So I’ve been very silent on the blog as of late.  I’d like to blame it on the holidays.  Christmas and New Years were busy — I went out of town, and I didn’t have as much opportunity to log into FFXI.

However, I’ve been completely absent from the game.

I lack a desire to play FFXI currently.  Perhaps I’ll get out of this funk, but as I look at it, FFXI has turned into a game I’m no longer interested in.

I do have a purpose — a couple in fact.  Hitting 75 on Paladin, and to get that damnable Iron Ram armor from campaign.  The problem is, hitting 75 on Paladin, for the most part, means doing it via level synch since most people don’t want to fight things that require a tank at the upper levels.   Likewise, getting the Iron Ram armor means endless time in Campaign raising the next 100K Allied Notes for the remaing bits.

I have little desire to do either.

Level synch parties are wonderful sometimes, but I really want to be able to skill-up my sword and shield.  To do that, I need to go after things that (A) are close to my true level, and (B) going to try to hit me back.  Putting parties together or simply finding ones that are willing to be anything but TP burn have become just this side of impossible.  TP burns are difficult for Paladin’s to compete in against Dragoons, Samurai, Warriors in terms of DD, and they do nothing to advance ones shield skill since the objects is to not get hit at all.

Campaign is a nice diversion, but I’ve grown quite tired of it having gotten my first 100K allied notes (and two pieces of Iron Ram armor).  It offers nothing new, and frankly is more of a grind than standard XP.

Then there’s the latest updates.  On paper they’re good, but the implimentation has given FFXI a slightly different flavor that doesn’t sit well with me.  The game is longer allows me to enter a state of suspended disbelief.

Perhaps a break will let me get more excited about advancing, until then, I think I stay out and catch up on reading, programming, and generally doing all the things I suspended to play the game.

Campaign was introduced with the Wings Of The Goddess expansions.  Like SE’s earlier attempt, Beseiged, these battles are intended to include a large number of players and enemy forces.  Each battle, taking place during the Crystal Wars, focuses on a zone, which can be controlled by an Allied Nation or the Beastmen.

Participants in Campaign battles earn Allied Notes (currency), experience points, and promotions within’ the army they’ve joined.

From Wikipedia:

Evaluations are conducted on all participants of the Allied Campaign. Individual data is collected by the Allied War Council from various sources, such as Campaign Arbiters and the leaders of the armies in which the soldiers serve. This data is then used to determine whether or not a decoration is to be conducted. Some of the areas that are considered in this evaluation are performance in Campaign Operations, as well as valor shown during Campaign Battles.

The problem is this (again from wikipedia):

To maintain one’s status, he or she must continue to exceed previous expectations. If a soldier fails to fulfill the duties that are required of all those who possess a certain medal, then the Allied War Council will be forced to confiscate that decoration.

…

Effort accumulated towards a promotion will decay slowly over time.

So, SE has essentially created a mechanic that punishes players for not staying online.  I know more than one person in my Linkshell that is currently looking at getting a demotion because they have holiday plans that will not allow them to log into FFXI and put time into Campaign.

While re-gaining ones promotion isn’t overy arduous, it still smacks 1999 when Everquest was built around the notion of on rewarding you for how much time you put into it.  The flip side to this mechanic is if you aren’t online enough, you lose.  This is the core design philosophy behind the Everquest, and a prime aspect of much of the criticism the game fairly earned.

I can’t tell if SE intentionally re-created this mechanic, or just didn’t think it through, but it’s a step backwards.  As my friend Darrian would say:

The frontal lobe reaches full maturity around age 25, marking the cognitive maturity associated with adulthood…The executive functions of the frontal lobes involve the ability to recognize future consequences resulting from current actions, to choose between good and bad actions (or better and best), override and suppress unacceptable social responses, and determine similarities and differences between things or events.

