The Month in Review (Short Version)

- Level Sync is pretty awesome. Managed to get my MNK from 26 to 51 as of this writing. Aiming for 75 by hopefully the end of October.

- Randomly made it on as a guest on the PFA Podcast. Was funny how I ended up on it.

- Lissy bought a new PC, introduced her to awesome Windower Macros.

- Salvage slowed down a tad, still managed to get some nice things (3 35s within less than 5 runs?) Almost 4/5 on Usukane set. I should go all the way.

- Did a bunch of ZNMs, Cerb ZNM isn't as hard as people put it out to be. The Cerb ZNM path is a pain in the butt the first time but it becomes easier once you know what you're up against.

- Did a horrible Xarc run on patch day: 0 AFs.

- Did another Xarc run yesterday: 16 AFs.

- Lazily working on DRF website: going pretty slow.

- Desperately looking for a Nyzul group. Still lacking Tachi: Rana. Anyone need a Taru? :3

- SAM buffer diminishing to really low levels: 10k buffer @_@;

- Hating the fact that I have to wait until next month to play Mega Man 9 on my 360.

I guess that's that. To be really honest, there's nothing really eventful going on my end and... heck, there's nothing really eventful to note because all I've been doing is grinding MNK XP, going through a weird drama phase with a few people in FFXI and pretty much feeling blunt end of all of it. Gotta move on though, I have many things I need to accomplish and I'm not gonna do that by sitting around and licking old wounds all day. :3

My goals for October are as follows~

1. MNK75
2. Complete Nyzul with a Runic Disc and obtain Tachi: Rana
3. Help construct a solidified Salvage group with new job
4. DNC37
5. RDM37
6. Create the Mogknight Army~


:3 Hopefully october gets better.

Not FFXI Related: Mog and Street Fighter 4

So, I got to play this today...

Yeah, those cabinets with Street Fighter 4 in them... that's what I played on.

Over at Roland Heights, CA, there is this place called Arcade Infinity. With arcades being such a dead thing nowadays, what with consoles being so much more powerful and competition being just a simple ethernet cable away, we have kinda lost the whole actual being near a human competition and instead things are kinda blocked from each other. Granted, it brings the world closer but it moves the local people further. Having Street Fighter 4 come out after... 9? years since Street Fighter 3: Third Strike, brought not only fans of Street Fighter back but it also brought many old school fans back too.

Street Fighter 4 plays a lot like Street Fighter 2, very simple and easy to pick up. That was one of the things that drew people away from SF3 was that the game, at that point, was getting too complicated and too complex for most people to want to deal with. When you talk to people about Street Fighter, they automatically think of SF2 and playing it with their friends on their SNES or Genesis or whatever.

To be honest, that's what this game feels like: it feels like I'm that kid again playing in the arcades, enjoying competition. None of this internet thing where you can't see your opponent groan at that well executed combo you setup or the mashing of buttons from a frustrated player or anything like that. Just you, the joystick, the screen, fighitng the person right next to you. That's the thing I love about arcades, you can't talk shit and hide behind it and really, everyone is there just to have fun, bring out their best game and line up their token/quarters all day.

But anyways, I played about 12 bucks worth today. Each game is, unfortunately, a dollar but a dollar well spent in my opinion. The setup you see here is probably the best in the United States right now and really, the owner of the arcade has gone above and beyond what he needed to do to even get the game running in the first place. He made the cabinet himself, bought 2 HD 42" TVs and hooked up the SF4 kits in. It costed him quite a bit but to have this thing out there and having it there for the fans just makes you want to pay a dollar or even more to play it. It was the best 12 bucks I've spent really and I intend on going back for more.

The game itself, again, is pretty simplified compared to the SF3/SFAlpha line of games. That is not to say the game is exclusively like SF2, where it's all fireballs and dragon punches. They kept the things that made SF3 good (throw system, EX moves) and what the final version of SF2 (Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo) had (Super Moves) and made a pretty awesome system that new players can easily learn and still keep the game interesting. What we end up with is a fighting game system that is concentrated mainly on offense and less emphasis on defense.

I could go into deeper details about it but I think nothing more really needs to be said about it: it has to be experienced. Sure, you see youtube videos and they look nice... but when you actually sit down at an arcade and play it...

:3

And yes, I realized I made another post about my real life, go screw! >:3

And I don't know how to filter this out of TTTO... so... uh... @_@; wyred herp~!

So, the FFXIclopedia stuff and the drop rates...

You see this random FFXIclopedia page?

You may have noticed that grayed out percentage number next to each item.

No, it's not just a made up number someone made without proof.

It's a number generated by 2 numbers: drop/kill.

I just wanna point out to everyone that edit these things: Please don't be an idiot and guesstimate. And for the love of god, if you killed 300 of something and you finally get the item that dropped, don't just update that item only, update all of the items. Get a parse or something or just don't hand edit the drop rates. Makes things a bit more accurate for all of us.

And hopefully, a full post soon! Toodles~

I Feel Young Again...

... But, wait, I'm only 23 years old! @_@;

I'm in love with the new level sync function that was introduced in today's update. I wasn't so much concerned about how stats scaled down, I just wanted a reason to play with LS mates and friends of different levels. Unfortunately, prior to the patch, to do such a thing would require you to keep your levels the same or just go up to 75. I would have difficulty trying to get people who once played the game to return, mainly because they would be unable to play with me until I had a job around their levels.

I've been around the block, 5 times to be exact. Unless you static and kept that static going, you'll most likely going to end up in pick up parties. You run into some jackasses, you run into some nice people... but you don't have control over that. While the theme of FFXI is to rely on a community to reach your goals, often times we would have many things conflicting to prevent this from happening...

