Are there any traditional parties anymore?Follow

I've returned to the game last week after about a 7 or 8 year absence . The tons of XP you get in a party these days is great. But the downside is, it's usually chaotic. I was in a party in Gusgen last night, there was a decent amount of XP rolling in, but there were like 3 full parties in an alliance, so there was just mobs of characters running around. No organization, just everyone running to try to get a few hits in before the MOB actually was killed. The other downside is the "tanks" (not that anyone was truly playing any role) were Taru and kept dying, but there was enough Raise and Reraise going around that it wasn't a big deal I guess.

Are there any traditional parties anymore? I remember back in '04/'05 when you'd form a very strategic party and you'd need some serious teamwork to defeat some of the pulls. It was challenging, but very rewarding. In contrast, last night, I felt like the XP would not have changed if I just sat there and did nothing.

So again, the XP is great, but the lack of organization and strategy makes it not nearly as rewarding.



Edited, Jul 8th 2012 8:39am by ticojpunk

I miss the old party set up.. It came back for a short while when the cap was 80.That is until people figured out Abyssea.

this is what i miss so much, 2003+ the challenge, the excitement, seeing how well your pt set up will do, organization and strategy, dying, links! etc, all about the fun, + good exp.

2009+ 1-30 leech books off of people while watching people, abyssea leech/keying 30-99 watching other people fighting while you just leech/afking,

this is what people do now and days><. miss seeing alot of people looking for pt. but now it little to none cause they wanna leech it.
i dont know how people get any fun /excitement from leeching and just keying.

RIP traditional parties you will be missed;;

Nostalgia, guys.

I feel the Nostalgia when I run past the pond in Qufim. When I hear the music in Selbina. Or take an airship to Kazham. I miss the excitement when you were making a party and that key job logs you type as fast as you can and invite them to party...and they join! Everyone heads out in happy spirits to camp, you can't get the best spot because there's always a group there but your camp is still good. Everybody buffs up and puller runs off to get something...

Whats this? Link? Someones Disconnecting? Full wipe? Whm have Reraise? What the WHM d/c? HP back to Jeuno. Disband. Logout.

This scenario doesn't happen all the time. But it happened enough of the time to have made me jaded.

I used to love the teamwork aspect of a party more than anything. It was very satisfying to go out into the game by yourself, collect gear, and then test your performance out in a tightly-knit group.

Regardless of the negative aspects to six-man parties, I think SE should at least investigate whether there is some event or method of allowing six-man groups to get exp again in such a way. There is clearly at least some demand for it, all that would be needed is competitive rewards when compared to the GoV/Abyssea type levelling.

Sure, not everyone would be interested, but then again not everyone is interested in Voidwatch, getting relic type weapons or Neo-Nyzul either.

It's hard for me to see where it all took a turn, because I left in 2005 or so, then returned in 2012.

I recognized the shortcoming of the old system. Sometimes I'd burn hours of my night away and barely got any XP. I wished instead of introducing this whole GoV thing, they'd just upped the XP you get while partying. Seems simple enough.

I like some people's descriptions of the old days. Rings very true with me, as I've shared the same exact experiences.

With the way the game is now, I can't see myself playing for very long. I might just get my RDM to 99, and my BLM to 49 and call it a day.

Why do you require SE's intervention here? Couldn't you simply find five other people and go exp the old way? After all there is such a huge demand for it I doubt it would take long at all for you to shout in Jeuno. Then again, people seem to be so wrapped up in nostalgia that shouting for members would probably be too streamlined, so perhaps you just wait around until five of the right jobs show up. Otherwise here are some other suggestions:

• Do Abyssea with 6 people, no atmas, no cruor buffs, no temp items, and fight only mobs that have been leveled up to T - VT.
• FoV / GoV with 6 people, no book buffs, fight only T - IT.
• Stop living in the past.

