I think I'm finished; a new player's final thoughts

[Dreamin]

I've said I wont give out my current/latest camp but will give you older camp and one of them support up to 2 DDs. The abyssea one was in response to the other people as to keeping secret on exp camp and not willing to help others. So I gave an example of where you can help a ton of ppl just with 1-2 active ppl in abyssea.

Seriously, for the latest camps, if you just run through some of the newer zones you will see where a lot of camps can be possible. It wont be a compact not having to move type of camp but rather a moving camp similar to the old bird merit camp. You might have to mix in different mob types (i.e. rabbits/worms) to keep chain going but they are out there.

You want another camp that I used to use, you can go up to Yorcia and kill Snapweeds+Monkey (and sometimes mushroom heads too). Access might be a problem depending on your server's waypoint situation. So if you have to start from FS you might have to get thruogh some Lairs to get to the more ideal camp site.

[Elathia]

Hello,

You might remember me from a topic I made a while ago. I was a new player just starting out. It's been about a month now, and I just can't find myself logging in anymore.

So it seems you only played for a couple of months. I played since 2004 and quite maybe 6-7 times. Game was vastly different back then.

I played for one month and grinded out like crazy, and accomplished a lot. However, recently, I've just been absolutely burnt out after doing all of it.

Took you a few months to burn out, but took most of us 10 yrs.

Things I accomplished:

-Level 99 SMN, didn't go to Abyssea until 75; Geomancer is like 93 or something
-Nation mission rank 6, Dynamis unlocked and farmed on multiple days
-Zilart beginning
-Aht Urhgan complete, Alexander/Odin
-Chains of Promathia complete
-Zoned into Wings of the Goddess at like level 50, got eaten by a random mob, didn't go back
-3 pieces of 109 AF armor, along with some relic armor
-Barely touched Abyssea "progression", never managed to kill a single zone boss
-Completed various other quests (max gobbiebag, all avatars including Fenrir, Evoker's Ring, the list goes on) along with farming/hunting for various SMN specific items
-Did not touch Adoulin; never got a good reason to go there, wanted to explore it with friends, but friends got burnt out and quit before we even got that far. Beyond that, from the looks of it, it looks like more time gated content (coalition?) and all the other things above seemed to provide better armor/items/worth than Adoulin.

Far more than I've accomplished in 10 years. Frankly new players got it made and shouldn't quit.

the only party content I've done is EXP (with like 1-2 people) or Dynamis with 1 other friend. Keep in mind, a LOT of doing all of this was time spent researching. I have to understand pretty much the majority of every aspect of this 11 year old game to find out where to get certain items, how the missions work, where I have to go, etc. Learning it all at once gets extremely complex (as a new player, look at the login rewards; you will have NO IDEA what 90% of the stuff is).

There is 11 years worth of information readily available for all. FFXI is probably the most documented MMO in history. Even when I came back, I had no trouble catching up due to all the information out there. Sounds like you're rushing. Don't.

The reason why I didn't party up is the requirements. I spent nearly every day working on all those requirements to get ready. If I wasn't "working" on all that, I was exping with friends, or helping them out with the various tasks they needed help with (they have their own list of things they need to do). Also, keep in mind I couldn't do a lot of the stuff by myself, or didn't know how, but thankfully, I got help from a couple nice people.

This is a critical mistake ANY FFXI should not make. New or old. If you play to catch up, you will not enjoy yourself. Friends will leave you behind, but the real friends are the ones that will help you when you need it.

After all this, the only things I read on the forums are old players saying they SHOULDN'T remove all these requirements or make it faster. They are saying that people should HAVE to take all this time doing the stories and such. Example from another thread:

I don't agree with them. Indeed times have changed and some of those requirements do need to be removed. Most of what SE has implemented to make things a little less stressing was a welcome change at least to me.

If I was someone who was lazy, and just wanted everything handed to me/instantly... I would not have taken the effort to do all of that.

I guess some of them forgot what a real lazy player is. Boy I got some horror stories for you!

-Level 99 THF, didn't go to Abyssea until 75
-Nation rank 2
-Got to Aht Urhgan to unlock Corsair, did not touch the missions
-Did not touch Chains of Promathia
-Did not get ANY AF, not even the low level
-Did not max Gobbiebag, no other important achievements to note
-Never touched Adoulin

... and he quit. Why? Cause a lot of this is boring. It's work.

Or maybe because Rank 3 requires help. All those matters required help. That THF(a job that had it rough in the early years) most likely had HELL getting help. That is one of the reasons I quit so much.

New players do not want to, and should not have to, go through all this.

I agree. But I'm thinking on a wider range.

I'm going to say that the old players need to stop looking at this game through nostalgia goggles. Times have changed. The game is not the same as it was before. You need to accept change, and move forward, or this game is going to suffer. There are a LOT of things that could be changed, and should be changed, for the game to move forward and prosper for years to come. However, it doesn't help when the majority of the community is straight up rude to new players, or thinks that it's right for them to "suffer the same way they did in the past." The response to practically anything I say is "YOU KNOW IT WAS SO MUCH HARDER IN THE PAST, YOU SHOULD STOP COMPLAINING." I spent a lot of time arguing/discussing various topics (mythic weapons, mission requirements, etc) with people on this forum, and boy, it's been an uphill battle. So many people want all the requirements to stay, and if you don't like it, "too bad this isn't the game for you." I still think this quote is hilarious:

I can't speak for other old players on this, but I look at the game through nostalgia glasses, and I think to myself that I'm glad those days are behind me. If I wanted to start over fresh, sure the "need help" missions are still there, but EXPing is no longer an event, and that's huge. Once again, you new players got it made. And it was harder back then. You have no freaking idea at all. Some of the stuff you want(and stuff I want) technically you don't need because they are obsolete.

