The "Go Solo It" fever

[Auredant]

Are you including me? I felt my advice was fairly solid, and a good way to get on the good side of most of the disillusioned old school players. None of us want to repeat the same 5-1 mission walkthrough for the 5,000th time when there's a wiki for it, nor do we want to farm yagudo necklaces for someone when they're easily soloable. Teaching someone self-reliance early on is a great way to be more successful later. I've had far too many experiences with players that my friends would spoil, helping with anything and everything, who pretty much never left Jeuno unless they had 1 or more 75s with them to do everything for them. That's not healthy for anyone involved. High level players get annoyed, and low level players don't learn how to do things for themselves.

The easiest way to earn my respect is to get things done when I'm not there to help. A friend of mine came back to the game a couple weeks ago, having Rdm and Rng at 75, no gear, and no gil (he gave it away ages ago when he quit). After he bought Abyssea, he told me he wanted to take his THF from 65-90. I took him out to Aby-Attohwa and solo'd some Dom ops for him, got him 65-90 and got all his Genkais done in a couple of hours. Aside from getting him Razed Ruins, that's about all he needed my help with. After that, he went out, used the Dominion Notes I got him to buy some augmented Daggers, skilled up everything to cap, unlocked and killed his WSNMs, got a Swift belt and Raparee harness, and farmed up a couple mil in gil to cover the basic gear he was missing. I was not there for any of that, and he didn't need me to be. Now, when he actually does need my help for something (Turul, AF3, etc), I'm more than willing to drop what I'm doing and head over because I know he's responsible enough to contribute to the fight, rather than cheer from the sidelines.

excellent example....except for the dominion ops in attohwa business (but i'm sure that was just a mistake)
i was Plin a teenish whm ls member in the dunes when he asked me to walk him to jeuno so he wouldnt get aggroed and die. Not an unreasonable request....except that he was a 60 blm at the time ><
when i mentioned it to him he just said "but im not a 60 blm now" /facepalm

[Auredant]

I think this is why a lot of people often will spend an extra $13 a month to create an extra account and buy another copy of FFXI for a different system and level an alt character to assist their main character to help them on certain stuff. But I like your idea for incentives for people to help a person with something for those who normally don't help unless there's something in it for them. Some people offer gil as a reward for people helping but not everyone is rich enough to offer a reward. For those that do need an incentive to help I have a little bit of an idea of what SE can maybe do to give players that incentive to help.

SE can make some sort of helper or assist point system where a player gets one point everytime they help someone with something. A NPC can be placed in all cities and the helper has to get an item from the NPC that they can use to multiply the item and trade to the person they're helping out to hold onto. There can be different help categories like quests, notorious monsters, missions, etc. from the help NPC and while the person that is being helped with is fighting the monster or doing the quest, that person can use the item on the monster or trade the item to the NPC to get some kind of imprint on the item. (Maybe a soulplate can somehow be involved to capture an image or something) The NPC/Monster or player's name is then imprinted on the item and the person being helped trades the item back to the helper and the helper can trade the imprinted item back to the NPC for their point reward.

As for the rewards, the rewards can be very good rewards like something almost like twilight gear or something that players will really want to go after.

I don't know if this sort of system will work or can be done but let's say you need 100 points for a really good piece of gear or item, then that gives you 100 reasons to help 100 different people and a lot of people can get the help they need and people won't have to worry about never finding anyone to help them.

I like this! How bout trading in helper points for an abbysite of the increased drop rate...works in and out of abbyssea and grants a permanent 5% increase on all NM drops...maybe can max at 10% and can solo then and have a better chance at drop even though ya may not have TH on hand. Don't know anyone who wouldnt want that!

[Auredant]

@Krashport-usually it's the elitist players who have been on the game forever that tell the newer player to go solo not the one that was abby leveled by his friend...at least thats been what i've witnessed. Everyone forgets that they didnt start this game out as the uber solo everything bad asses they currently are. We all had help. Unfortunately its rare that i have time to help as i usually log on for events...at least during the week.
But my advice is like most...get a helpful social LS. Be social. Participate. And try and be patient and not ask for help wit 3-5 things the first second u get pearled. And if u do all this and no one ever is willing to help, or worse, they don't even respond to you...then drop that pearl like it's on fire and find a new one.

[Alderin]

Agreed to a certain extent...

Everyone has goals in which they would like to achieve that is simply not solo'able - especially for newcommers. The prime example I have are the lower level limit break quests which require you to go out and kill mobs that are much higher level then you. Even farming a testimony by yourself can be quite difficult for your first time round - without a higher level job.

These used to be done in masses - When the first limit break quests came out you used to do it in parties / alliances as at this stage no one was a higher level in order to be able to go solo it for you.

There is one mentality I do not agree with here and that is a level 30 asking to go "help" them with the Tenzen or Airship fight etc. The low level player is not assisting with this case and essentially should be asking "Can someone finish my add-on for me while I sit back and watch."

