Milking Garlaige

Hey! It's been a little while, yeah? Little bit of an exciting week for me. First of all, current event wise, my city was flooded a couple of days ago. Most of the bridges across the river were closed down, essentially cutting the city in half (severing west and north side from the rest). It should have been worse, but we somehow dodged getting an extra day of rain, which would have made this flood almost as bad as some of the flooding we've seen in the past, the difference being that recent construction around the river should have prevented a lot of this damage, but it didn't. Then there's the irony that people were beginning to suspect a summer drout until this weather system decided to sit on us...heh. Be careful of what you wish for.

As far as FFXI goes, I was able to reach level 35! I accomplished this through a variety of parties of varying professionalism, had the opportunity to group with one of the dumbest players I'd ever met, and somehow managed to enjoy my run in the Garlaige Citadel, nicknamed the Garbage Citadel by some. It really is a rough spot, not as bad now that zoning the constant links doesn't make things worse for other parties, but still pretty bad. Like I said, everything links, it's very cramped, and there are holes that, when fallen down, will lead to almost certain death. Once again, while I had my fair share of fun, I think I'm ready to move on now ^^

Now that I've gotten Thief to 35, I can set the rest of my plan into motion. What I wish to do now, once I finish farming with my mule, is work on woodworking until I'm able to produce acid bolts for a crossbow, then unlock ranger and level it to 20, all the while working on my carpentry. By this time, if I didn't do it already, get up to the point that I can produce shihei, used in the ninja magic Utsusemi. Once I've done that, I'll farm for Tenshodo fame, complete the quest for that spell, then level ninja some...perhaps all the way to 30. Once I'm comfy with ranger and ninja, I'll continue to level Thief. I may level thief to 45 before I'm finished with the other two jobs, because I know how too much of the same can get me bored, but all in all, the next month or so should be pretty busy for me.

And with that, I leave you with a few screenshots of my Garlaige parties...remember to hover your mouse over the pictures for a caption!

/goodbye Elshimo

Finally, freedom! I know it's so easy to form parties on Elshimo Island, and it's fun tanking mandy as thief (certainly, partying never gets more relaxed), but as anyone who's leveled past 30 will tell you, by the time you're high enough level to leave, you're quite glad to ^^

So, my night starts thusly: I zap myself to Kazham and decide to seek in Yhoator Jungle, a great place for XP for levels ~27 to ~32. I'm immediately greeted by a shouting match between two players, which, to my disappointment, is only mildly interesting. I wait only a few minutes before receiving an invite, and I run to the party's camp. One member had left and another D/Ced for good, so replacements needed to be arranged. One of the shouters was one of them.

So right away, it's evident that this player is impatient and inconsiderate. He seemed to know what he was doing (I've seen much worse, preformance wise), but he had some crazy ideas about the way things were, and was dead set in his opinions. Anyway, our interaction with him hardly mattered, because he went AFK without telling us for a long while, forcing us to kick and replace him.

So we get some replacements and XP fairly decently with the five of us (our leader was AFK, dealing with his parents). Luckily, this was one of those enjoyable parties I discussed in an earlier post. I can't recall if I specified a preference or not, so I'll say it right now: I prefer groups with funny, lively people much more than groups of seasoned vets. We joked, we BSed, and we poked fun of the guy we kicked, who was begging to return in a generally annoying mannor (apparently, it's okay to leave your computer in the middle of a party, without telling anyone, to watch TV for 15 minutes).



But after a time, people had to leave, and then there were four. All good things must come to an end...or at least, that's what I thought. (remember to hover your mouse for the captions!)



Surprisingly, our quaint quartet kicked all kinds of ass! We continued to chain successfully, and even managed to battle a mandragora and a goblin smithy simultaneously, and survive! It was a refreshing group, because it reminded me that there is no hard-and-fast way to do anything in this game. Tried-and-tested works for most people, but it's a mistake to dismiss something unconventional that might work without at least giving it a shot. Hopefully, it won't end here, either. I've heard of successful odd-ball groups at high level, like parties with three rangers and nobody else. Regardless, while I wave goodbye to the Rock of Doom, a part of me will miss the samurai tanks, or the dual ranger groups, or, of course, the Quartet of Quashing ^^



Heh, I'll take a picture of anything ^^ it's due to little things like this that my hard drive is cluttered with 2,826 screenshots ^^`

Climb to 30

After all the seeking, all the groups that never got enough members, all the groups populated with five other new players, and all the just plain bad groups, it took one group and one group alone to get me from lvl 27 Thief to the shiny level 30! Remember: hover your mouse over the images for a caption!



The first group of the night was fairly good, and for the most part, had some pretty good players. As seen here, it was a goblin party, but this presented us with a problem. Of all the times earlier in the week, I would have killed to have at least one goblin party present when my group was hunting mandragoras. However, this was never the case, and upwards of 7 parties would be pulling mandy from the same area, around these Goblin Killingmachines. Then, when I finally get into a dedicated goblin hunting party, every other party in the area is hunting goblins as well. Ugh....