Why does a "rush to end game" exist?
snip

You're not 'forced' to do old content. And don't rush.

I never finished CoP
I never finished TOAU
I don't really care for WoTG
SoA doesn't interest me.

It took 4 years to get my first 75 job(this was normal back then heh).
I just like to log in, kill mobs and enjoy myself. Everything has left me in the past, but I don't care.

Think about your enjoyment.

[Camiie]

Unless you're paying my monthly fee, I'm not required to help anyone in any way, shape or form.

Which only reinforces what I said. Kindness, compassion, and generosity are generally expressed by helping others without obligation or expectation of reward.

Especially like others have said, I've spent my own time and found these camps and if I don't feel like sharing with the open public so everyone and their mother and their trusts will come kill my chain. It is no one else's business. I dont mind sharing ideas on how to find the appropriate camp for others (i.e. party size/strength/weakness are the key parameters one need to understands and accepted).

You don't mind sharing as long as there is no detriment to yourself. You're still just reinforcing my point.

I'll throw a freebie to you here.

Personally I don't need anything you might have to offer. I've been playing for years. It's new players I worry for when they see how purely self-serving veteran players are to the point where even decent XP camps are kept secret for fear that there might actually be social interaction in a multiplayer game.

If you have a group of people who needs a lot of merits (AA KI) and only 1 or 2 people can be active and the rest needs to afk and you just dont want to suffer the 200-300xp/mob + RoE exp bonus on lower level mobs, you can take a MNK (just load him up with EVA) [or BLU with good Thunder gears, or BLM with good MAB or ... name your jobs] and a part time healer/keyer and you can effectively do just about any Abyssea camp with mobs that aggro/link (otherwise kill speed will be way too slow). Won't be some great/grand exp but in about 1.5hr, you walk everyone out with the 20 merits that you each need for that AA run. Abyssea zone/mob choices, I won't tell you but it's not hard to figure that out [there are just way too many to choose].

Go to an Abyssea zone on a JOB and kill monsters. Well I guess that's... something.

[Dreamin]

Wow, the big I'm a selfless person post. Didn't know that only passionate/compassion/kind ppl are allowed to pay a monthly fee so that they can spend their free time however they wanted to spend them. When I want to truly help people, I donate to the Red Cross/United Ways/local food bank/etc. I'm sorry, like most people, my playing time is limited, so I value how I spend my playing time and I spend them on what my current goal is. I don't play for other ppl and I certainly hope no one else is playing for me.

[Mirage]

No one is really selfless anyway. If you dig deep enough, you can always find selfish reasons to why you are doing nice things to others.

I do nice things to others because i want them to enjoy the game because if the game has more players, it will remain healthy and online for a longer period of time. The game being shut down is not in my own best interest. Players that quit out of frustration from inability to progress don't make the game stay alive.

[detlef]

Wow, the big I'm a selfless person post. Didn't know that only passionate/compassion/kind ppl are allowed to pay a monthly fee so that they can spend their free time however they wanted to spend them. When I want to truly help people, I donate to the Red Cross/United Ways/local food bank/etc. I'm sorry, like most people, my playing time is limited, so I value how I spend my playing time and I spend them on what my current goal is. I don't play for other ppl and I certainly hope no one else is playing for me.

I don't really care about how nice you are. I just think that you did not refute my claim that there is an inadequate number of XP camps with sufficient mob density and XP per kill sufficient to encourage people to group up instead of using Trust NPCs.

[Crevox]

it is to me when I wanted to keep my chain going and not get wasted by some trusters who typically kill slow enough to just disrupt chain. difference between 700-800 exp vs 1.4k-1.6k on chain make my meriting session go a lot faster.

And this EXP beats Abyssea parties? I remember getting 200k/hr in Abyssea, sometimes 300k+ if the party was good.

[Camiie]

Wow, the big I'm a selfless person post.

I never said I was, so I dunno where you're getting that from.

Didn't know that only passionate/compassion/kind ppl are allowed to pay a monthly fee so that they can spend their free time however they wanted to spend them

.

You can do what you want, but that doesn't preclude me saying that we look like a bunch of anti-social jerks when people act like you and those who defended you. You want to take a stand then you have to take the criticism.

When I want to truly help people, I donate to the Red Cross/United Ways/local food bank/etc.

That's highly commendable, but don't make this in to a big I'm a selfless person post.

I'm sorry, like most people, my playing time is limited, so I value how I spend my playing time and I spend them on what my current goal is. I don't play for other ppl and I certainly hope no one else is playing for me.

Like I said, do what you want but there are consequences when much of the community has that mentality.

[Eyeballed]

Behold the kind, compassionate, and generous FFXI community at work.

Remember that guide I wrote back in January? In my own LS I direct all the newbies and returning players to it, yet 99.9% of them end up asking questions that are clearly covered in it and I end up repeating myself till I'm blue in the face.

There's a FFXI wiki also that some blatantly refuse to investigate; All they want is someone to hold their hand all the way through the game and it's damn bothersome.

[Crevox]

Remember that guide I wrote back in January? In my own LS I direct all the newbies and returning players to it, yet 99.9% of them end up asking questions that are clearly covered in it and I end up repeating myself till I'm blue in the face.

There's a FFXI wiki also that some blatantly refuse to investigate; All they want is someone to hold their hand all the way through the game and it's damn bothersome.

I was going to respond to this, but after thinking about it, I don't even know what to say.