Who ever got six-person parties in the first place?

[Greatguardian]

I leveled PUP from 1-75 in these old EXP parties, does this make me an expert super leet master sagegod of FFXI?

Yes.

@thread,

There are arbitrary levels of "princessness" based on how much value was assigned to any one person's time and gil. Yes, exp did cost gil for anyone who was worth half a shit at it. For my Corsair, it often cost a whole lot of gil to exp. So why would I waste both my time and my money on some 5k/hour gimpfest that wasn't fun and wasn't doing anything for me?

If I'm going to piss away bullets and food to do my best, I expect the best from the others around me. If you can't be assed to gear yourself, eat food, skill Polearm, or come on a job that isn't absolute ass on a relative scale, then I can't be assed to waste my time with you.

Yeah. Pups in merit parties can get the hell out and never come back. I've never seen one parse worth half a shit. Masturbate all you want over sharpshot frame's piercing damage, that doesn't make your job any good in exp. And yes, I did care about the difference between 15-20k/hr and 25-30k/hr. I'm spending the same amount of money and doing the same amount of work either way. Why would I settle for less output?

[Sparthos]

GGs mindset is why I am glad that 'old super leet amazing awesome skillRus' parties are dead. There was no skill beyond being geared properly which was a little more than reading the right guides on a fansite and having the proper backline to assist in making sure the party worked.

It's not that I dislike or disagree with your points moreso that how this game was setup was concerned less with fun and more about getting only the best jobs in an EXP party or you'd be better off logged out. Efficiency and all that jazz. Sure, I played popular jobs but why should I have been penalized for trying out PUP? or BLU? or any other class that wasn't 'in' at the time? Many people were penalized and such is why people quit this game or princessed RDMs/BRDs/NINs they fucking sucked at anyway.

EXP wasn't fun if you weren't EXPing afterall. Campaign was a gathering point for retards and involved the worst elements of slogging to get a level possible.

Abyssea changed that. It gave you the ability to party on anything and take some time to enjoy being on the class and fighting enemies rather than worrying about squeezing out the 'awesome leet super fantabulous exp/hr' because frankly the worst Abyssean parties made birds look like shit.

For some it was a pride hit but I can safely say: Fuck birds, fuck Mamool Ja and fuck waiting 4hrs for a god damn PT invite that broke before the first chain 5.

[Greatguardian]

GGs mindset is why I am glad that 'old super leet amazing awesome skillRus' parties are dead. There was no skill beyond being geared properly which was a little more than reading the right guides on a fansite and having the proper backline to assist in making sure the party worked.

It's not that I dislike or disagree with your points moreso that how this game was setup was concerned less with fun and more about getting only the best jobs in an EXP party or you'd be better off logged out. Efficiency and all that jazz. Sure, I played popular jobs but why should I have been penalized for trying out PUP? or BLU? or any other class that wasn't 'in' at the time? Many people were penalized and such is why people quit this game or princessed RDMs/BRDs/NINs they fucking sucked at anyway.

EXP wasn't fun if you weren't EXPing afterall. Campaign was a gathering point for retards and involved the worst elements of slogging to get a level possible.

Abyssea changed that. It gave you the ability to party on anything and take some time to enjoy being on the class and fighting enemies rather than worrying about squeezing out the 'awesome leet super fantabulous exp/hr' because frankly the worst Abyssean parties made birds look like shit.

For some it was a pride hit but I can safely say: Fuck birds, fuck Mamool Ja and fuck waiting 4hrs for a god damn PT invite that broke before the first chain 5.

Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with this analysis - and the latter half of my post wasn't directed at you in particular. EXP was never fun pre-Abyssea, and it was extremely exclusive. I certainly had unpopular classes too. But when it's not going to be fun either way, and I'm throwing away hundreds of thousands or millions of gil and countless hours of time to grind out 500 bajillion merits, I'm going to want to try to reduce that insufferable grind as much as possible.

That's really what it comes down to. Capping merits wasn't a quick process. Sure, it was so simple a caveman could do it, but it required hours upon hours of slogging through the same pink birds and snakemen over and over again. I'm so god damn sick of pink birds. If being a dick to a bunch of Pups or Blus means I can get the hell away from those insufferable pink birds faster, I will make them all break down and cry.

The same goes for any War, Sam, Brd, or Rdm that sucked too, really. People call it princessing, I call it wanting to get the hell away from those godforsaken pink birds as quickly as possible.

[Ritsuka]

First of all, the topic title is both a hyperbole and a rhetorical question. Look those terms up before you post a stupid reply directly to the topic title so you don't look like a moron.

So I've seen a few loudmouths moaning about how they can't get a six-person party anymore.

But who ever got six-person parties in the first place? Don't you remember your LS members saying "Damn, I been seeking for a hour and no invite." "Lol I been seekin for 3." "I got invited to a party irl today, and it's been two weeks since I got an invite in this...."