– Wikipedia article

This is the flip side to my previous post.  As I said in that post, most everyone in my Linkshell is some flavor of awesome, and I love them to bits.   Then there are a few of the others that make me cringe.  It’s clear they have something to prove, but no idea what that something is.

My ability to pick out males under 20, particularly Americans, is a skill that I’ve acquired and honed to high precision inside FFXI.  As a older player (fogey?) with fully functioning frontal lobes, it’s a necessary skill to have, to avoid unnecessary drama.

The skill is something akin Name that Tune for me.   I can, with a high degree of accuracy, pick out American males that are under 20, in 7 words or less.

The last night in my Linkshell was puncuated by a plethora of sub-20 American males.  Although I can usually keep telling myself “they’re just young,” in order to avoid saying something that will create future consequences, last night was particularly odious.  I wanted desperately to reach through the game, grab some of these people by the throat and shout “‘Please, for once in your life, try to use your frontal lobes!” But then I remembered, they don’t have any, and just unequipped my Linkshell.

“We never know the worth of water ’til the well is dry.”
–English Proverb

The proverb is the root of “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone,” and perfectly defines my return to FFXI after a short absence.

A couple weeks ago, my internet connection went down (locally I had connectivity, but a construction crew had taken out the cable the links small town I reside in with the Intertubes). Then The Great Pumkin hit me with a full body tackle for Thanksgiving keeping me out of the game for awhile.

To boot, real life (mostly work) has been extraordinarily busy.  Not to mention it’s started being a real struggle with not going medieval on the plethora of people that seem hell bent on pissing me off.  Finally, to complete a perfectly good whine, the holidays have got me down — I’m not ready to call it the holiday depression people talk about, but suffice it to say I’ve been in a funk.

So, last night things took an odd turn.

I was not tired enough for bed by 10PM, and oddly enough nothing else required my attention.  So I logged into FFXI; albeit with some clouds of melancholy hovering over me.

FFXI had gone through a big update that introduced new mechanics.  My linkshell, Paradigm was transferring shell owners (the leader had been on extended absence, and wants to start a new character to boot).  I’ve been part of a few linkshells in my FFXI career, and these transfers sometimes go swimmingly, but mostly not.  So while things were mostly the same, my absence and small changes also provided me with feeling slightly unbalanced.

Not long after logging in I started getting /tells from linkshell mates.  Not just “come get a new pearl,” but ernest messages of being missed and wanting to know how I had been.  As I was making the trek to pick-up my new pearl, the conversations continued on a variety of topics, and my mood lifted as these conversations, from light hearted to heartfelt, flowed.

I picked Thankfully the Linkshell swap was going just fine.

I hadn’t planned on staying in the game for long, but I was asked to sub inside of a level-synch’ed Linkshell party in the Valkurm dunes.  This was a great way for me to hang out with the LS mates that had spread some cheer my way, and get back into the groove of things as Paladin (see my previous post on level sync’ed parties).  The party went well (as expected), and after a few levels were gained, we decided to call it quits as sleep was over taking a few of us.

In courtesy, I expressed my gratitude to everyone for the good party and typed /shutdown. Suquamish knelt as the game counted down the number of seconds left before it exited, and at that moment I was struck with a feeling of being thankful.

I wasn’t thankful for something shallow, like gaining experience points in a game.  By the time I had logged out I had managed to gather up a honest feeling of being welcomed, and picked up the warm afterglow of being among friendly people.

After being gone for the month of November, I finally got my blog back up thanks to Google’s cache.  I think I’ve picked up all the posts — if I haven’t then the one’s I’m missing aren’t all that important.

So, as I make my first post to the new blog (now hosted by Wordpress software) Suquamish is a level 72 Paladin, in something of a conundrum.  While I should make the push to 75, just to make it, I find myself not terribly interested in XP’ing anything at the moment (Paladin in particular).

I’ve been having a great deal of fun helping out LS mates with quests, limit break quests, and obtaining AF.

I’m sure I’ll snap out of it and make my way for 75 soon.