I believe that if you are in a position where you cannot solo something in order to proceed with the race to a higher level - then yes you should ask for help. I am sure the guys in my LS would help out - however if you wish to simply let other people do your quests for you, or essentially play your game for you - you have no standpoint here and shouldn't be attempting to do it.

If you can't at least be any degree of help in regards to doing something (eg. Trying to finish CoP at level 30, or something else) then you truly aren't asking for "help" you are asking for someone to do it for you.

Sure, if you are stuck and need help - ask for it.. You won't get flamed in my shell, in fact I am sure you will get a few volunteers. However if you are at a level that you shouldn't be attempting to do something - then get to a level where you can before asking.

The player that you mentioned in your original circumstance is just selfish, obviously gets things given to him or has had an easy ride to 90 and doesn't have any sort of mentality that does the community any good. Unfortunately this game is pretty much based on end-game stuff now, and the newer player is obviously getting the short straw on this one due to the idea that this game is "Abyssea or GTFO."

In short, I won't play your game for you - however if you are truly stuck and need to get past the mission/quest in order to continue your race to lvl 90 then sure I will help.. However the key-word there is "help" and not "do it for you".

[Hajieelkhe]

This thread struck a note in me... I totally agree with the OP. Since less people are playing ffxi, there are less people left that are willing to help. Don't get me wrong, I think of myself as quite an accomplished player, with reasonable experience. I've gotten lots of help from my LS, and other players outside of my LS. I've helped other players too, though I feel myself getting agitated when getting requests from totally new players that haven't even heard of or used ffxiclopedia or anything of the like.

But I was there too... I threw away beastman seals like every other newbie ><. I never thought I'd get my first level 75 job until I was challenged by another player, and then grinded my way to the top. Nor did I believe I would ever kick Maat's ass at the first try on my RDM.

Though the happiest I ever felt was when I met my now best mate in ffxi. Always quick to help and we even tried to have a promy static when it still was hard ><;

So I propose to all of you... hmmm. I'm on Ramuh server, soon to be Bahamut. Anyone that wish to help newcomers, contact me (Hajieelkhe) and you can all get a pearl. And to all of you newbies as well, you're always welcome to join us.

There will be no pressure, if you want to help, come help. If you need help, just ask. Though if you don't even know what you're talking about, we will ask you to do research. (Though there will be exceptions ^^)


I'll be posting this on New Player Guidance as well

/ Haji

[Krashport]

@Krashport-usually it's the elitist players who have been on the game forever that tell the newer player to go solo not the one that was abby leveled by his friend...at least thats been what i've witnessed. Everyone forgets that they didnt start this game out as the uber solo everything bad asses they currently are. We all had help. Unfortunately its rare that i have time to help as i usually log on for events...at least during the week.
But my advice is like most...get a helpful social LS. Be social. Participate. And try and be patient and not ask for help wit 3-5 things the first second u get pearled. And if u do all this and no one ever is willing to help, or worse, they don't even respond to you...then drop that pearl like it's on fire and find a new one.

Fixed it, Auredant See Edit!

I've noticed this as well, The only reason why these players do this is: "I'm assuming"

Me.) I Would gladly help any member new, old or elitist. Odin /Poke me! ^^b

1.) Cause they joined the game under RL friends and those friends PL'ed them all the way up, Had them leech w/in Abyssea, Those RL friends thought they we're doing good, But the lack of having their friend that their PL'in, Having let them leech not teaching them the right tools they need to play the game as to make new friends along the way.

2.) Joining a new MMO after leaving one can that a toll on a person, <Stop for a min and think back when you 1st logged in> You didn't know anything about this MMO as to what you heard or read about outside the game, Being new some players can come off abit hard, I've done it.. "Hard as to want everything right away"

3.) All members play at a totally different pace, Some think that FFXI is just Leveling to cap and get the best gear. Me I personally think its more then just that, Lack of a better word. "I do it all"?

4.) Some members don't realize that this MMO is Global which can in time be the BIG issue, not able to explain yourself clearly, That person your telling would do that "goodbye byebye good..bye byebye.... bye"

Edit: 5.) Sad to say, There are "Some" Members out there that don't play well w/ others, and just like to keep to themselves. Also there are Linkshells that only work w/in and just out for themselves. "This would fall into "Some" elitist members"

Edit: 5.)
Edit: 6) This is to what I experience, Also It's what I'm assuming to Said OP.

[Khajit]

I generally don't mind helping out with some stuff or at least used to not mind but it honestly gets irritating when I see lv 90 people bitching at me to go help me with a mob they could kill on their own 30~40 levels earlier and cursing at me for having the audacity to say they need to just do it his or herself. When asking for help be clear on if you need some other thing that actually does require 2 people because if I have to deal with nonsense that you refuse to actually say you need help on before I tell you to do it yourself then you basically just lied to me and everyone else about what you needed and the people that would help on the doors or multi person locks are going to ignore the person shouting for things they need no help with as far as the information given tells them.

[Beowolf]

help someone...then tell them to "pay it forward" good movie genious concept.