[Megathread] Final Fantasy XIV

[Granyala]

You can pretty much make it all the way to the "top" by being able to press a handful of buttons, not stand in colorful areas, and listen to a raid leader.

I think that'S taking it too far.

The elite that does world firsts really HAS skill and can pull off stuff normal people can't. I played WoW for many years and I always tried to do my best but I never reached their levels of crazy.

Dodging colorful AEs while maintaining optimal class prio/rota may sound simple on paper, but in practice, skill is involved.

[Katchii]

I think that'S taking it too far.

The elite that does world firsts really HAS skill and can pull off stuff normal people can't. I played WoW for many years and I always tried to do my best but I never reached their levels of crazy.

Dodging colorful AEs while maintaining optimal class prio/rota may sound simple on paper, but in practice, skill is involved.

Agreed, but it's a subtle type of skill that many people just can't or won't take the time to appreciate.

Many people have the ABILITY to be one of those top end players if they really wanted to, but most are not willing to take the time necessary to look at every ability, weapon, piece of gear and stat to see how they synergize and then taking the time to experiment with and test rotations and ability weaving to come up with that super difficult to pull off rotation that results in a small percentage increase over the normal expected rotation and THEN map the abilities in such a way that I can reach them on demand reliably when in a clutch raid situation...all while more or less flawlessly paying attention to AND dodging raid mechanics..... and then doing it all over again for the next fight which may require a different strategy because the mechanics require/ allow for a different amount of uptime on one particular skill or something.

At the end of the day it's all about muscle memory and reaction time, which is the same thing Olympic athletes have to deal with. You have to do the same thing endlessly until it becomes second nature: aka, training. The issue with raiding is that you have to have a raid group good and synchronized enough to do that together consistently so that you can train on the difficult fights. If you can't get to the mechanic, you can't train on the mechanic.

The skill involved is not some mind blowing ability to do something a normal person can't, it's the result of putting in the effort to take something most people find difficult and making it easy for you to execute without really thinking about it, which doesn't take just time, but also the discipline to do it right during that time. Practice doesn't make perfect...PERFECT practice makes perfect. And that's the difference between the top/ elite contenders vs the good ones in ANYTHING.

[Granyala]

There's "skill" by the strict definition of the word, sure. But compared to being "at the top" of other activities? It might as well be walking and chewing gum in comparison.

I completely agree on all points.
Trying to learn a musical instrument, has pretty much redefined the term "difficult" for me.

I also think stamina is an important factor. I may be okay "skilled" in MMOs, but I'd NEVER have the stamina to do 500 wipes on a boss. 50-70 is okay. After 100 I get pissed. 150 and all I want is to get out of there.

Practice doesn't make perfect...PERFECT practice makes perfect. And that's the difference between the top/ elite contenders vs the good ones in ANYTHING.

True. And damn hard to get right, esp when you are inexperienced.

[Mordin Solus]

and as the clock rang midnight, the valkyries descended from valhalla and took my corpse into the heavens... i dont know if i feel more like frodo once he got rid of the one ring or as yoda when he died after "finishing" luke's training... anyways now its time to farm stuff for anima growth, any sugestions on what reagents is best to farm to make the sands?

[Granyala]

Blue gathering scripts win hands down if you have the ability to farm them.

[Mordin Solus]

gathering classes still low

[Granyala]

If you don't need leves, you could use the vilekin farming method for ambers.

Boring A.F, if you ask me but you get one aber chest (trades for one sand) every ~10 leves.
Naturally you want to dump your poetics for the mats too.

[Mordin Solus]

gonna check how many moonstones i get from ixals and try that maybe :/

[Kazgrel]

I've actually done the majority of the heavy lifting for the sands via moonstones + poetics, but that's a result of clobbering hunts mobs just about every day. The ARR ones are more worthwhile now for anima progression, since you can flip allied seals into a healthy amount of GC seals (so you can buy moonstones and/or the items for the 210 step) and poetics.

Epitome of laziness: I have the 210, 230, and just over 1/4 of the 240 step done for WHM anima. Still haven't completed all the dungeons for the second quest/step. Only about halfway through. In my defense, I've been more occupied with getting my gathering/crafting gear as well done as possible prior to 3.4. So maybe not so much laziness as it is "not enough time in a day to do all the things".

[Faroth]

Regarding the Vilekin farming method, I had more luck doing the grand leves at 10 allowances each. It wasn't boring since you could only do 10 and you were done, but if you got a chest, you get 5 vilekin a pop, which is a 1:1 trade rate.

