Friday, June 30, 2006
Paragon of Tedium
I think I'm burning out on experience point parties, for reasons that are probably obvious to people who actually party more often than I do. I'll make one final stretch to 65 with a good buffer for Dynamis death and look for things to do with the linkshell, and/or work on the Chains of Promathia or Rise of Zilart missions. Anything but another 25K+ exp grind sounds great to me at this point, even something potentially involving multiple deaths such as Dynamis. I'm about 5.5k away from level 64 so this should take a few more nights, but I'll hunker down and get it done, then move on to some other diversions for a bit.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Paragon of Warrior Excellence
God, it sounds so pretentious but that's my title as of last night.
I partied on Friday night and reached level 63 in Bibiki Bay. I don't think I want to use this camp again unless, by some chance, it isn't crowded... which it always seems to be. There were a total of 4 parties in the area, all targeting the Tragopans, so the competition was ridiculous and we ended up killing more Hobgoblins than we cared to (the BLM Hobgoblin Fascinators were particularly nasty), but the EXP was decent and once again I was lucky to have a party of friendly players who knew their jobs. We shared pulling duty a bit, since I couldn't be everywhere at once, and it went rather well.
Since my little craftless EXP streak reduced my gil to 60K (yeesh), I spent a couple of evenings doing the old Alchemy routine: camping the Bibiki bay fishing shop, crafting Mercury for Poison Potion, and gathering materials for other consumables, namely Sleeping Potion & Firesand. I haven't had the time to get everything on the AH, but the few stacks I did sell have put me in the more breatheable 200k range.
While muling in Jeuno, I picked up a shout for help on The Talekeeper's Gift. I ping'ed the leader and let him know I was definitely interested although I hadn't flagged the quest yet. I wasn't certain I could get it done in time since they already had 5 members and were nearly ready, but I figured it couldn't hurt to at least prime the quest for later and if I could hop into their party, all the better. My XBL connection decided to crap out at that point. By the time I was able to log back in, the party had already killed the NM Goblins. Since this turned my focus to AF, I started to drop help requests with TheRebirth periodically. First evening was a no-go, but several friends said they'd like to help once they were free. On the second evening I was a bit too busy crafting, but still dropped a polite request just to stay on the radar.
I logged in last night for a quick session (it was late), just to put some more product on the AH and log out, but someone in the shell was asking for AF help and several others were expressing interest. So I took the opportunity and requested help as well. Presto... With Qufim so close, mine was the first stop, though I volunteered to tag along and help with the next quest (for RNG socks in Xarcabard).
We tried going trio, but this resulted in a couple of deaths, including mine. By the time we died, a couple of high-level Red Mages and a Dragoon had logged in and were looking for something to do, so we had a full party on our second attempt. We went after the WHM (named Doglix Muttsnout, /snicker) first while one of us kited the THF and another occupied the RNG away from the goblin healer. Doglix got off one Benediction, which slowed things down a bit, and the kiter wandered a bit too far from battle and went deeply into the red before one of our healers tracked him down. But we eventually won. I got an interesting CS, my Fighter's Lorica, and my new title when I zoned to Qufim.
A little moment of meta-irony: the final Talekeeper's Gift CS tells you that you own the only true artifact lorica, and awards it to you as a way to conceal it's role in a potentially scandalous political plot. How will they keep you from being conspicuous while wearing this unique artifact? Why, manufacture thousands of others, of course! So, that explains why so many other Warriors are wearing my 'unique' gear. Or... what if all the others have been told the same thing, and there is no 'true' artifact? Dun dun duuuuuun.
Hey, I thought it was funny.
The NM tiger fight for the Ranger artifact armour (also a 'Paragon' piece) was pretty straightforward and included the same group of people. Some expressed hesitation at the lack of a WHM, but it turned out fine, even when a couple of demons re-spawned halfway through the fight.
So at least two Paragons got their wings on Ifrit last night.
I partied on Friday night and reached level 63 in Bibiki Bay. I don't think I want to use this camp again unless, by some chance, it isn't crowded... which it always seems to be. There were a total of 4 parties in the area, all targeting the Tragopans, so the competition was ridiculous and we ended up killing more Hobgoblins than we cared to (the BLM Hobgoblin Fascinators were particularly nasty), but the EXP was decent and once again I was lucky to have a party of friendly players who knew their jobs. We shared pulling duty a bit, since I couldn't be everywhere at once, and it went rather well.
