mas·och·ism /ˈmæsəˌkɪzəm, ˈmæz-/

[mas-uh-kiz-uhm, maz-]

–noun

1. gratification gained from pain, deprivation, degradation, etc., inflicted or imposed on oneself, either as a result of one’s own actions or the actions of others, esp. the tendency to seek this form of gratification.

2. the act of turning one’s destructive tendencies inward or upon oneself.

3. the tendency to find pleasure in self-denial, submissiveness, etc.

I’ve bloggeded about my progress leveling mage jobs recently’ish.  Just a couple nights ago I took the time to get my Ninja job from level 1 to 5.

The experience left me a bit sour.

Leveling a mage job, is about as close to the definition of masochism as one could get.  You are, for the most part, stuck to fighitng Easy Prey monsters (the lowest level of monster strength that still yields experience points in FFXI), denying yourself of rapid gains through early levels.  Even doing so, you will die, and probably often enough for it to become something of a raw nerve.  Yet you head out again and again, to gather up those precious experience points.

Every level tastes sweet because of what you endure to get it.

In contrast, the process of leveling Ninja took me less than a hour. I attacked mostly Decent Challenge through Tough monsters, and I didn’t have to bend a knee to heal once. I very nearly did the same thing with my Warrior when I originally leveled it. Likewise for Monk.  My memory fails as to how Thief went, but I don’t remember it being particularly difficult.

Excepting Red Mage, who is expected to fill the role of Healer, Enfeebler, and Nuker at later levels, most MMO’s punish you in the beginning for choosing the job, and later punish you again for having stuck to the job.

I understand why fewer people like MP based jobs.  The early levels are a test of will to get through.  Why on earth would you spent 2-3 hours getting a mage through level 1-5 when the same can be done in under an hour with a melee job?   The later levels, if you don’t have a static, are another test of will, as FFXI players shun any MP based job in favor of melee for killing off the wimps in the Aht Urghan zones in rapid sucession.

Don’t get me wrong.  I still enjoy MP based jobs over straight melee jobs, and my favorite among those is still White mage.  Many of my good memories of FFXI are as a White Mage.  I loved being able to anticipate the status ailments and toss out the curative before the melees could even lay a finger on the keyboard to tell me about it.  And and keeping an eye on the monster so I knew who had hate, so I could throw out a Cure <n> right before an attack that would have taken out a player.  And keeping up Protect, Shell, and an elemental buff, all the while counting the Ninja’s shadows, or the Paladins use of Sentinel so I could get a couple ticks of MP rest to magically keep the chain going.

However, the coins have been lifted from my eyes so to speak.  I consider myself a mutant among fantasy MMO players.  I no longer consider people who say they don’t enjoy mage jobs as lazy or lacking the will to do hard work.  The simple fact is that mage jobs punish you in the begining for choosing them.”

1 Comment »

1. [...] essentially a mage job that doesn’t use mp, so in the early levels it’s an exercise in Masochism like any other mage job.  Not quite the gnaw your arm off to escape level of aggravation that [...]

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