All the camps were always full, the "Find Member" function always found 0 PLDs, NINs, WHMs, RDMs, and SCHs seeking, and BST, BLU, SMN, PUP, DNC, DRK, and even one of the most important endgame jobs, BLM, were more or less banned by players from participating in Colibri parties. You needed a specific setup to be a "good" party. Anyone who had those jobs was level 75 in no time, even with the old, slow EXP. I saw maybe 3 CORs ever seeking a party, and BRDs were rare too. The six-man party required a few specific jobs, and those jobs would be snatched up within 10 seconds of seeking. The parties often took over an hour to put together.

What the **** was this ****? Why do you want it back? You can still make these parties, and the EXP is better than it ever was for this type of party, but the fact is, they were just a pain in the ass. With 18 slots for Abyssea parties, any job can play. With Grounds of Valor allowing easy prey targets to give good EXP, the same situation there: all jobs are helpful. And these groups are easy to put together.

Maybe for some people FFXI is all there is to real life, but for me it's a game. The fact that FFXI is now less of a chore + job + 24/7 homework assignment + alternate life is pretty fun I think.

It realy wasnt that hard to make a party. I bet ya all that time of waiting you didn't once realy try to make a party. If the ppl where looking and i got my tank and my healer the DD where easy to find and had the party ready in 3 mins some days. You just have to look and try.

People should realy put more trust in there party leaders as well and try new things. Back in 2006 I was making a party and the set up didn't include a pld nin or war as a tank and i was on smn i belive. Some of the ppl in party laughed at me saying it wasnt going work but we tryed and it worked and it did very well the exp was realy nice. Try new things if they work then your have a great time if not then oh well try something differnt. If you look for party for hours you have nobody to blame but yourself for being lazy

[Runespider]

More people should have taken the initiative and invited people instead of complaining about no invites.

The fact remains most people never did this (then complain how it's impossible to get a party in FFXI), they will wait around for hours before logging in disgust first. When you did bite the bullet and make a party you have to literally do everything, find a good camp (if it's not perfect in the level range people complain, "this xp sucks!"), perfect party setup for little downtime, organise transport/tell people how to get to the camps, find reps in time or others start to leave before they arrive. This is old XP FFXI ofc, now with Abyssea everything is so user friendly almost anyone will shout and make an XP alliance.

Not even going into the massive job descrimiation for XP, literally anything can XP in an aby alliance now..no shame in asking to join as almost anything. Old FFXI was not so friendly.

[saevel]

It realy wasnt that hard to make a party. I bet ya all that time of waiting you didn't once realy try to make a party. If the ppl where looking and i got my tank and my healer the DD where easy to find and had the party ready in 3 mins some days. You just have to look and try.

People should realy put more trust in there party leaders as well and try new things. Back in 2006 I was making a party and the set up didn't include a pld nin or war as a tank and i was on smn i belive. Some of the ppl in party laughed at me saying it wasnt going work but we tryed and it worked and it did very well the exp was realy nice. Try new things if they work then your have a great time if not then oh well try something differnt. If you look for party for hours you have nobody to blame but yourself for being lazy

Except if you were one of the black listed jobs, you wouldn't be able to get a BRD, COR, WHM, or RDM to join your party. That's the whole waiting hours part your conveniently forgetting, DD's are a dime a dozen but support characters, especially BRD's were rare. The level lock ability fixed much of that, as your 75 BRD friend could come and be your level 60 party's BRD. But unless you knew someone who was willing to do that, you were stuck what what was available on /seacom, and if you had any "unmentionables" in your party the princess BRD's would refuse to come. That is how they earned the nickname princess after all.

[Runespider]

My server was full of brds that flagged up and went to sleep/work lol

[Finuve]

through any of the headaches, this is still the only MMO I ever reached level cap on, I'd rather fight for a party than solo grind fetch and kill count quests

[Ravenmore]

through any of the headaches, this is still the only MMO I ever reached level cap on, I'd rather fight for a party than solo grind fetch and kill count quests

Depending at what point in the game it was you were just forced to solo grind. That what old 6man parties did. There was no fighting for a party it was you were not invited at all depending on your job as GG pointed out.

Blms during the SC+MB time were sought after just as hard as brds were during the TP burns but once the game moved to tp burns blms were force out to solo levels or mana burn for less exp then the tp burns.

Just as GG hates pink birds I hate little annoying Imps. I was good at soloing the little bastards but it was really annoying long and after the first hundred or so chain 5s solo the wow wears all.

[Finuve]

Depending at what point in the game it was you were just forced to solo grind. That what old 6man parties did. There was no fighting for a party it was you were not invited at all depending on your job as GG pointed out.

Blms during the SC+MB time were sought after just as hard as brds were during the TP burns but once the game moved to tp burns blms were force out to solo levels or mana burn for less exp then the tp burns.

Just as GG hates pink birds I hate little annoying Imps. I was good at soloing the little bastards but it was really annoying long and after the first hundred or so chain 5s solo the wow wears all.

I hit 75 DRK before ToAU came out