FFXI - Return to the grind? + minor pics

The one thing I'm really bummed about with the most recent FFXI announcements is really the announcement of raising the level caps. To me, exp(in FFXI) is mostly a grind... there are a few short bursts of fun when you hit a key level and get some fun job abilities, but for the most part, it becomes a mindless grind of killing mob after mob on hours on end, basically a time waster.

You level a job to take it out for events and to have fun with it. The actual act of exping is like... working out on a treadmill. You do it to stay in shape and so that you'll be able to go do fun things like long hikes, or compete. The actual act of running on the treadmill is boring grinding that you only do because you have to do it, not because you want to do it.

I'm not exactly sure why SE would decide to raise the level cap now, of all times, except to maybe get people to waste more time playing FFXI? The only other reason I can think of is that they are anticipating a mass exodus of people (especially with the FFXIV beta) and are raising the level cap so that we can use less people for the current events after we get stronger. If you continue playing and level up your character, you would be able to solo/duo/trio events that formerly required alliances. I'm guessing that if this was their intention, we'd see that the new events coming out are designed for parties or smaller instead of the old alliance-sized fights. (aka. the slow death of FFXI)

Exp to 99
So, looking forward...  let's see what I have to do with this level cap.
- It takes 44,000 exp to go from level 75-76
- A decentish exp party can get around 18-20k/hour (let's not talk about crazy unsustainable "60k/hr with anniversary ring + level 8 besieged + Corsair's Roll")
- Looking at about 2 1/2 hours of exp to get one level. Round that up to 3 hours to include travel time, and time to find the people to actually go exp together

So... with some luck and a well-motivated group, you can get approximately one level a night of exp. Assuming SE doesn't do something braindead and raises the amount of exp required even further (HA!), that's 24 days of doing nothing but exp for every job that you want to get from level 75-99. Yes, I know that they will spread out the level cap increases, but at the end of the day, in a best case scenario, they're going to have you grind the treadmill for 24 of your nights to get one job from 75-99.

Subjobs
But.... that's not all. Add to that the requirement to level your sub (or be called gimp!) So... not only do you have to take a job from 75-99, you have to gear up a subjob you probably don't want to play and take it from 37-49 (or 50 if so inclined). That's 13 levels, of which some have good exp camps (Hello super-crowded East Ronfaure [S]), but most of which aren't that good. Exp/level here is significantly lower too unless you find some sucker to level sync to (and with tons of people leveling their subs, I'm sure you can find some level 37 out there). Let's say... it takes another 3-4 days to level your sub to decent levels.

However, most jobs will use more than one sub. Even on DNC, I use /NIN & /SAM. I think SCH is the only job which there is only one "right" sub to use at 75. God save you if you're RDM and have to level WHM, BLM, NIN, DRK, and if you're obsessive-compulsive, SCH, BLU, PLD, SMN for subs.

So... add on at least another 6-8 days, and you're looking at a solid month full of grinding to get one job equipped for 99.

Multiple jobs
One of the things I really liked about FFXI was the ability to change jobs and be flexible. If you look over my previous musings, you'll find that one of the big reasons I leveled most of my jobs was that I wanted to be able to fill in various roles... SCH was to be able to nuke, PLD was to be a tank, DRG to fill a DD role, and finally, COR for the support role.

Unfortunately, if I want to maintain this flexibility at level 99, that would mean that I would have to take every single one of these jobs up to that level. That's 6 jobs in total, or half a year of solid exping just to take all my jobs to 99. Over half a year when you consider the variety of subjobs. And of course, it's much worse for others with more jobs.


Best case... worst case
So far, everything stated has been on an "average case" scenario... let's look at some best/worst cases.

How could things get worse?
- Exp requirements continue to go up as you level past 76. We've had huge TNL bumps in the past... what about the future? If they go with a simple 2k increase per level past 75, that increases the exp required by quite a lot. Level 98-99 would require 90k exp. In total, you would require an extra 600k exp ontop of what was calculated above, or an EXTRA 15 days of exp.
- And... what's to say that they won't increase it by even larger amounts? If the intention is to keep players grinding, increasing the amount of exp for the next level would make logical sense
- Add in some really weird limit break quests... lots of competition for camps and you have a nightmare waiting to happen already