Let me count the ways: …

On Wednesday 08Oct2008 @ 10:49PM Pacific, Suquamish of Bahamut, a level 70 Paladin, faced off against Maat and emerged victorious.

It was on a whim I decided to give Maat a try.  I had planned on camping for a Jelly Ring, and farming up some Gil to get some new equipment… But I had this testimony burning a hole in my Mog Safe, so I geared up, and decided to give the old man a shot.  I went in with the following, fully expecting I’d need a second round:

Chemical assistance:

• 5 x Hi-Potion
• 5 x Hi-Potion +3
• 1 x Yagudo Drink
• 1 x Persikos au Lait
• 1 x Icarus Wing
• 1 x Rabbit Pie (thanks Lupellus!)

Gear Worn

• Weapon: Carnage Sword
• Shield: Iron Ram Shield
• Ammo: n/a
• Ranged: Lightning Bow +1
• Head: Iron Ram Sallet
• Neck: Parade Gorget > Shield Torque > Royal Guard’s Collar
• Ear1 & 2: Drone Earring
• Body: Gallant Surcoat
• Hands: Gallant Gauntlets > Fourth Gauntlets
• Ring1: Unyielding Ring
• Ring2: Echophoria Ring
• Back: Smilodon Mantle +1
• Waist: Potent Belt
• Legs: Gallant Breeches
• Feet: Gallant Leggings

That’s right.. I went in with almost full AF.  I eschewed my Haubergeon hoping to evade a few of his attacks with my Mithra’s Agility ( which, in hindsight, seemed to have worked out).  I also used my Smilodon Mantle over my beloved Amemet Mantle for the small defense boost.

My strategy for the fight was to use as little magic as possible for curing, saving my MP for the skill I feared most — Asuran Fists, and for using Flash against Maat every chance I could.  Likewise, I’d save Invicible for his TP move.

There’s a superstition that says Maat gets the same stats you do when you enter — including gear, so I went in nekkid.  Once I was in the BCNM, I used Protect IV, Shell III, and rested to full MP equipping my Parade Gorget.  Once I was at full MP, I geared up (swapping the Parade Gorget out for my Shield Torque), ate my Rabbit Pie, and started running toward Maat.

After my first swing, I Flashed, downed the Au Lait, the Yagudo Drink, and cast Reprisal.

While Reprisal was up, I concentrated on keeping my HP full using Hi-Potions, and using Flash as often as possible.  When Reprisal wore off, I popped Sentinel, and continued the Hi-Potions and Flashing.  Maat used Invicible, so I saved my TP.

Shortly after I used Sentinel, Maat had enough TP to use Howling Fist, which made a mess of me.  A Shield Bash and Cure IV got me out of trouble. Once Maat started taking damage again (I was over 100% TP), I returned the favor with a Vorpal Blade (swapping in/out the Fourth Gauntles and Royal Guards Collar).

When Sentinel wore, Maat was below 50% HP, and I was at almost full HP.  I kept an eagle eye out for any message starting with “Maat readies,” and put up Rampart and continued Hi-Potions and Flash.  By this time I was really happy I had gone in with my Carnage Sword instead of farming up Gil for an Espadon +1: The HP Drain had triggered several times which was helping.

About the time I ran out of Hi-Potions, and Rampart had worn off, I saw Maat’s HP was getting a bit low (35′ish percent?).  I was still at near full HP, but I popped Invicible on the intuation that Asuran Fists was coming.  I certainly didn’t want to get one-shotted having come this far.

I also had over 100% TP, so I Flashed, saw Maat use Asuran Fists as I unloaded another Vorpal Blade.  In reaction I used my Icarus Wing, and as I was mashing my Vorpal Blade macro I saw:

“Hm. That was a mighty fine display of skill there, Suquamish. You’ve come a long way…”

I put away my sword, got teleported to the BCNM exit, and sent the following message to my LS:

>>> I won?

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