Since my little craftless EXP streak reduced my gil to 60K (yeesh), I spent a couple of evenings doing the old Alchemy routine: camping the Bibiki bay fishing shop, crafting Mercury for Poison Potion, and gathering materials for other consumables, namely Sleeping Potion & Firesand. I haven't had the time to get everything on the AH, but the few stacks I did sell have put me in the more breatheable 200k range.
While muling in Jeuno, I picked up a shout for help on The Talekeeper's Gift. I ping'ed the leader and let him know I was definitely interested although I hadn't flagged the quest yet. I wasn't certain I could get it done in time since they already had 5 members and were nearly ready, but I figured it couldn't hurt to at least prime the quest for later and if I could hop into their party, all the better. My XBL connection decided to crap out at that point. By the time I was able to log back in, the party had already killed the NM Goblins. Since this turned my focus to AF, I started to drop help requests with TheRebirth periodically. First evening was a no-go, but several friends said they'd like to help once they were free. On the second evening I was a bit too busy crafting, but still dropped a polite request just to stay on the radar.
I logged in last night for a quick session (it was late), just to put some more product on the AH and log out, but someone in the shell was asking for AF help and several others were expressing interest. So I took the opportunity and requested help as well. Presto... With Qufim so close, mine was the first stop, though I volunteered to tag along and help with the next quest (for RNG socks in Xarcabard).
We tried going trio, but this resulted in a couple of deaths, including mine. By the time we died, a couple of high-level Red Mages and a Dragoon had logged in and were looking for something to do, so we had a full party on our second attempt. We went after the WHM (named Doglix Muttsnout, /snicker) first while one of us kited the THF and another occupied the RNG away from the goblin healer. Doglix got off one Benediction, which slowed things down a bit, and the kiter wandered a bit too far from battle and went deeply into the red before one of our healers tracked him down. But we eventually won. I got an interesting CS, my Fighter's Lorica, and my new title when I zoned to Qufim.
A little moment of meta-irony: the final Talekeeper's Gift CS tells you that you own the only true artifact lorica, and awards it to you as a way to conceal it's role in a potentially scandalous political plot. How will they keep you from being conspicuous while wearing this unique artifact? Why, manufacture thousands of others, of course! So, that explains why so many other Warriors are wearing my 'unique' gear. Or... what if all the others have been told the same thing, and there is no 'true' artifact? Dun dun duuuuuun.
Hey, I thought it was funny.
The NM tiger fight for the Ranger artifact armour (also a 'Paragon' piece) was pretty straightforward and included the same group of people. Some expressed hesitation at the lack of a WHM, but it turned out fine, even when a couple of demons re-spawned halfway through the fight.
So at least two Paragons got their wings on Ifrit last night.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
And now for the cutest Taru video...ever.
Enjoy the video (be sure to turn your sound on)... oh and I hope you like showtunes. >.>
Red crawlers, eh?
I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who thinks that the classic pallette swap syndrome in the new zones is a little... lame. But at least the Crawlers, I mean "Eruca", make for good EXP and really don't offer any weird surprises as far as TP moves.
I got an invitation from a Japanese RDM named Reefa whom I had partied with the night before in Wajaom Woodlands. This time, the camp was in Bhaflau Thickets on the eastern side of G-8, and the target mob was exclusively the Date Eruca.
Party makeup was RDM, BRD, WAR, WAR, BLU, NIN, and remained that way for about an hour until the other Warrior had to log out for some sleep. I was a bit envious over his Tungi, until I noticed that the TP gain was only moderately faster and the Rampages on average, seemed to be lower than mine... but this could have been a combination of factors (namely Accuracy/STR/Attack balancing on the rest of the gear). In any case he was clearly a dedicated player and knew how to play the job, as were the others, making for a fun party and painless EXP. And swapping in another BLU for the WAR didn't seem to slow things down in the least.
I received approximately 12k in about 2.5 hours of partying, and the party D2'd right when I was thinking about finding a replacement & getting some sleep. In the process of partying, I capped both Axe and Great Axe, without a noticeable decrease in performance with the GA which was nice. All in all, a perfect EXP night for me.
I got an invitation from a Japanese RDM named Reefa whom I had partied with the night before in Wajaom Woodlands. This time, the camp was in Bhaflau Thickets on the eastern side of G-8, and the target mob was exclusively the Date Eruca.