How could things be better?
- They could lower exp requirements. They've done it in the past for the last few levels until 75... they could do it again
- They could increase the amount of exp a mob gives per kill. Right now, the cap on exp/hour is really based on the amount of exp you get per mob. In a well equipped bird merit party, the party is basically killing one mob almost every 30 seconds. You can barely draw your weapon and do a WS before it's time for the next mob. Increasing exp/mob would have an effect of increasing the exp/hour
- They could create new camps... Just imagine every level 75 on the server trying to exping at the same time. That's what the first few weeks after the level cap increase will be like. There just aren't enough camps capable of supporting that kind of traffic. Of course, some will be leveling subs between 37-50 too, so that would spread things out slightly. I guess MMM exp will become more popular, but they do not seem to have enough compute power to handle that (hands of darkness prevent you from getting your exp!)

Personal impact
FFXI already takes up a lot of time out of my schedule. Currently, my week generally looks like:

Monday - Sky & ZNMs
Tuesday - Sea & exp
Wednesday - Dynamis
Thursday - Free
Friday - Free
Saturday - Dynamis & KS99
Sunday - Gil farming, Einherjar & exp

I'm actually really hoping that the server shift gives a chance to move some events found to free up at least one day on the weekend. Given this is unlikely, I might end up looking again at dropping some events. In any case, my schedule currently only gives me two nights to exp. Soooo... take that 30 nights to hit 99, spread it out, and... well, in theory, it should take me just under 4 months to bring 1 job to level 99. (which may end up matching SE's schedule for rolling out the cap raises)

4 months... one job... for 6 jobs, that's 24 months, or 2 years of continuous playing. Starting to see why SE would want to raise the cap now?

(Side note: big reason why I only exp on two nights is that those are the nights other friends also play. Seeking is no longer worth it anymore. Even on COR I do not get an invite when I seek on free nights)

What this means is that I'll probably end up focusing on one... maybe two jobs going forward. Assuming I continue to play, those would be DNC & PLD. All other jobs would basically fall to the sides and... well... probably never get touched for anything over 75. That actually really pisses me off. If there was any hint at a level cap raise, I'd never have touched DRG or COR.

What's worse is that SE is promising new events as well... so, in order to participate in them, something is going to give... which will it be? I've only successfully shut down 2 events in the past: Nyzul Isle & Limbus... which will give this time? Or is it time for a full shutdown?

Uncertainty
Uncertainty in FFXI, or the future of is definitely sapping my will to play the game. Just some thoughts on current uncertainty:

- Will they lower exp requirements for all levels? If so, I shouldn't bother exping right now
- Will they make getting to level 99 totally unreasonable? If so, time to quit now instead of wasting time
- Who is going to quit? Will there be people around in a month or two to actually do events?
- How bad is the server merge going to be? Since the other server seems to be actively hostile towards us, will there even be space to do events? Much less exp?
- With FFXIV coming out, would more people quit? More server merges?
- Will Zurar finally be banned for good?

In any case, this update announcement has, ironically, raised the "is it time to quit?" question up to my attention again. I'll give you a link to Talint's blog where he asks, and answers the same question. With the FFXIV beta starting in just over a week, I'm sure it'll be even harder to get people together to exp and do things.

Photo time!
Ok, enough depressing update talk... here are some fun pics from the last couple of weeks!

This is kinda funny... if you try to Double-Up on a roll that was dispelled, this is what you get:

In a recent Dynamis wipe near the end I wanted to pit my evasion against a herd of Dhamels for fun. You can see the results below. This also gives a very good indication of Fan Dance in action

Starts out at 90% damage reduction, with each successive hit reducing it  until you're down to a simple 20% damage reduction.

Last week, when we were doing some basic exp in the basement of Garliage, we saw Serket simply standing around... seriously. Anyway, that was a fun fight, and I'd like to try soloing him on DNC sometime.

Finally... the reason that MMM exp works are:
- COR exp buff
- The 1.5 exp bonus from the chest at the end
Basically, if you don't finish the maze and open the chest, your efforts are for naught, so this is quite an exciting way to exp. If you do succeed though:

 Over 8k exp in one shot... and that's not even the highest. Since I'm the COR, I lose out on some of the exp as I have to cycle between rolls and there are times when I do not have Corsair's Roll on me. Of course, this is with an Emperor's Band, so normally the chest would only have about 5k+ exp in it.

That's it for now!