Theme Week - Turnabout Part 2
You know what? Screw White Mages.Yeah, you heard me. Screw 'em.
I never realized what a pain in the ass it was to level this job right from the get go. When I leveled White Mage on my main character, I always had someone to power level me through the boring levels.
But noooooooo. I had to do this with no help from other people.
Instead, I've spent two days smacking bees, ugly lizards, and giant turtle freaks in the face with a tree branch.
And the scenery... What can I say about the scenery?
Seriously, what can I say about it? Gustaberg has two basic geographical features:
1) rocks
2) more rocks
That's it.
Sure, there are some rocks that are bigger than others, but I don't really think that creates breathtaking views.
Now, don't get me wrong. I like big reddish-brown rocks as much as the next guy.
Geology rocks!
I can't believe I just said that...
But two days of the same damned rocks is starting to wear thin.
I know I talked a lot of smack about WoW, but I have to give them that the surroundings were at least a bit more vibrant. They had grand vistas and exotic plant life.
They had more than just rocks.
Some of you are probably wondering why I'm still leveling on my own. Even leveling White Mage, it didn't take me a terribly long time to reach level 10.
While I could start moving toward Valkurm, I'm trying to put that off for as long as Humely possible.
See what I did there?
I know White Mages are highly sought after in experience parties, but that's the part that worries me. Valkurm parties are bad enough when you're a melee who just hits things.
Yes, yes. I will be going to Valkurm. I'll be partying as a White Mage with no subjob and lousy gear and I will be obtaining all of my subjob items without any help from high level friends.
I will probably also be drinking quite heavily.
You can understand that I'd like to avoid this for as long as possibly.
Plus, the soloing is helping me build up at least a small amount of gil. I'm not raking in the millions or anything, but I've got enough to cover vendor spells and new clothes.
I will admit the amount of inventory space is very much appreciated. 30 spaces may not seem like a lot to the FFXI veterans, bit it's way better than the 16 I started with in WoW.
Thinking about it though, the whole inventory thing is a double edged sword. In WoW, all you had to do was wait for an enemy to drop another satchel to increase your inventory. Pretty straight-forward.
In FFXI, you need to take on several annoying (and possibly expensive) quests to increase your inventory space.
So you get way more space, but you have to work way harder to get it.
I'm not sure how to really judge that one.
While I found WoW to be way too easy, a lot of the things I'm dealing with as a "new" player are more annoying than challenging. The having to rest between battles of course adds to the challenge, but does it add in a constructive way?
I'd say it was more inconvenient than anything.
Does that really reflect a challenge? Do people climb Everest because it's slightly inconvenient?
I don't remember it being this annoying to level through the early stages of any job. I mean, I know some jobs went slower than others, but this is just plain frustrating at times.
Sure, I know it all gets better because I've been there before. But if I was a new player coming in, I don't think I'd be so understanding.
A new player coming in would have to deal with a lot of annoyances with no real proof that things would get magically better in the mystical "end game".
I enjoy it much more than WoW, but at least WoW wasn't frustrating just for the sake of being frustrating. That's just plain wrong.
I mean it's not like I'm mean to people for the sake of being mean...
Actually, that does sound a lot like me.
posted by Goblin Smithy @ 7:39 PM
16 Comments:
This harks very true to the core problem with FFXI. It hates newbies. Eats them alive by beating them senseless over and over and over again without ever once really giving anything that would... 'entice' one to keep playing.
You'd think after all these years SE would have found a better way to get people interested in the game. Honestly, I don't understand how people start the game knowing no one (I mean, I did it, but sure not everyone is such a die hard FF fan boy).
Hang in there Dave, in just 50-60 levels the game actually gets fun.
I know exactly what you're talking about. If I didn't have real-life friends telling me to stick with it, I probably would have given up around level 20(Granted, that was several years ago before SE added all the new player stuff) and played a different game. I am really glad I stuck with it though, FFXI is so much entertaining then WoW.
Oddly enough, the same friends who urged me to stick with FFXI are now playing WoW themselves... Still, no way I'm switching though. I've played WoW, and while it wasn't really bad... it just wasn't my type of game.
Does the valor help significantly to a new player?
When I do lower level jobs it's helped me power through them, but always wondered how useful it is on a blank slate with no sub.
You make WoW sound better every day, you realize this right?
This is exactly what kept me from playing FFXI any further than one-digit-levels.
I, thinking of myself as an experienced MMORPG-player who freshly came out of WoW (oh how ignorant I was :P), started with a white mage hume in Bastok, just like Dave - having read up on infos about classes I thought white mage to be the best class for much partyplay if you have a little experience as a healer.
After the 100th wasp I was so annoyed that i couldn't find any motivation to continue.
Maybe this theme week will cure me, keep going Dave :P
I remember my first few days on FFXI. It was bad.
I hadnt come to FFXI because I had friends there. Nothing in those lines.
I was just tired of WoW.
a Nightmare to be sure.
Whack a bunny, get ganked by random Orc. Start again.
There was this one sepcific Orc that patrolled almost right onto the San'Doria gate. Must've killed me at least 10 times per hour.
Fields of Valor manual helps alot. I recently leveled 3 jobs rdm whm and blm from 1-10 on a brand new account I'm making as a pl account. This took 1-2 days. Its really not that hard or bad. Subjobs would have made it much faster but really. Its not inconvenient hard or difficult to be honest for me it was a rather nice break from endgame.
There's one thing you can do that I found makes leveling WHM from scratch a lot easier.
I don't know if sharing it would violate the spirit of the week or not, though.
At least new users, and those leveling new jobs, can take advantage of the FoV, XP rings, despawning mobs and all the generally nice things those of us who started five years ago didn't have.
See? Whitmages work hard, whatever anyone may say when they feel like they are gods of the melee world.
You're really going to love the way a party abuses you in the dunes I think. Really. It is so refreshing after the hell of bees and being alone to be told you're completely inadequate to the overhunting a party wants to do to level faster which leaves you with no mp and they then refuse you time to rest it back. Enter mass death, usually including you. Try a benediction, that's always a good way to suicide yourself every two hours.
Btw, this is why most senior whitemages took up the notion that "A whitemage is just a beastmaster waiting to be born" some years ago.
I stumbled across this site awhile back and I love it. My last attempts at any FF were on the PS2 years ago. I admit to being a WoW player for about a year now, but it took me years to be convinced to play it. If FFXI had any type of trial account I'd be willing to give it a try. I just saw that Warhammer Online has a 10 day trial, so I may hop on that for a bit to see how it compares.
Keep up the great work.
While a lot of what you say is definitely true, there is a fundamental difference between a new player, and an old player starting over.
New players, knowing nothing, will generally explore a lot more, and try anything.
Old players know what they need to do, and focus on doing just that. Partying for the sake of partying is inefficient, nothing is new so you don't go anywhere you don't have to.
It's the people that make this game interesting anyway. I nearly quit until I got my first linkshell. Try to find a low level shell and it'll be much less of an ordeal.
FFXI does have a trial account, for what, 14 days? Not godly, and it has some limitations. But its still enough. If you want to give it a try, go to Asura world and look up Wavrik or Wolfandre. I'll help you if needed :P I might try what Dave is doing too, I'm never using my mule for anything.
Hmm...you are sounding more and more like a noob. Whine whiney whine whine whiney whine. And we all laugh a little each time you do.
Teehee.
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