The importance of job points

[dasva]

24/7

10chars

27/7 or gtfo

[Zarchery]

Nothing is required. You can stand around a starter zone wacking level one mobs for all eternity because you don't actually NEED to level up or gear or anything. Saying people don't need them is meaningless. If you don't need them then you shouldn't care how I get them.

This all boils down to people wanting things. You want job points to remain the same. Other people want to max out their characters without having to farm (as much) JP to do it.If they were to make JP far easier to obtain, the only downside for you would be that you couldn't come on here and call people lazy for not having them..

I would never call anyone lazy for not having job points. I would call them lazy for demanding that they get to have them without doing anything. What the Hell does it matter how much somebody wants something? That is such an infuriating sense of entitlement to say "I want this! I don't want to put in any effort! Gimme!" You sound like a 5 year old.

I don't want to go around beating on mobs for nothing in return. I want to beat mobs for progression. When I get job points, I want it to mean something. I want it to mean that I put effort into obtaining something I am proud of. What the Hell is the point of even playing a video game if everything is just given to you effortlessly?

Again, you keep dodging the question. The topic here is on the importance of job points. As in, are job points becoming so important that you must have them to function in the game? What is the consequence of not having capped job points? The only consequence any of you guys can come up with is "I don't have capped job points!"

The consequence of not going through the effort to obtain a mythic weapon is that you don't have a mythic weapon.
The consequence of not having Delve wins is that you don't have access to certain useful pieces of gear.
The consequence of not getting to Sea is that you can't reforge artifact and Dynamis armor.

The consequence of ALL this is the same: if you don't actually put in the effort to obtain a goal, you don't get the benefits of that goal. You said you had a high paying job and several homes. I'd like those things. Can I have them while I just sit at home all day goofing off? It shouldn't make any difference to you if you still have them. And going by your logic... I deserve those things and it's unfair if I don't have them.

What kind of game do you want? Something where you just log on and get everything because you don't want to put in any effort? Why can't these people just do the 6000 other things that require minimal effort and can be soloed? Honest to God, you sound like a child bickering because mommy gave big brother a fancy new toy.

And you know what? I actually think there IS room for improvement in the job points system. I'm not actually totally with Protey on this. I'd like to see something like the +75% XP bonus Expertise Ring purchasable with login points, but for Capacity Points. I'd like to see them cut down the crazy evasion on those VT/IT mobs in the Gates zones so that you don't need a BRD/COR/GEO to roll (no matter how much accuracy I stack on my level 119 Monk I still can't get these things to check as anything but high evasion without adding on sushi... and even with sushi they're still high evasion if I don't stack accuracy gear). I'd actually love to see Double Capacity Points be a scheduled thing, say 7 to 10 days a month, instead of a random occurrence.

But here's the thing about making things easier..... they're still too hard for some people who lack patience. If you cut down the number of CP per job point to 10,000, you KNOW that people would demand it to cut down to 5,000 or 1,000. If you made double CP permanent, that would become the new normal and people would want more. People still complain about levelling being too slow even though XP and limit points are thrown at us left and right.

What I don't think is that job points are anything more than a "nice thing to have" like a mythic weapon or Tinhaspa or Jugo Kukri or Emet Harness. You don't get any of these things unless you put in some effort.

[Camiie]

I think the core issue that is dividing people here seems to be the disparity between "casual easy content / box-ticking content" and "achievement-based advanced content."

Currently there are a lot more things that fall into the former category. Just about everything outside Seekers areas can now be solo'd with ilvl gear and trusts, including former mega boss HNM etc. and formerly difficult missions. Almost all mobs outside SoA are too weak or incredibly easy prey. 99.9% of NMs outside SoA present no challenge at all for a solo player with ilvl gear and trusts. RME can be pretty much solo'd with a few stages requiring groups (HMP etc.) but the vast majority is easy and soloable. WKR, skirmish and most delve are also not overly difficult.

There is actually very little content that falls into the second category, the "devotion-based advanced content." I would argue that attaining high levels of Job-Points is intended to, and succeeds in, providing an advanced long-term building process for people who want something they can achieve and feel proud of. Not so much now with the current Job-Points maximum brackets, but in the future when Su2 Su3 Su4 gear arrive and the brackets are expanded and require mindboggling amounts of CAP to max out. Those future expansions to the Job Points group brackets, could pose a serious and advanced long-term challenge for those that want it.

And I can only see this as a very good thing. Because if you like super easy short-term content, you've got just about everything in the world that falls into that category lol. Don't complain because other people who have long wanted an advanced long-term character development process, and a sense of pride in their job accomplishments, have now got that option.