Party makeup was RDM, BRD, WAR, WAR, BLU, NIN, and remained that way for about an hour until the other Warrior had to log out for some sleep. I was a bit envious over his Tungi, until I noticed that the TP gain was only moderately faster and the Rampages on average, seemed to be lower than mine... but this could have been a combination of factors (namely Accuracy/STR/Attack balancing on the rest of the gear). In any case he was clearly a dedicated player and knew how to play the job, as were the others, making for a fun party and painless EXP. And swapping in another BLU for the WAR didn't seem to slow things down in the least.
I received approximately 12k in about 2.5 hours of partying, and the party D2'd right when I was thinking about finding a replacement & getting some sleep. In the process of partying, I capped both Axe and Great Axe, without a noticeable decrease in performance with the GA which was nice. All in all, a perfect EXP night for me.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
I'm tired, but I'm 62
With 14k experience points to go, I put up my flag in Whitegate around 9:30PM and began preparations for fishing in the Jugner lake again for more Moat Carp and some skillup fish. As soon as I gathered bait ingredients and was ready to taru-warp to Jeuno, I received an invitation from a party in Wajaom Woodlands. They were camping at the south section of H-11 there, killing Puks and the occasional Aht Urhgan Attercop. It was nice to see a Paladin tank for a change, since I've grown so accustomed to Ninja tanks.
However, I've discovered that I need to exercise a bit of restraint as a pure damage dealer in these situations. Poorly timed Rampages made it difficult for the Paladin to immediately get hate back under control. And if my damage filled the mob's TP, the massive knockback AOE from the Puks would lead to a bit of chaos without a firm tank. So I had a few moments where I decided to just turn away from the mob & let hit me a few times (with Defender up, and some meager tankish gear swapped in) until the Paladin's flash or voke or cure timers were back up. I only had to do that once before in Kuftal Tunnel.
The party ended around 11PM due to sleepiness (east coast players), so I returned to Whitegate and put my flag back up. I felt I was ready for a 3-hour session or so (and the punishment I would feel the next day) just to see the remaining 10k trickle in and give me my level. The next invitation, to my surprise, came very quickly. But the party wasn't yet formed, so it took about 30 minutes to get underway and decide upon a camp. They opted to go for VT mob chains in Gustav Tunnel, H-10 on the lower floor: Goblin Alchemists, Shepherds, & Mercenaries, and... more Robber Crabs.
The mobs were a bit too low in the VT spectrum, but the party seemed relaxed about it and proceeded to exp-chain as best they could. Having a MNK, NIN, THF, and WAR in the party and no skillchaining was driving me nuts, so after pulling a few teeth I convinced the THF and MNK to at least set up Distortion on the crabs once the thief learned his Dancing Edge. I initially tried to get a Fusion SC underway for the goblins, but people weren't up for setting up two different skillchains. So they set up distortion on the goblins too. EXP was slower than it needed to have been, but not bad, and the party was very relaxed and upbeat (I'll take slow EXP in a pleasant party over faster EXP in a bitchy party any day). Since my Rampage didn't factor into any skillchaining, I was able to swap in my Great Axe, which capped on a Raging Rush right before I got my level... around 2:15AM. The party ended around 2:30, so I don't quite have a full buffer yet, but I'm happy.
Hunter slept in until a little after 7:00AM. Yes, I'm a bit of a zombie today.
However, I've discovered that I need to exercise a bit of restraint as a pure damage dealer in these situations. Poorly timed Rampages made it difficult for the Paladin to immediately get hate back under control. And if my damage filled the mob's TP, the massive knockback AOE from the Puks would lead to a bit of chaos without a firm tank. So I had a few moments where I decided to just turn away from the mob & let hit me a few times (with Defender up, and some meager tankish gear swapped in) until the Paladin's flash or voke or cure timers were back up. I only had to do that once before in Kuftal Tunnel.
The party ended around 11PM due to sleepiness (east coast players), so I returned to Whitegate and put my flag back up. I felt I was ready for a 3-hour session or so (and the punishment I would feel the next day) just to see the remaining 10k trickle in and give me my level. The next invitation, to my surprise, came very quickly. But the party wasn't yet formed, so it took about 30 minutes to get underway and decide upon a camp. They opted to go for VT mob chains in Gustav Tunnel, H-10 on the lower floor: Goblin Alchemists, Shepherds, & Mercenaries, and... more Robber Crabs.