The XP dries up and we are (for the most part) level 28, so we decide to head off to yhoator jungle...and everyone suddenly has better places to be. With no proper jobs seeking, what few of us remain disband and seek independently.



Which is when I was picked up by this group, powered by a white mage, red mage (subjob: black mage), ninja, two rangers, and of course, yours truely as the thief. This party was exceptionally awesome, and extremely productive. Even now, I'm not sure if there were 3 japanese players or 4, but communication was smooth regardless. Hell, half the time, I could pretty much figure out what the japanese players were saying when they didn't use the auto translator. Finally, for being such an incredibly productive group, I was still able to enjoy myself...if not through conversation within the party, for the tactical value of lining up sneak attacks in a group designed to distribute hate.







And there I am, in my level 30 Mercenary Captian's armor ^^ as was recommended by the red mage, I've traded off some strength buffs for dexterity and agility. He says that dexterity is factored into the sneak attack multiplier, and agility for the trick attack multiplier. We'll see how this works out ^^

Productivity Vs. Enjoyment

The linkshell I mentioned, GhostbearII, is often referred to by its members as a "home linkshell." While not unproductive (currently working on CoP), it's not a linkshell people look to when they specifically want to get something done. Its members have their HNM linkshells or their Dynamis linkshells, but when they want to enjoy the company of other players, they equip GhostbearII.

When I obtained rank 5 with my first character, we had no high level help. This meant alliance all the way, which took 10 hours. I could have gotten it done much more quickly with just me and a high level character, but with the alliance, I had a blast!

There is a balance between productivity and overall enjoyment in every MMO, one that must be tread carefully. While you can certainly enjoy yourself in a very productive group, generally, there's a choice the player has to make. Do you want a group of pros who barely say two words to one another but will level you three times, or do you select a party that might net you one level, but will have you holding your side in laughter the whole night?

Today was an excellent example of productivity vs. enjoyment. The first group I was in, the XP was slow. While this is partly due to the zone being overcrowded, had the group been better constructed or comprised of rank 10s who absolutely need to be equipped with the best gear money can buy at all times, we would have done much better. But in the end, I didn't care! They were great, funny people, and I felt that the monster killing was just something on the side. It was in this group that I met Psiax, an awesome mithra who I can't wait to group with again ^^ Psiax's FFXI page can be found here, as well as my links section, below.

Anyway, everyone in the group suddenly had other places to be, and I was left with the task of rebuilding. It took a little while, but I ended up with a very nice party with experienced players. However, I quickly grew bored. We chained very quickly, but there was no...soul, shal we say? Plus, one of the members was a little mean, particularly toward me....

For some reason, I went the whole day without taking a single picture, so here's one from earlier in the week. As you'll see in the picture, despite having a pair of very confidant tanks, niether were willing to provoke the monster from me after I had used Sneak Attack on it, early in the fight. This resulted in me basically tanking the mob for most of the fight. This happened frequently. Were they mad at me? Did they think I made a better tank than both of them combined? Ugh, people sometimes... (note: names removed, as I have no intention of publically insulting any player, and as always, hover your mouse for the caption ^^)

Trial of Tears

Probably the biggest adjustment I've had to make switching from paladin to thief, aside from party functionality, is longer waits for invites. I tend to call this wait the "DD Blues," or the "Trial of Tears." I mean, PLD doesn't get the volume of invites that white mage or other high demand jobs get, at least at the level I had it at...I still had to seek for quite a while sometimes...but as thief, the waits can be ridiculous, if I get an invite at all. This was one reason why I quit FFXI, long ago, and continues to get under my skin.

The biggest problem is that there's no way I can return to World of Warcraft, at least not yet. There are so many things I hate about that game, but when it comes down to it, after switching back and forth between both games numerous times, I know each game's flaws only too well. I often long for my noob days, when I was blind to these faults that drove me from either game.

I don't think I'd have such a big problem with the long waits for invites if my linkshell hadn't fallen apart. Any day now, I'm just going to get fed up and drop the damn sack...nobody's ever in there, and very very occasionally, an old member who left long ago will poke his/her head in for a few minutes, just to exit again. Most of the people I liked to talk to are in my friend list anyway, so I don't see the point in occupying an empty linkshell.

And GhostbearII hasn't changed, and in fact has drifted further from what I'd prefer. For those who are unaware, I created linkshell Ghostbear on November 20th, 2003, which became GhostbearII on that same date in 2004, when I left FFXI for WoW, for six months. Upon returning to FFXI, I was immediately offered a GhostbearII pearl, but it was evident even after a few weeks that I did not belong. GhostbearII is too high level for me, and those within are too bothered with high level concerns to talk to me. Again, most of the people I enjoyed talking to are in my friend list, so why occupy a linkshell that pains me to inhabit it?

I think I'm going to start shouting for linkshell invites whenever I pass a (populated) auction house...perhaps I'll try for an RP linkshell ^^ that would be divine!