I thought that's what 119 Afterglow RMEs were for. Job Points isn't your answer to being a special snowflake looking down upon the unwashed masses. Eventually SE will stop adding to the system, and/or up the CP rate (much to Protey's chagrin) and even half-assers will cap out just like most people have with merits. If you want to stand out you need something more skill based or something that requires a dedicated group. You need gated content, not a mindless grind.

[Zarchery]

Nothing in this game is skill based. Stop acting like it is. All new content becomes difficult at first, then someone develops a popular strategy, and everybody copies it, and suddenly it's easy.

I don't look down on anyone because of the job points I've accumulated. I look with pride upon myself because it's something I achieved with effort because SE gave me the option to achieve something. Unlike Camiie, who seems to believe that this is somehow wrong, and that "this thing exists" = "I am entitled to this thing".

I have asked over and over again, but the question is endlessly dodged. If job points are a mindless grind you do not like, why do you just not hunt for job points? It seems the answer is "because then there is something I don't have!!!! That's not right!"

Funny.... a year ago we were all fine not having any of these things.

[Stompa]

I thought that's what 119 Afterglow RMEs were for. Job Points isn't your answer to being a special snowflake looking down upon the unwashed masses. Eventually SE will stop adding to the system, and/or up the CP rate (much to Protey's chagrin) and even half-assers will cap out just like most people have with merits. If you want to stand out you need something more skill based or something that requires a dedicated group. You need gated content, not a mindless grind.

Yes Afterglow is indeed another advanced long-term project, for most people.

However. You can BUY afterglow with enough gil. And while farming gil does take effort, it is also luck based, you might have a LS which spams high value events and you get lucky on the drops all the time. You might win the mogbonanza and get rich. Many people have.

The point is that you can't buy maxed Job Points. There is no luck involved. It is all effort. Luck only plays a small part in Job Points, relating to the practical issues such as "having a LS that lets you play your main job to Job-point runs." My own LS prefers that I go on Whm, as I have played Whm for them since 2004 and am considered a "safe pair of hands" ie. reliable on Whm. This means in practical terms that I had to go solo my Job-points on my main jobs (Pup and War) because I don't want to tell my LS that they need another Whm when they are relying on me to be their Whm.

And afterglow makes your weapon "complete" while it does not in any way change your actual character. So afterglow is not the same category as Job Points at all. The former can be bought with gil, partly through luck, and does not actually involve your character's personal development.

For many years I and many others have asked for "specialist classes" which are advanced versions of your main job, where you can refine your chosen job qualities to higher levels and to match your unique individual play-style. Merit-points were a little bit too limited and cookie-cutter to actually offer a seriously customised advanced job. Job points offer a very good potential path to creating the advanced job / specialist class.

As for "eventually SE will stop adding to the system" well they kept adding to merit-points for almost a decade, even if it was minor alterations, the point is that merit-points were still an active system for many years, despite merits being very limited in many respects. And so why should we not expect SE to keep adding to Job-points for many years too? When job-points (unlike merits) really does offer the potential to be an 'open-door' type of customisable character development, with greater potential choice and customisability.

And I never said it was skill-based, unless you are farming CAP solely from IT++ mobs, in which case your personal game skills will enable the party to maintain momentum. The option of soloing CAP on EP mobs does not require skill, merely persistence, and allows people on low-pop servers with empty linkshells, to obtain CAP at a slower pace. But it still requires devotion to your job. You can't solo millions of EP mobs for CAP unless you care about advancing your job.

I will ignore the "you look down on other people" because it is not true, and it is also a remarkably cheap shot.

My point, which you missed, was that FFXI in 2015 is largely "box ticking", and that maxing your Job-points represents a "box that can't just be ticked." Less so now, but in later stages I would expect maxing your job points to be a great undertaking, and only something you could do if you really cared about your job and were prepared to work on it for long periods of time.

Get new character, solo it to lvl 30 with trusts ; tick box.
Get lvl 99 and capped merits in Aby, in short time ; tick box.
Get AF set in a few hours, upgrade in a few weeks to 119 ; tick box.
Get Alluvion 119 weaps and augment, in a few weeks ; tick box.
Solo ZM COP TOAU WOTG without breaking a sweat ; tick box.
Get free stuff from login / goblin box / special freeby events ; tick box.
Obtain quadrillions of Capacity Points to customise your character development further ; ti....omg a box I can't just tick. Cry wail weep.

[Seillan]

I was going to add my own two gil but Stompa has pretty much stated my feelings on this -- and much more thoroughly at that.