I basically got the vast majority of my sand from vilekin, the balance being a mix of poetics and moonstones with less than 5 from crafting scrips.

[Aurimas]

Do you really know what the difference is between the "elite that does world firsts" and the average progression guild? Time and good administration.

Funny thing is that I agree with all the points, and then disagree with the overarching idea.

Even just throwing themselves at a boss 672 times is an ability that most people don't have. As is the organization and leadership. It's a little too flippant to say that all you need are these things. Anyone who has done hiring knows that.

Also, frankly, after the tops guilds make the 672nd attempt and succeed, it's because everyone preformed almost perfectly that attempt. The skill to preform perfectly is not something that anyone could do with practice. I'm not a slouch, and I can't practice as much as them, but I have no illusion that I'd ever be able to hit the 98% efficiency that you see on logs when a group of top players down the top boss. If it hit 85-90% while doing a mechanic heavy fight I feel pretty good about myself.

Too many times I've heard things like "I could do it if I had 12 hours a day to play." "I could do it if I was sponsored and this was my full time job". I'm not accusing you or anyone of saying that, but I call "bullshit" on anyone who does. Well not anyone. The top 5% obviously can do that... but if I was to wager I'd feel pretty safe calling "bullshit" on Random Joe.

I know that this branched off of a convo about "Too many people play like shit and don't seem to give a damn". To that I agree completely. Anyone who's trying and focusing should be able to take down most content in MMOs.

[Remilia]

I did leves. It takes like 5-10 seconds per leve to scan the area and then abandon and reset. Though it's cause I found out where the area of spawns are, so I just sit in the middle, scan 360 for a box, if there isn't then abandon and reset.

[dope_danny]

So Shiva EU just had its 3rd Odin spawning in a row in under 24 hours, and the servers seen King Behemoth like 6 times ever. Some of these spawn times are messed up!

[Graeham]

So Shiva EU just had its 3rd Odin spawning in a row in under 24 hours, and the servers seen King Behemoth like 6 times ever. Some of these spawn times are messed up!

Strange. Did they increase the spawn timer in a hotfix? I haven't seen Odin on Balmung for a while now - though I no longer need anything from him.

[Faroth]

I think there's something to be said about the "I could too if it was my job" for a lot of people, though. The greatest artists don't pick up a pencil and draw an amazing drawing. They work at it. They practice at it for hours at a time. Jim Lee has recounted remembering drawing so much that he had to force his fingers open from gripping the pencil because they were basically cramped and locked up.

And you go back and look at any artist that's top notch today and look at their work 10, 15, years ago and it's typically a night and day difference.

The average Joe could be come a world first performer if they had the time to play, but they'd have to use that time to practice and develop the skills before stepping up to the level of practice & developing skills for those raids.

Not to say any person could, nor every person could, but I think a LOT of players who are decent could be world first content material if they had 12 hours a day of free time to practice on it (that includes research, reading, understanding theorycraft, and understanding other classes other than their own as well).

I wouldn't want to turn a hobby into that much of a job. I'd love to find a way to make a living off my love for video games in general, but not focused like that.

[Granyala]

Well being "talented" or "gifted" can make things easier and get you further into the realm of "exceptional".

The basis of "being good" in anything are research and ridiculous amounts of practice.

For instance: no matter how many hours I'd practice playing a shooter, I'll never have the twitch reflexes to be exceptional. It's just a talent I lack.

Dafuq?!


Ofc the quest sends me into primae encounters again. *sigh* why can't I just queue for unsync stuff?

[Faroth]

We have all three forms of those in our FC house's yard and I have no idea WHY we need all three. >_>

[dope_danny]

Finally got WHM to 60 which means i'm down to 4 jobs across all 3 kinds. Paladin, Dragoon, Armoursmith and Fisher to go.

and Fishers still lvl 25. Yaay....

[Granyala]

Fisher is easy to level.
Pick a spot where you can get the fish at max level to your with a lure that lets you get it exclusively.
Plop down, watch a movie and only change when they get suspicious.

[Kaelwryn]

Fisher is easy to level.
Pick a spot where you can get the fish at max level to your with a lure that lets you get it exclusively.
Plop down, watch a movie and only change when they get suspicious.

Also a controller (if pc) is the way to go. Vibrations means you have to pay even less attention!