The mobs were a bit too low in the VT spectrum, but the party seemed relaxed about it and proceeded to exp-chain as best they could. Having a MNK, NIN, THF, and WAR in the party and no skillchaining was driving me nuts, so after pulling a few teeth I convinced the THF and MNK to at least set up Distortion on the crabs once the thief learned his Dancing Edge. I initially tried to get a Fusion SC underway for the goblins, but people weren't up for setting up two different skillchains. So they set up distortion on the goblins too. EXP was slower than it needed to have been, but not bad, and the party was very relaxed and upbeat (I'll take slow EXP in a pleasant party over faster EXP in a bitchy party any day). Since my Rampage didn't factor into any skillchaining, I was able to swap in my Great Axe, which capped on a Raging Rush right before I got my level... around 2:15AM. The party ended around 2:30, so I don't quite have a full buffer yet, but I'm happy.
Hunter slept in until a little after 7:00AM. Yes, I'm a bit of a zombie today.
Monday, June 19, 2006
Amemet + 1 acquired. Genkai 4 complete.
Not a whole lot to report aside from the title. Well, maybe a bit more.
I attempted another EXP session on Friday night, which ended up being a waste of 2 hours with no points gained. The party took the typical 30-40 minutes to form and decided to camp in the Labyrinth of Onzozo. I'd been in here before and had good results and knew what to expect in terms of aggro, zone layout, and mob AOE (silence/paralysis). I even knew the two main camps for our level range. The problem was no one bothered to check the zone population first. There were 2 parties at the G-6 location, and none of us had really camped the I-6 as a standalone group before (I'd camped there with another party before). The leader thought we could handle the I-6 camp alone, which I should have objected to, and at least one other member did in fact complain about... and you can probably guess the rest.
A Torama popped on our tail in the middle of a battle and aggrod the SMN, who stopped healing the Ninja tank, who died despite my 2-hour, which turned the mob to me when the tank died, which resulted in my death... and it all ended in a party wipe, with another Torama walking over our corpses for good measure. A friend of mine came by, brought another friend to clear the mobs, and raised me and the SMN. We eventually WarpII'd all of our sorry tails out of there. Fortunately we had killed a few Toramas before the wipe, so it ended up as a wash in terms of EXP (woot?).
While I was busy getting nothing done on the EXP front, the price of Poison Potion went back to the 40k range, so I was happy to find about 200k on my Jeuno mule when I logged in the next day. The price of the Amemet Mantle+1 dropped to 1.77 mil, so my post-purchase gil fund wasn't quite as low as I thought it would be, but still low enough to warrant another 2-hr crafting session to get into the comfortable 200k range. The brief sessions I had over the weekend consisted in fishing, and completing the Genkai 4 quest.
I might put my flag up again tonight if I'm feeling up for it, since I've got all of my gear & food out of storage anyway and would love to try out my new mantle. If I had the time, I'd craft up some more gil for at least one Victory Ring, but the STR bonus compared to my current setup just doesn't warrant the time it would take...at least for now.
I attempted another EXP session on Friday night, which ended up being a waste of 2 hours with no points gained. The party took the typical 30-40 minutes to form and decided to camp in the Labyrinth of Onzozo. I'd been in here before and had good results and knew what to expect in terms of aggro, zone layout, and mob AOE (silence/paralysis). I even knew the two main camps for our level range. The problem was no one bothered to check the zone population first. There were 2 parties at the G-6 location, and none of us had really camped the I-6 as a standalone group before (I'd camped there with another party before). The leader thought we could handle the I-6 camp alone, which I should have objected to, and at least one other member did in fact complain about... and you can probably guess the rest.
A Torama popped on our tail in the middle of a battle and aggrod the SMN, who stopped healing the Ninja tank, who died despite my 2-hour, which turned the mob to me when the tank died, which resulted in my death... and it all ended in a party wipe, with another Torama walking over our corpses for good measure. A friend of mine came by, brought another friend to clear the mobs, and raised me and the SMN. We eventually WarpII'd all of our sorry tails out of there. Fortunately we had killed a few Toramas before the wipe, so it ended up as a wash in terms of EXP (woot?).
While I was busy getting nothing done on the EXP front, the price of Poison Potion went back to the 40k range, so I was happy to find about 200k on my Jeuno mule when I logged in the next day. The price of the Amemet Mantle+1 dropped to 1.77 mil, so my post-purchase gil fund wasn't quite as low as I thought it would be, but still low enough to warrant another 2-hr crafting session to get into the comfortable 200k range. The brief sessions I had over the weekend consisted in fishing, and completing the Genkai 4 quest.
I might put my flag up again tonight if I'm feeling up for it, since I've got all of my gear & food out of storage anyway and would love to try out my new mantle. If I had the time, I'd craft up some more gil for at least one Victory Ring, but the STR bonus compared to my current setup just doesn't warrant the time it would take...at least for now.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Note to self: stop being such a noob.
