hades was transferred from another server. That said, the only way to get this would be to pay the 4-5M price in gil. Given that I've never had more than 2M gil before, and typically struggle to even get to 1M, it's highly unlikely that I'd get this unless I get super-lucky in multiple BCNM or ISNM chests.

Plus... well... it wouldn't fit in my macro lines given that I already swap 2 items for every waltz >.>

- Nation Rank 10 -- I think everyone in AP has either finished all 3 nation's storylines, or have at least finished one. I'm stuck at 7-1 right now... or is it 8-1? I don't remember. In any case, the Bastok storyline isn't interesting enough for me to continue with it... Not going to bother wasting time trying to gather people for this, even if there is a gil reward at the end -.- I've seen the full Windy storyline before, and I'm not that interested in the Sandy one, so I'm not planning on changing nations either!

- Asuran Claws -- This is a really silly one... when this spell first came out, the DNC AF pieces were released at the same time. When most Blue Mages were out getting together forming alliances to get the spell, I was out farming materials to complete my new DNC AF xD Of course, this meant that by the time I was done, all the spell-hunting parties were done and I had nobody to go hunt the spell with! The problem with this spell is that only the level 85+ gnoles do it, AND you need to give it spike hate in order for it to stand up and use the move. This means at the very least, a well equipped party with lots of high DDs or a PLD/WAR tank. These mobs hit hard, hit fast and have an evil regen move, so in order to even attempt to get the spell would require pulling in a lot of people. My only hope for this would be if one of the WotG missions requires that we fight a Gnole that does it. That was how I learnt Body Slam xD

Besides Nyzul, I'm already ratcheting back my involvement for the following activities

- Einherjar -- I actually no longer need anything from this activity... Picked up all the items I can get with the Ichor... no real interest in the abjuration gear... I only show up because it's actually *fun* to do, especially when we pull off a near-loss with a lot of epic tactics. Still... given how annoying the time is for this, I'll probably only show up when convenient and hope I get the right feathers to do Odin

- ZNMs - I've already cut down on involvement as in I'm not contributing as much zeni as before. As the 2nd highest zeni contributor, I think I can let others pick up some of the slack. I still have enough stockpiled that I can pick up a few pops here and there in case we need an emergency pop, but there are many people in ZeniBailout who need to start pulling their weight!

So... main activities I'm still doing at 100% (other than missions) are...

- Dynamis -- Fun for me on PLD, or as main assist on DNC. SCH is amusing for nuking, but not as fun compare to PLD or DNC

- Limbus -- Still need Homam armor, PLD AF+1 item, and this is my main gil source

Both events are on Wednesday and Saturday, which is nice as I could easily skip out the rest of the week :)

So... that's the plan until the next big MMO release comes along to distract me...