Rank 5

Two things to announce this update: 1, as of tonight/this morning, I've leveled my thief to 27! What does this mean? A mechanical bonus to my attributes, and little else :P however, I've recently upgraded bits of my gear. I now have evasion +3, attack +11 and strength +7, before food (just meat mithkabobs, nothing fancy). Oh yeah, and 2, I got rank 5!!!

Thanie was my guide/god for the night, and having done mission 4-3 before, I remembered most of what to do. However, between the both of us, we didn't have a clue of where to go in Castle Oztroja! Knowing that we'd have the most trouble stumbling around blindly in this lair of beastmen, we did it first. Naturally, the other two zones were much easier.

The following pictures are of our misadventures in Castle Oztroja, then our triumph in Beadeaux, and at the very bottom, a picture of me in my last party. Hover your mouse over the pics for a caption ^^

Elshimo Blues, and Advice

Thursday was my day off, and I spent about half of it in my room, playing Final Fantasy XI. For the most part, this time was spent in a single party, which got my theif up to 26. Flee is totally awesome, and is a great tool for pulling and zoning aggro, as well as a handy ability for getting around more quickly.

I was told that swords are better than daggers until your mid thirties, but I find this to be terribly inaccurate. First of all, the cap on daggers for thieves is MUCH higher than with swords, which results in my accuracy dropping through the floor when I equip my Small Sword (Dex +2). It was also said that your overall damage is better with a sword, but I found the damage to be almost exactly the same, meaning that the dagger is preferable due to it being a faster weapon. Finally, it was said that Sneak Attack and Fast Blade make for a lot of damage, which is true, but to say that Sneak Attack does not work well with any dagger weapon skill until Viper Bite is a falsehood. I averaged about 110 damage with SA + Fast Blade, and ~150 with SA + Shadowstitch, a dagger weapon skill, with 187 being my greatest spike. Regular sneak attacks seemed to favor the dagger as well, and keep in mind that the damage rating on the sword is greater than the dagger I carry.

This teaches me a valuable lesson: Advice is great, but put it to the test before you take it as law.

The second two pictures were taken of the group I mentioned, led by Dragonoftheeast. It was an excellent group with great, funny people, and I had a blast. The first is just a random Qufim party, but it's a good photo...gigas are very intimidating ^^;

Photobucket Test

Since I can't get Blogger to upload photos for me, and the existing ones insist on enlarging to a different picture, I'm going to see how Photobucket works for me. The following is a test.









Edit: Well, this seems to break the format of my blog (note how the menu is now at the bottom) but at least now I can post pictures. That's all that matters.

Thief!

Well, I think it's about time for another post. For some odd reason, it appears that I am no longer able to upload pictures to my blog. This is the biggest reason why I haven't been updating as much...what fun is a playdiary with no pictures?

First, I'd like to update my job level listing:

Name: Treah Niavam
Race: Mithra
Server: Shiva
Allegience: Windurst
Rank: 4
Job Levels: 31 Paladin, 30 Warrior, 23 Thief, 10 Ninja, 10 Corsair, 7 Bard, 6 Monk
Fame Levels: To my knowledge, Windurst: 4, San d'Oria: 4, Bastok: 4, Jeuno: 4, the rest: 1

Anyway, I've solved my Paladin quandry. After seeking party for a few hours on a particularly dry day, a linkshell mate offered a level 15 party. The only job I had at that level was Thief, so I brought that. I had practically no buffer coming in from 15, which means that I never had the chance to experiment with Sneak Attack. After that party, my mind was made up...Paladin is stressful, Thief is fun. Easy descision there!

So I've been leveling up Thief, mostly between midnight and 4:00 AM, which is a great time for mature and productive groups, though finding replacements when NA members go to sleep or JP members go to work is a pain. I've gotten Thief up to 23 so far, and am thoroughly enjoying it ^^ So far, I've seen damage numbers as high as 167, which is awesome for me, because even when I leveled Warrior, I specialized in tanking.

All I have to do now is decide what I want to do when I get Thief up to a respectable level. I'm kicking around two ideas...the first is to work on marksmanship with Thief, level Ranger, and sub that for Corsair. The second, and something I've wanted to do for the longest time...level Ninja, which I'll need as a sub for Thief eventually, then continue leveling Warrior. COR/RNG and WAR/NIN are two job combinations that I'm very eager to try out, as well as THF/NIN when I ungimp Ninja, but what to try *first*...now that's a tough one.

As far as non-XP related business, I've completed Gobbie Bag III, which gives me 45 inventory slots to play around with ^^ I've also taken the first steps toward mog house enhancement, as well as mission 4-3...all I need for that mission now is the Magicite, which I'll collect on Saturday with some help from uber Summoner Thanie-Wanie. I can't wait to watch those cutscenes again...I love this game's story!

Well, that's it for now. I'll update again after I've done something interesting that hasn't been explained in this post. I also want to look into exactly why I can't post more pictures...are they a pay-only feature now? Hmmm....