I took a break from crafting and fishing to EXP a little, since it has been several months since I've partied and I'm feeling the itch to level up a bit.
It's been so long since I've partied, in fact, that I made some really dumb mistakes, which made me literally blush with embarrasment at one point. It worked out OK, but my performance was far from superlative.
I had put up my flag around 10PM, assuming an invite would be unlikely, but I could at least multitask and craft tons of Mercury while LFG. When I noticed I was 200k away from affording the Amemet +1, I was getting ready to take my flag down and push onward with crafting, but got an invite before I could take it down.
The party was forming in Aht Urghan, which is not currently my HP, so the trip out there took a good 15 minutes (teleporting, waiting for the ferry, yadda yadda). I did some light research during the idle time, looking at camp information for Bhaflau Thickets and Wajaom Woodlands. But I wish I had instead spent that time reminding myself of basic crucial things I should do before getting to camp (in no particular order of importance):
Back when I actually EXP'd semi-regularly, these were just automatic for me. I'm obviously rusty now: out of the above, I forgot number 1, nearly forgot Invis tools, and spaced on items 4-8.
We set up camp at G-8 in Wajaom Woodlands (near the Leypoint), targeting the lower level birds (Lesser Colibri), which spawned frequently & close together, didn't agro, and didn't link... I had initially assumed we would be targetting slightly tougher mobs in Bhaflau Thickets, but this party was going the T-VT & no downtime route. And they started immediately, no discussion.
The pace was something I was not ready for at first. I also didn't have the time to look up mob TP and AOE characteristics, so I wasn't aware of how differently the party would function because of these and how quickly we would need to operate...constantly.
The birds have a couple of TP moves. One of them removes all food effects (that's one Sole Sushi I'm never getting back). The other resets your TP to 0%. Because of the potential TP reset, holding out on a WS for skillchaining was not much of an option, so it was one big accelerated WS spam-fest. That's when I thought about hate-control and noticed a THF was in the party (see missed item #8) and realized I had not been doing my job as first voker for our SATA setup (Ninja Tank), which must have been frustrating for him. Of course as soon as I caught this, the THF kindly asked me to first-voke. Embarassment #1.
Once I started provoking, I nearly fell out of my chair when I realized I had forgotten my Shihei. I begged the NIN for some and she kindly forked over 2 stacks (which I paid for later). Embarassment #2.
I'd recently changed my /attack macro tostnpc rather than bt, which didn't work so well when the camp was surrounded by mobs. I hastily reverted to the old macro during the nanosecond between mobs. Embarassment #3.
After hitting a chain #10, I realized I could be getting a great deal more EXP if I'd bothered to bring my Empress Ring, not to mention some nice Conquest Points if I hadn't forgotten to get Signet. Not really an embarassment, just a "/slapme" moment.
The frustrating thing for me was that I barely had time to digest the mistakes & correct them before I had to voke/engage the next mob and watch shadow counts. It had the cumulative effect of making me feel like I was always a step behind the rest of the party. I can only hope most of this was just self-consciousness on my part, since the party was extremely kind and patient.
In any case the EXP was pretty good, and the party members were very kind. The session lasted for about 3 hours before people started falling asleep. In that time we earned somewhere between 15-16k exp (I'll have to verify this when I log on later, may have been 1k lower or so), and I dinged 61 during the second hour (I had been 11k TNL).
Tomorrow night might consist of another EXP session to get some more practice and refine my rusty combat skills a bit. I'll certainly be working on the last 200k gil while LFG. After that, I think I'll have fun with Genkai 4.
It's been so long since I've partied, in fact, that I made some really dumb mistakes, which made me literally blush with embarrasment at one point. It worked out OK, but my performance was far from superlative.
I had put up my flag around 10PM, assuming an invite would be unlikely, but I could at least multitask and craft tons of Mercury while LFG. When I noticed I was 200k away from affording the Amemet +1, I was getting ready to take my flag down and push onward with crafting, but got an invite before I could take it down.
The party was forming in Aht Urghan, which is not currently my HP, so the trip out there took a good 15 minutes (teleporting, waiting for the ferry, yadda yadda). I did some light research during the idle time, looking at camp information for Bhaflau Thickets and Wajaom Woodlands. But I wish I had instead spent that time reminding myself of basic crucial things I should do before getting to camp (in no particular order of importance):
- Signet
- Sneak/Invis Tools
- Food
- Shihei
- EXP Ring
- Macro check
- Bring Great Axe to skillup when level goes up
- Check party for SATA and/or SC partners
Back when I actually EXP'd semi-regularly, these were just automatic for me. I'm obviously rusty now: out of the above, I forgot number 1, nearly forgot Invis tools, and spaced on items 4-8.