I will say that I'm having a hard time understanding why some people that play rpg games like this seem to have such a problem with grind heavy character progression -- something that's practically always been an integral part of them. Hell, I'm the type of player that likes to see near unobtainable forms of progression that take years of effort to even come close to achieving (AC1 and 2 probably came closest to achieving that, as well as EQ with the AA grind.) It's not because I want to "look down on the unwashed masses" or because I want to be a "special snowflake" (which is a ridiculous insult imo, since I see nothing wrong with games giving us a way to differentiate ourselves; in fact, I greatly prefer it), it's because I love being able to progress my character at all times. I never want to be "finished" because those incremental additions to my character keep me invested and engaged. The more I work at it, the more I feel my character is my own. I mean, just look at mmorpgs with relatively quick level and gear caps and without any form of alternate advancement. What happens when people "finish" their characters there? They either roll an alt and do it all over again or they quit the game until the next expansion. I remember seeing this happen all the time on the WoW forums. People with nothing to do to better their characters, who had exhausted all content, and were left fiddling around with their garrionsville. That's not the kind of thing I'd personally like to see in FFXI.

If job points really aren't necessary for any of the previous or even current content, then what's the harm of having them as one of the long term sources of progression? It's that very kind of prospect that has kept my interest in this game -- even during the period I wasn't able to play at all -- and it will likely keep me playing for the long term. A feat most others in the genre have failed at in recent years. This kind of game should always be about the journey, not the destination.

[Protey]

But you wouldn't have done it without the job points. Because getting something good for your monk is fun and wacking monsters endlessly is not.

So what, if you want something you should have to earn it. Period.

Nothing is required. You can stand around a starter zone wacking level one mobs for all eternity because you don't actually NEED to level up or gear or anything. Saying people don't need them is meaningless. If you don't need them then you shouldn't care how I get them.

Wrong. Just because something isn't needed doesn't mean one shouldn't care about it. Also, it isn't about how you get them, it's about how everyone gets them.

The only difference is that you can wack monsters until they shut down the servers if that's what you like, regardless of the existence of job points or any changes to them. There are no consequences for you either way. Even if they make every monster give 1,000,000 JP, The monsters remain and you are free to kill them as much as you want. Or if you wanted, you could just take off some gear to make them harder again.

Here you go making up garbage again. It's not about being able to kill monsters, it's about achieving something. So yes there are consequences. If JP are just handed out, it ceases to be an accomplishment.

People who don't want to kill the same monsters for ever and a day don't have that freedom. They have to give up on maximizing their character if they don't like it.

Tough. People who don't want to put in effort to obtain something don't deserve it. They can do without. If your real life situation doesn't allow you to have time, then tough, deal without it. If your real life didn't allow you enough play time to go cap exp from 1-99 on multiple jobs would you suggest that they get it just by buying the game?

If they were to make JP far easier to obtain, the only downside for you would be that you couldn't come on here and call people lazy for not having them.

Wrong. You are taking away worthiness of the game. That would be yet another achievement that was just handed out instead of earned. And please don't state garbage like your worthiness is not the same as other's worthiness. It's still making an accomplishment not an accomplishment.

And if that cheesecake suddenly cost $10,000 a slice would that make it taste any better? No. The only purpose it would serve for you would be keeping other people from having cake.

What does raising the price of the cheesecake have to do with what we were arguing about? Nothing. We were talking about your statement of not needing something means you shouldn't be concerned with it is false. Since that was lost on you I will give another example: I don't need my appendix, but I would be very concerned whether it bursts or not. Also, just to humor your non-relevant remark, raising the price of the cheesecake does not keep others from having the cake, they just have to (like everyone else) spend more time to be able to get it. If they don't have the time, tough, just because something exists doesn't mean you are entitled to it, nor should you get it easily.

Next time your parents / significant other / boss ask you for something, tell them "You don't need that" and see how that works out for you.

It works out just fine, because like we are trying to do here, we explain why it isn't needed. Then the person (except you for some reason) realizes it is a want, not a need. Also, none of them play this game so how is what you are saying even relevant? That's right, it isn't.

[Protey]

If most of you complaining went and spent time JPing instead of complaing you would probably have more JPs. Time is money, stop wasting it.

I'm beginning to wonder if he (Mrkillface aka FrankReynolds) even plays the game anymore. Looking at FFXIAH he has 2 JP and hasn't bought or sold anything from AH since September.

edit: added specifically who I was referring to.

[Tidis]

Why are you people equating "We would like CP easier to obtain" to mean "We want CP for doing nothing"

[Protey]

Why are you people equating "We would like CP easier to obtain" to mean "We want CP for doing nothing"

why? because of comments like this:

If they were to make JP far easier to obtain, the only downside for you would be that you couldn't come on here and call people lazy for not having them.