I’m currently leveling RDM as a sub to my Paladin for solo work, and a couple days ago I hooked up with a Level Sync Qufim party, Ninja tank, Beastmaster, Ranger, Black Mage, Red Mage (moi!), and White Mage.  A nice balanced party.  Things went okay, except the Ninja was having problems keeping hate off the Mages.

With only Utsusemi: Ichi, our Ninja was bound to take some heavy damage.  To boot, although I was successfully Slowing, Paralyzing, and Blinding our prey, the poor guy was having a tough go of timing his Utsusemi casts to get shadows back up.  So the White Mage or myself would throw out a big cure and the Crab/Pug would come after us.  If it wasn’t us, it was the Black Mage after tossing out an unresisted Thunder or Blizzard.  Ever single one of use managed to get KO’ed as a result.

Then our Ninja disconnected and never came back.  No tanks were seeking, so I offered to bring in my Paladin if the party leader could find a mage to replace me — which he did pretty easily.  The party wasn’t happy though.  With the Ninja we had been getting some okay XP, sometimes getting up to chain 4.  It was clear they considered bloodtanking passé.  There was much whinging about how the XP was going to go down, but everyone would put up with it just to get the next level.

I was pissed off.

I’d been through Qufim on my Paladin, Thief, Warrior, Ninja, Bard, White Mage, and now Red Mage.  Qufim is exactly the place you want to have a Paladin.  The monsters hit hard, and with the Pugils, they hit fast too.  The critters are high defense, so battles aren’t going to be rapid.  You want a tank that can take in the face, and survive for awhile under the beat down.

• It’s worth noting that SE has introduced “Fields of Valor” (FoV) to FFXI, and part of the FoV mechanic is “Field Support.” This allows you to get some advanced support for your character.  The Ninja had opted for Regen, I picked Refresh and Regen.

We level synched to our lowest member — the mage that replaced me, which put us at exactly the same level the Ninja was when we started.  I was hell bent to show them that Paladin was the better tank in this circumstance.  I knew the field support was going to help, but hory crow!

I NEVER dropped below 50% HP, and I never dropped below 25% MP.  I almost never rested, and the only reason we didn’t chain endlessly is because we ran out of monsters.  With Refresh at that level, I could cast Cure on myself with wild abandon.  Nothing could peel the hate off me, and I’m pretty sure the White Mage was bored.  Losing 50% of my HP because of the Pugils TP attack?  *yawn*  Losing 50% of my HP because of a Puglis TP attack and the Black Mage getting Blizzard to land unresisted?  No problem-o. A quick Weapon Skill made the monster quickly forget the mage.

In no time we burned through 2 levels, and everyone in the party was now high enough level that we weren’t getting good XP.  We finished off our last FoV assignment and called it a night.

Just to rub it in, I sent the two biggest whinners a /tell saying: So, would still rather have had a Ninja tank?

I got no answers, which made me feel even more smug.

I’ve been logging into FFXI pretty regularly — though for short times.   FFXI doesn’t lend itself well to short bursts of gameplay — but I’m making the most of it and progressing on some of the things I want to.

However, I find myself slightly stressed to get things done.  This is a point of concern for me.

When I played Gentoo, I got caught up in the rat race to 75.  Since most of my in-game mates were in school, or generally doing something that gave them far more free time than your average working stiff (like me), I really got hung up on the need to not be left behind.

So I skipped every ounce of content I could so I could grind away on XP.  Any content I couldn’t skip, I ended up relying on higher level friends to burn me through.  The end result was, while I did have plenty of good times, that I burned out completely on the game and left.

When I restarted with Suquamish, I was determined to play FFXI like it was a game.  Shocking concept — I know.  I not only succeeded, but ended exceeding my desire to simply have a good time in game.  FFXI turned out to be an amazing time thanks to my static (Darrian, Ardra, Flick, and Greavin) and both the lolCats and Paradigm linkshells.  In those circles of friends, there was no pressure except that which we put on ourselves to enjoy the game.  When the static and linkshells petered out (as is the nature of these things), I was in a funk.  I could only find people in the game that were in the rat race.  FFXI once again started transforming into something that looked less like a game and more like a chore, so I left again.