We set up camp at G-8 in Wajaom Woodlands (near the Leypoint), targeting the lower level birds (Lesser Colibri), which spawned frequently & close together, didn't agro, and didn't link... I had initially assumed we would be targetting slightly tougher mobs in Bhaflau Thickets, but this party was going the T-VT & no downtime route. And they started immediately, no discussion.
The pace was something I was not ready for at first. I also didn't have the time to look up mob TP and AOE characteristics, so I wasn't aware of how differently the party would function because of these and how quickly we would need to operate...constantly.
The birds have a couple of TP moves. One of them removes all food effects (that's one Sole Sushi I'm never getting back). The other resets your TP to 0%. Because of the potential TP reset, holding out on a WS for skillchaining was not much of an option, so it was one big accelerated WS spam-fest. That's when I thought about hate-control and noticed a THF was in the party (see missed item #8) and realized I had not been doing my job as first voker for our SATA setup (Ninja Tank), which must have been frustrating for him. Of course as soon as I caught this, the THF kindly asked me to first-voke. Embarassment #1.
Once I started provoking, I nearly fell out of my chair when I realized I had forgotten my Shihei. I begged the NIN for some and she kindly forked over 2 stacks (which I paid for later). Embarassment #2.
I'd recently changed my /attack macro to
After hitting a chain #10, I realized I could be getting a great deal more EXP if I'd bothered to bring my Empress Ring, not to mention some nice Conquest Points if I hadn't forgotten to get Signet. Not really an embarassment, just a "/slap
The frustrating thing for me was that I barely had time to digest the mistakes & correct them before I had to voke/engage the next mob and watch shadow counts. It had the cumulative effect of making me feel like I was always a step behind the rest of the party. I can only hope most of this was just self-consciousness on my part, since the party was extremely kind and patient.
In any case the EXP was pretty good, and the party members were very kind. The session lasted for about 3 hours before people started falling asleep. In that time we earned somewhere between 15-16k exp (I'll have to verify this when I log on later, may have been 1k lower or so), and I dinged 61 during the second hour (I had been 11k TNL).
Tomorrow night might consist of another EXP session to get some more practice and refine my rusty combat skills a bit. I'll certainly be working on the last 200k gil while LFG. After that, I think I'll have fun with Genkai 4.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Fisherman, Cook, Alchemist, Ronin...
Well... I'm not exactly a disenfranchised Samurai, but a Warrior wandering the realm with a fishing pole in one hand and an axe in the other is close enough in my book.
I'll try to make this update quick, since I haven't had much time to blog lately, and still don't. I took the Fish Broth recipe to the cap (37) and started in on the Pie Dough recipe, which required more frickin' flour (I give up). But I bit the bullet and took that recipe through level 41, 1 level away from cap; I can't stand that last level in a synth range and usually switch to a harder recipe when I hit this point. Synthing the Meat Kabob for the test was nothing compared to the Veggie Gruel. I could see this being an attractive money-maker for level 90 somethings who take the time to farm the meat. The Pie Dough sold very quickly and for good profit, so I might look at this recipe again if I need a little variety in my wares. I took the Tomato Juice recipe to level 42 and change, and got tired of the useless, non-stackable product, so I moved on to Pickled Herring.
This was a great excuse to go fishing again, so I eventually headed out to the Qufim ice lake (after getting sidetracked for an evening helping an LS-mate with their Khazam keys) and camped there for awhile, using a Shrimp Lure and Halcyon Rod. It was fun playing night-cop and killing the mobs for crab/worm parties in trouble... I remember what a pain it was to be out there at nightfall with Banshee agro.
Once I skilled fishing to level 18 and took the Herring recipe to 44, I decided it was time to try fishing up Nebimonites for fun & profit. So I hopped on the ferry with some Crayfish Balls and fished away the hours, but stopped after awhile since it was becoming obviously inefficient. Targetting a single fish (Nebs are the only small non-mob fish that bite Crayfish on the ferry), and the wait time between ferry journeys added up to quite a bit of idle time, and not a lot of Nebs to show for it. So de-boarded the ship, synthed up about 8 stacks of ink out of my 2.5 stacks of Nebs and sent them out to the mules for a little profit (about 15-17k per stack), and decided to head out to Sea Serpent Grotto to target more Nebs, check out the area and use the Grotto Key I'd been hanging onto for who knows how long.
