Ludicrous game mechanics are ludicrous

[Toadie-Odie]

Because the OP wanted to start their own thread. What does it matter?

Why can't you leave your snide moderating comments to forums where that's actually your role?

Actually the OP was the one that started both threads of the same name...

[Elphy]

The cast at an impossibly fast rate in perfect repeating cycles, totally impossible for someone manually playing the game without using the third-party cheat program with its never-ending macro looping mechanism.

Actually I have skilled up manually by simply opening up my spell list and going down it, select spell > enter > enter > down button > enter > enter > repeat

No bot needed, and I can catch up on my dvr, so not everyone doing this is botting

Its not skillful play but when it comes to enhancing magic its about all you can do really if you wanna cap it. Sure you can do it in battle but the spells last for so long and skill ups are so slow coming its nearly impossible to do just by pt. The ppl who do it to skill blu or smn magic are just foolishly lazy, since they both can be easily done (and usually faster) without a bot or repeated summoning and pollens. Blu esp since u can easily skill up while hunting spells

But some things like enhancing magic leaves little other choice.

And when it comes to "skillful play", skill bots and other ways you obtain skill ups are the least of our worries.

[Toadie-Odie]

Capped Skills don't make a crappy player good all of a sudden anymore than being level 99 instead of level 1.

I believe that is what I was saying in my post.

The real question is or should be: Why do players feel these programs have to be used even after the improved skill gain rate and food options?

Well, the answer is a couple of things. It could be:

A. They are lazy
B. Enhancing Magic, Summoning Magic, and Bard Song skill ups are daunting as hell
C. They are new enough to the game they do not how to skill up effectively or efficiently without using a bot

I think Rustic's suggestion to change the rate of skill ups is viable. They did this already with Parry, Shield, and Guard.

My team mate, Lupa, was able to cap her parry on DNC without the use of food just being our tank while we goofed around farming.

I don't think the skill up system needs to be abolished. However, it does need some fine tuning to fit with the FFXI we have today.

Edit: Forgot to include Enhancing Magic

[Elphy]

Bard Song skill ups are daunting as hell.

Bard song skill ups are some of the fastest/easiest magic skills to get. I posted this before but anyone missed it...

Find a mob the right lvl for your skill > Lullabye > threnody > threnody > threnody > threnody > ok ok you get the point > mob wakes up > Lullabye > repeat

I did this on my original char and the skill ups flew up at an amazing pace. And once you get high enough (150+) you can sleep the marids in aby - ule and use this tactic with little threat since they move at such a slow pace so even if they dont sleep with the first song you can easily stay far enough ahead of them to recast.

Maybe we should start a thread about skilling tips sans bot...hmmm I will get on that.

[Toadie-Odie]

Bard song skill ups are some of the fastest/easiest magic skills to get. I posted this before but anyone missed it...

Find a mob the right lvl for your skill > Lullabye > threnody > threnody > threnody > threnody > ok ok you get the point > mob wakes up > Lullabye > repeat

I did this on my original char and the skill ups flew up at an amazing pace. And once you get high enough (150+) you can sleep the marids in aby - ule and use this tactic with little threat since they move at such a slow pace so even if they dont sleep with the first song you can easily stay far enough ahead of them to recast.

Maybe we should start a thread about skilling tips sans bot...hmmm I will get on that.

Thank you! I've had so much trouble with that. I don't know why I hadn't thought of doing that either. I capped my Healling Skill on WHM spamming cure on undead.

And I think a skill up tips thread would be useful for a lot of people.

[Elphy]

I created a skill up tips thread.

Hope it helps!

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Another one: a skillup system that means Vana'diel is littered with people botting on caster jobs and summoners for hours/days at a time running their bot scripts to cast spells to get skillups.

For a game where the Producer claims he is interested in promoting playing skill, this kind of mechanic is the completely opposite: the only skill you need to to find the right bot!

You find them outside mog houses, by the Nomad Moogles in Rabao, Selbina, etc., or pretty much anywhere they park themselves. The cast at an impossibly fast rate in perfect repeating cycles, totally impossible for someone manually playing the game without using the third-party cheat program with its never-ending macro looping mechanism .. that is if they're not using one of the many bots Google knows about.

A 'skillful' game? I don't think so.

Skilling up/having job skills, is not the same as skillfull play.

[Zagen]

Actually the OP was the one that started both threads of the same name...

Same title different topic... I learned that just by looking at her other post. The OP is unoriginal with titles that's all, granted the title applies to both issues due to being vague.

Well, the answer is a couple of things. It could be:

A. They are lazy
B. Enhancing Magic, Summoning Magic, and Bard Song skill ups are daunting as hell
C. They are new enough to the game they do not how to skill up effectively or efficiently without using a bot

A. Laziness doesn't address skill ups don't define the skill of a player beyond they spent time skilling up.

B. Summoning isn't as bad as Enhancing if you actually use blood pacts while leveling up.
Bard is easy as Elphy's tactic works well. If you have sea access then it's even easier, use the same tactic on Hpemde and you can go from 0 skill to 280 maybe a bit further because of the skill ups on DC mobs.
Blue Magic Skill imo is up there with Enhancing if you never played it before as you need it to learn spells.
Enhancing can be exploited by spamming protect on NPCs in Besieged or your Fellow NPC if it's leveled.

C. Assuming a new player that cares about being good at the game they would have done research. Enough to know how to be skilled at playing the job. This still doesn't address the reality that skills in X magic/weapon/defensive skill doesn't actually define skill of play the job.

None of this defines a player's skill at playing a job the only one that's remotely close is BLU because if you didn't skill your magic you won't have the spells to best do your task/role.

[Toadie-Odie]

This still doesn't address the reality that skills in X magic/weapon/defensive skill doesn't actually define skill of play the job.

I believe that's what I've been saying all along. My response was to your question as to why people would use a bot to skill up. And with that said, who truly knows why anyone does anything? I was only pulling out the three most logical reasons in my mind why someone would use a bot to get their skill ups as opposed to doing it themselves directly.

[Zagen]

I believe that's what I've been saying all along. My response was to your question as to why people would use a bot to skill up. And with that said, who truly knows why anyone does anything? I was only pulling out the three most logical reasons in my mind why someone would use a bot to get their skill ups as opposed to doing it themselves directly.

The point of my question:

The real question is or should be: Why do players feel these programs have to be used even after the improved skill gain rate and food options?

Is that in today's FFXI and even the old FFXI skill gain is meaningless when we're talking about player skill which is what actually affects skillful game play.

The question isn't meant to be answered because the answers are illogical or in the OP's words ludicrous. Just in case you're curious the answer are something to the effect of: SE needed another time sink to keep players from getting to enjoy aspects of the game that actually require their skill on a player level.