In case some of you have forgotten the reason why those parties don't exist anymore is because that way of exping sucked. We all made the best of it and tried to put a happy face on while doing it because there wasn't any other ways of getting exp at a reasonable pace. Getting exp the old way was just as mindless as it is today, but for different reasons. Back then it took hours to get a party together, get to a camp, and make any discernible progress by which time anyone that wasn't drunk or high was usually bored to tears.

I'm not saying that it was all bad or that people shouldn't revisit the past if they are so inclined, but please don't come here lamenting about how the old ways were so much better. Those of us that have been here the longest and have stayed with the game all these years have a vivid memory of how things use to be. Speaking as someone that took five jobs (some that were less than popular with parties) from 1-75 the old way I never want to return to that again. Exp has always been a means to an end in this game, it just happened to be that the method of getting to the end took a disproportionately long time to get there.

edit: missing tag

Edited, Jul 8th 2012 10:12am by salvationinpurgatory

I don't miss it.

I also leveled up 5 jobs the "old" way. (WHM, BLM, RDM, THF, and BRD.) One of them is still my main job. The problem is that the things you did in those exp parties, and the things you do in endgame, are generally so radically different that all that "training" did nothing to prepare you for the reality of the battles you'd face.

I do miss the teamwork and the strategy that went into the old school parties, but I don't wish for a return to that for purposes of exp. What I'd rather see is a series of 6 man battlefields that requires the old school setup, or at least encourages it, as a means of working toward a separate series of rewards that has nothing to do with experience points. Sort of like ENMs, but with incremental progress instead of random number generator rewards.

So another Abyssea that's not really Abyssea but provides the same benefits as Abyssea? It seems a little convoluted, for what's essentially a niche audience. If you give it a benefit that you get nowhere else (items, I assume?) then essentially you're wanting to force everybody to play the same way you do. I'm not sure I'm keen on that.

I'm also a legendary chain 300 puller bard. If I ever see another 6-man pink bird party again in my lifetime, it'll be too soon.

Edited, Jul 8th 2012 3:28pm by catwho

When I played RDM, I would toss a Dia on the birds in the hopes it'd get reflected back to me. Bam, free 1 tick poison. Immune to sleep ftw.

That's why I specifically said that SE should have various ways of gaining equal amount of xp. When there is only one way, then everyone will flock to that one way, max/min it and take away all of the fun. It will happen, so having various forms, i.e. TP burns, Mana burns, 6 man set up, abyssea, etc. yield something worthwhile will only diversify the playing.

I don't see why one would argue to have only one way to efficiently gain xp o.O?

You had a PLD in your party?

I think this post sums up the current state of FFXI. FoV was a nice idea but GoV pushed people into alliances and encouraged AFK leveling, Abby was the culmination of the idea. Now that Tanaka is gone, the designer of Abby is running FFXI now. The future of FFXI is very hazy indeed to me... Maybe it is SE's intention to make FFXI a casual game and FFXIV more of a time sink.

No, because the problem was/is the game is so top heavy that the job mix sucks, the number of people LFP sucks, and even if a six man party gave twice as much exp as GoV you'd spend so much time looking for people to play with it would be twice as slow.

That's why they made GoV/abyssea style exp the main form of exping - because you can have a mish mash of half arse jobs and people in crummy gear and still succeed. That's not a design flaw - they made it that way to take some of the suck out of lower level exping.

Believe me man, my first job I leveled up coming back was before GoV was introduced. I duoed till 65, when mercifully someone took pity on me and let me into abyssea exp, where I slapped on a refresh atma (the only one I had) and helped heal as a BST/WHM cause that was the most useful thing I could possibly do (no cruor for keys)

It took months, and while parts were fun, it was a real slog and I was super lucky to have an LSmate that was leveling a dual box char (so we had a 90 whm PL the whole time). For a new player that wouldn't happen - and they would quit the game because they wouldn't be able to progress.

If you want a six person party - find others like yourself and static or something.

Edited, Jul 8th 2012 10:39pm by Olorinus

yeah... I've done a lot of healing with brd and it isn't much better than healing as a bst.