With the news of FFXIV, the lure to Vana’diel was too much and I decided to end my time with other MMOs to play FFXI.  Again the goal, as it should be with any game, was to have fun while I finished up a few things I originally had set out to do.  It’s harder this time — the game is still entertaining, but again the pressure to hurry up and get something done haunts me.  This time it’s not a case of being left behind by my peers, but by the fact that when FFXIV comes out I know I’ll play it and stop FFXI.  I know FFXIV is AT LEAST a year away, but I still feel like I need to hurry to accomplish the things I want to do in the game.

The news of FFXIV made me re-activate Suquamish on Bahamut, and I’m currently working to finish off my Paladin and maybe Bard while I wait for FFXIV to hit the shelves.

During some non-game time I came across this: http://sob.informe.com/forum/ via the FFXIV wika.  A fair number of people seem to be doing exactly what I did [re-activating because of the FFXIV announcement], and in the process want to create a ready-to-go community once FFXIV hits the shelves while providing a positive FFXI experience.

It appears the parent shell is on Asura, and I’m toying with the idea of transfering to that server just to be in on the fun.

…the more they stay the same.

Having a little time off between a handful of substantial updates seems to have renewed the game for me.

There’s a fair amount of discovery going on by me.  SE has moved around some of the NPCs so basic activities, like warping to outposts, meant hunting around the cites for the new locations.  Although I’m not a fan of the new locations, the hunt wasn’t a chore.  Having to wander through the cities again, like a newbie, a tiny bit like logging into Windurst the first time and discovering the joys of Windurst.

SE also introduced “Field Training.”  Essentially it’s the tired old MMO quest of “Go out and kill <n> beasts!”  The difference is that this isn’t delivered to the player as content — it’s simply a method of making the leveling process faster by allowing you hunt stuff that normally gives you XP and giving you an XP bonus at the end.  It’s funny that when delivered in such a honest method that this tired mechanism doesn’t seem so bad.  I’ve been level Red Mage (as a sub to my Paladin) to try out this system, and it works pretty nicely.  In 3 days I as able to go from level 1 to level 18.  I’m sure I could have done it faster, but I refuse to play this game in such a way that makes it a complete grind.

It’s not all without it’s bumps though.  First, many people now refuse to party until at least level 20.  It’s understandable why.  Solo’ing levels 1-20 is often faster than trying to party at such early levels.  Valkurm is reknowned for it’s ability to even make perfectly competent players teh suck, and one is often XP ahead going after “Easy Prey” and “Decent Challenge” monsters than getting stuck with a bad party.   There’s also fact that all my old Linkshells are defunct.  I’ve hooked up with an old LS mate from Paradigm, Marthamoonbeam, and her friend Mumble.  They’ve been great, but since we all play such skewed times, my time thus far has been a little secluded.

Finally SE cleaned up a few of things that bothered from earlier updates.  When “Treasure Chests” first showed up, they’d just spontaneously appear in random places.  That, and a few other new mechanics really ruined the game for me.  SE fixed a fair amount of these with easy modifications.  Chests now, for example, appear after you’ve killed a monster.  Simply by making the mechanic show up in a logic manner really changed the feeling of the game.

So with all those changes, it comes down to this;  I’ve been spending my early levels grinding solo on EP and DC prey while doing quests, and finding a party in Valkurm is hard.  Just like 2004.

So Square Enix announced that Final Fantasy XIV will be an MMO to follow FFXI.

I probably buzzed in excitement as I read about it, looked at the screen shots, and watched the movie.  The game looks beautiful and sounds exciting.  I’ll definitely jump into the Square Enix’s new game as soon as I possibly can.

However, with that excitement, I was awash with the desire to play my Paladin again.

Oh, I tried to fight it, but doing Campaign didn’t seem so bad anymore, and level synch parties didn’t seem such a chore — and the desire to hit 75PLD before the next game comes out over took my will, and I reactivated my character.