... Today removed one of those conflicts.

Today, me and a few of my linkshell mates (Lissy included!) went out to Buburimu with a level 13 MNK to act as our level sync designator. It was a very fun experience, being able to sit down with friends and LS mates that know what they're doing and not be bothered by trying to keep party levels close or anything. It was also nice to just simply ask someone in the LS if a replacement is needed. We got him up to level 18 and got my MNK from 26 to 28 as well. I had a lot of fun tonight and I just know that it will be a smooth ride through to hit 75 all over again.

Now, there were many complaints about the level sync system. The most common one I heard was the fact that stats were sharply capped. Now, I can see why everyone is pretty upset about this but I don't think such a thing is a problem. The idea is to give those that are higher leveled with something to just work with, nothing to make them over powered and nothing to make them on par with the "highest" equipment at that level. There is a reason why this is so: level sync is meant to be in case there's no possible way to build a party otherwise. It would be recommended for a solid party to be as close to the same level as possible. For stuff like ENMs or BCNMs that are capped: If you're really serious about winning, you'd gear it properly for it. It is really no different other than to just not walk into something naked.

Another complaint is the fact that skill level won't increase while you're capped. This makes total sense and really the only solution would be to just to take the time to skill it up. It's difficult to skill up something when you're so far behind so really, just try not to be completely behind on it.

I do have some complaints myself. Don't get me wrong, I don't think this is the most perfect thing in the world.

1. Whenever the target member levels or delevels, it automatically resyncs. While it is nice that it does that, it also removes your buffs and your TP. It is slightly annoying but I can live with it but it would be nice not have to run into a battle as if we just started every time the target guy levels.

2. Just as a point of reference, I'd like to see who is the targeted member for level sync. There's no way to tell until they level and the level gets resynced.

3. Resync should not work with the target player being 75. Someone can be a total jackass of a leader in an event and can remove all your buffs when they enable level sync (which I happened to have done by accident!). Kinda not a cool thing.

4. A way to tell in /search if someone is level synced or not would be a good idea.

But anyways, try it out with some friends if you got the time. You'll enjoy it quite a bit. It brings me back when I was a wee lil' Taru and I had no worries of the responsibilities of an End Game LS. I just felt like I was playing the game as a game again.~

The BLM Journal: A Month Later

After about a month or so, my BLM has grew slightly yet still significantly. My skills as a BLM are also coming along nicely as I've been learning a few new things here and there. If I have to give myself a self assessment, I'd give myself a 1/10!

So harsh on yourself Moggie... ;_;

I still have some glaring weaknesses that I'm trying to get out of the way, the most important one would be stunning. Despite the fact that I'm doing it straight out of reaction as best as I can (and I know my reaction, as long as I'm focused on it, is pretty top-notched), I usually end up completely missing the stun altogether while other people seem to land it just fine. Granted, some of these people that I'm comparing myself have some fast cast equipment on them (a DRK in my LS with Homam), I think I would still miss it regardless.

This leads me to think it is one of two things:

1. My computer is more than capable of running FFXI at high resolutions. However, I do have outside programs running and those things could be lagging me up.

2. I'm lying to myself and my reaction speed is really not all that great as I think it is. But to support that, I do play a lot of fighting games and I get things down to the exact frame. But to go against that, sometimes it is a bunch of predictions.

Now, the prediction thing is pretty hard for me because I'm not dealing with a human opponent right now, I'm dealing with a computer brain that runs through a script that randomizes itself. I've been told various many times to just "feel" the mob and stun. While, I feel, this would work in a fighting game (ex. You do a Dragon Punch in Street Fighter 2, you do it too early, you can still throw another one out), making this work in FFXI is pretty bad because once you miss a stun, that's 45 seconds (not counting haste and such) where you're unable to stun again. Now granted, there might be more than one person stunning but that isn't really an excuse there, he has the potential of messing up a stun as much as you do.

I still have yet found a way (or time) to practice this. With the frustrations I've been having with it, I may just end up keeping this my weakest skill and concentrate on my strong points. Maybe, like some other things, I'll just "magically" get it some day.

As far as my BLM has progressed in gear... really, there isn't much to say about it. Other than getting a few bare necessities :3 Nothing truly outstanding came my way... I mean, other than these Zenith Hands :3 Nifty~ (Thanks DRF!). Gil has become a problem with me though, hopefully I'll get lucky with some ENMs or something... I hope.

Kinda wished I had more opportunities to play my BLM more. I feel hindered without a proper RDM sub as I'm not really able to solo much of anything too well. It'll be something that I'll work on when the Level Sync thing comes into play (this monday actually!).

I recently also got my first Elemental Obi. I'm kinda worried because I am going to grab 2 more Obis and I'm probably going to be struggling with inventory space. Unfortunately, it's not the problem of storing these items (I am technically balancing 4 jobs: PLD/WAR/SAM/BLM), it's just making use of my 70 inventory spaces. Eventually, I'm going to have to dump some things back into the Mog House that I really don't need like some of the staves for example. In fact, lets analyze that right now!

Earth Staff = Used for Idle (Damage Reduction)
Water Staff = Used for Stoneskin (Kirin's Pole would replace this once I get one)
Wind Staff = Gravity and Kirin is all I can think of
Fire Staff = Nuking in it isn't so bad... I guess
Ice Staff = :3
Thunder Staff = :3 :3
Light Staff = Used for healing, don't need it /NIN
Dark Staff = :3 :3 :3

Well... that didn't help at all, did it? ; ; Any input on this?

I guess that's about it for today. My LS has been making some great strides lately but I'll post all that in a separate blog post, probably tomorrow.

G'day!