Traveling to that gray bubbling lake surrounded by Sahagin and Grimmonite fishers was fun, and the Nebimonite return was indeed faster during the good moon phases, but plummeted to frustrating levels during 50%-ish phases which gave me a lot of item-bites or 'You didn't catch anything' messages. I started to realize that this is a better place to target multiple fish if you have the necessary skill and a Lu Shang, since I was releasing quite a few 'bad feeling' and 'terrible feeling' catches that I knew were either Bream or Grimmonite. To pass the time during the bad moon phase I muled in a Silver Beastcoin and went hunting for the Treasure Chest, which was pretty easy to find, although this NM freaked me out a little (because I had no idea what level he was). So I now finally have a map of the Sea Serpent Grotto, and a free slot in my MH.
My character is sitting in Jeuno now with about 10 more stacks of ink ready for distribution. I think I'll hang onto these and wait for a dry spell in Jeuno, and synth some other revenue items such as Poison Potion, Sleeping Potion, and Firesand and build a good supply of these to sell at the right time. I need to focus on overstocking mules with a variety of products, which will enable me to sell quickly when the demand goes up on a given item. Since I haven't been focusing on making money, my sum is still only at 1.4 million, so I need to hunker down and get that last 600-700k for the Amemet Mantle+1.
I'll try to make this update quick, since I haven't had much time to blog lately, and still don't. I took the Fish Broth recipe to the cap (37) and started in on the Pie Dough recipe, which required more frickin' flour (I give up). But I bit the bullet and took that recipe through level 41, 1 level away from cap; I can't stand that last level in a synth range and usually switch to a harder recipe when I hit this point. Synthing the Meat Kabob for the test was nothing compared to the Veggie Gruel. I could see this being an attractive money-maker for level 90 somethings who take the time to farm the meat. The Pie Dough sold very quickly and for good profit, so I might look at this recipe again if I need a little variety in my wares. I took the Tomato Juice recipe to level 42 and change, and got tired of the useless, non-stackable product, so I moved on to Pickled Herring.
This was a great excuse to go fishing again, so I eventually headed out to the Qufim ice lake (after getting sidetracked for an evening helping an LS-mate with their Khazam keys) and camped there for awhile, using a Shrimp Lure and Halcyon Rod. It was fun playing night-cop and killing the mobs for crab/worm parties in trouble... I remember what a pain it was to be out there at nightfall with Banshee agro.
Once I skilled fishing to level 18 and took the Herring recipe to 44, I decided it was time to try fishing up Nebimonites for fun & profit. So I hopped on the ferry with some Crayfish Balls and fished away the hours, but stopped after awhile since it was becoming obviously inefficient. Targetting a single fish (Nebs are the only small non-mob fish that bite Crayfish on the ferry), and the wait time between ferry journeys added up to quite a bit of idle time, and not a lot of Nebs to show for it. So de-boarded the ship, synthed up about 8 stacks of ink out of my 2.5 stacks of Nebs and sent them out to the mules for a little profit (about 15-17k per stack), and decided to head out to Sea Serpent Grotto to target more Nebs, check out the area and use the Grotto Key I'd been hanging onto for who knows how long.
Traveling to that gray bubbling lake surrounded by Sahagin and Grimmonite fishers was fun, and the Nebimonite return was indeed faster during the good moon phases, but plummeted to frustrating levels during 50%-ish phases which gave me a lot of item-bites or 'You didn't catch anything' messages. I started to realize that this is a better place to target multiple fish if you have the necessary skill and a Lu Shang, since I was releasing quite a few 'bad feeling' and 'terrible feeling' catches that I knew were either Bream or Grimmonite. To pass the time during the bad moon phase I muled in a Silver Beastcoin and went hunting for the Treasure Chest, which was pretty easy to find, although this NM freaked me out a little (because I had no idea what level he was). So I now finally have a map of the Sea Serpent Grotto, and a free slot in my MH.
My character is sitting in Jeuno now with about 10 more stacks of ink ready for distribution. I think I'll hang onto these and wait for a dry spell in Jeuno, and synth some other revenue items such as Poison Potion, Sleeping Potion, and Firesand and build a good supply of these to sell at the right time. I need to focus on overstocking mules with a variety of products, which will enable me to sell quickly when the demand goes up on a given item. Since I haven't been focusing on making money, my sum is still only at 1.4 million, so I need to hunker down and get that last 600-700k for the Amemet Mantle+1.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
Enough with the flour already!