Yep. Aside from BCNMs there isn't much incentive to team up with just 6 people. It's the team work and effort of the other party members... that's whaty I enjoyed the most from them. On a side note, I've always wished you could from a 6 man party in FF1 when I 1st played it on my NES... but maybe that was just gold box thinking.

Edited, Jul 9th 2012 2:48am by Prrsha

And then when you get a BRD, the BRD leaves because there isn't another BRD.

I agree with you Raelix, but let's distinguish the type of complaining that goes on on this board.

Type 1 - Things the developers should fix because we pay them
There is legitimate complaining about Captain Obvious things the developer should have fixed. For example, why did it take 10 years to implement a function that ignored character objects AFK'ed near the MogHouse?

Type 2 - People who complain about others
Then there is a certain group of players, some repeats, that constantly complain about all of the ways that their fellow players play. You know the ones. They care more about what some random group of 1-18 players is doing in a zone they haven't even entered than increasing their own net worth in the game.

For example, someone has been LFG for hours as a Thief in sub-average gear for their level and can't get an invite. (This example is mine - I was that Thief).

Or they complain to GMs about people paying to join a TP spam party/SMN burn/<insert other time earned gear/benefit>.

Or about how much easier the game has become because (a) the total exp from 50-75 got reduced; (b) then people starting mana, then arrow, then tp burning and didn't need 5 healers for every DD; (c) and then people started triple digit chaining Tough mobs and didn't need a turtle tank limited by a 30 second timer; (d) and then people sync'ed down; (e) and then people used pages instead of more "strategic" setups; (f) and then people exped in Abyssea; (g) and then people used GoV and are total gimps once they get to 99.

I have a novel idea for Type 2 people. How about you mind your own business? If there are truly that many people who miss the "strategic" old exp parties (read: 7-10 possible jobs, exclude at least 10 job types during any era of FFXI prior to Abyssea), you should have no problem finding enough folks to go play FFXI 2002-2006. However, by my estimates there are only 4 of you total so just hang in there for a couple more years and the last 2 will come along. I recommend LFG and yelling in Jeuno once per 15 minutes. You'll get there...


Edited, Jul 9th 2012 1:20pm by TheBarrister

This. TP burn is not, and never will be, a traditional party set up. TP burn is Zerging your exp.

I know that TP burns weren't traditional, that was the point of the question. Before TP burns, PLDs were desired. Once Tp burns started, no one wanted to XP with a PLD. Hence my question.

Oh, we might as well. Pretending is still more fun than Voidwatch.

Forgive me, but your posts rarely leave enough impression on me when I do read them for me to remember what you said once I start reading the next post, so unless someone quotes you directly, I don't actually comprehend that you said anything. I'm not intentionally ignoring you, like I do with some people, I'm just honestly incapable of registering anything you say without a great deal of mental effort on my part. I blame this on the fact that while you are "alma" you are not "almalexia" who is the only "alma" my mind will accept.

Eh, I charmed a lot on bst (didn't use jugs till abyssea) but 3 months after restarting my char, I was ready to do more than grind exp. Exp grinding was no longer romantic. In retrospect I sort of wish I hadn't taken bst up first because I actually do enjoy the way exping plays on it (solo, duo or in small groups), but, I didn't enjoy not being able to do much of anything with my LS because I wasn't 80+

I might have stayed out of the abyss longer but the person I was duoing with quit the game, and solo grinding those levels wasn't really fun. I mean, I know a lot of people have rose-coloured glasses about really slow exp (sometimes I think old school bst are the worst for this) - but I rejoined the game BECAUSE I heard about abyssea and how level grinding wasn't most of the game for casuals anymore

Also, there are a lot of times when who cares if stuff is charmable? I mean, I like being able to charm stuff, but, I actually just shake my head at bst charming leeches in the oublette etc - it doesn't make sense to use a level 65ish wild pet if you can call forth a level 80+ pet and squash everything in your path.