I haven't been on much in the past few days due to RL priorities and lack of sleep, but I managed to log in for a brief session last night. My old CatastrophyCrafters linkshell lost its leader and decided to reform as TheEternalCalm, mostly with the same members though the primary sack-holder has changed (good luck, Trumpy!).
In cooking news, progress has been slow, mostly due to lack of time. Although this craft is cheap and easy to skillup pre-60, the ingredients take some time to collect if you try to aquire as many of them as possible via NPC vendors. Since some ingredients are cheapest through regional vendors, this can take quite a bit of muling & walking to gather the 4-5 stacks of each ingredient for a good skillup session. And some items like Bird Eggs are just hard to track down unless your mules have Rank 5 and can access the Airship shops (which only sell them if that particular town won the last conquest).
A stalling point for me was the Frost Turnip ingredient for the Vegetable Gruel you need to trade in to break the skill cap at 30. No one ever owns the Valdeaunia region (not exactly an EXP area), so there was no hope of finding this on a regional vendor. There were no gruels on any of the Auction Houses when I was on, and ditto for the turnips. I was getting ready to grow a few turnips myself when, by chance, someone put a handful up for sale in Jeuno. I had probably wasted at least a day or 2 just waiting for the ingredient or the dish to turn up somewhere. Sensing a little opportunity here, I crafted a couple of extra gruels with my leftovers and auctioned them off for 8k apiece (didn't have the patience to craft more of them). I'll check later rank recipes & plan ahead before I get close to 40 and 50.
I took the Meatball recipe through 33 and NPC'd most of the product since the sales on the AH are just too slow to make the auction management time worthwhile. Using this recipe for 5 skill levels seemed interminable, because I would either run out of room about halfway through each level (since the recipe produces and entire stack for every synth), or I would run out of San D'Orian Flour which, like all flour, doesn't stack (where are the shopping carts in this game?). After dealing with Poison Flour during Alchemy skillups, I wasn't too pleased with this ingredient. Cheap? Yes. Annoying? Hell yes.
Once I hit 33, it was time for another recipe. Most people seemed to be using Pet Food Delta, which not only required yet another flour ingredient, but also included Bird Eggs. After half a level of grumbling, muling the flour, and searching for the Bird Eggs... I decided to take a look at the other recipes in range and stumbled across another opportunity for cooking/fishing synergy: Fish Broth. This is the same scenario as the Sliced Sardine recipe. Using a Sabiki Rig in Port Windurst will allow me to target Quus for fishing skillups (to 19), and Bastore Sardines for cooking skillups (to 37). The recipe caps a couple of levels lower than the pet food, but I'll take it and probably skip the pet food recipe altogether.
I look forward to fishing tonight ^_^
In cooking news, progress has been slow, mostly due to lack of time. Although this craft is cheap and easy to skillup pre-60, the ingredients take some time to collect if you try to aquire as many of them as possible via NPC vendors. Since some ingredients are cheapest through regional vendors, this can take quite a bit of muling & walking to gather the 4-5 stacks of each ingredient for a good skillup session. And some items like Bird Eggs are just hard to track down unless your mules have Rank 5 and can access the Airship shops (which only sell them if that particular town won the last conquest).
A stalling point for me was the Frost Turnip ingredient for the Vegetable Gruel you need to trade in to break the skill cap at 30. No one ever owns the Valdeaunia region (not exactly an EXP area), so there was no hope of finding this on a regional vendor. There were no gruels on any of the Auction Houses when I was on, and ditto for the turnips. I was getting ready to grow a few turnips myself when, by chance, someone put a handful up for sale in Jeuno. I had probably wasted at least a day or 2 just waiting for the ingredient or the dish to turn up somewhere. Sensing a little opportunity here, I crafted a couple of extra gruels with my leftovers and auctioned them off for 8k apiece (didn't have the patience to craft more of them). I'll check later rank recipes & plan ahead before I get close to 40 and 50.
I took the Meatball recipe through 33 and NPC'd most of the product since the sales on the AH are just too slow to make the auction management time worthwhile. Using this recipe for 5 skill levels seemed interminable, because I would either run out of room about halfway through each level (since the recipe produces and entire stack for every synth), or I would run out of San D'Orian Flour which, like all flour, doesn't stack (where are the shopping carts in this game?). After dealing with Poison Flour during Alchemy skillups, I wasn't too pleased with this ingredient. Cheap? Yes. Annoying? Hell yes.
Once I hit 33, it was time for another recipe. Most people seemed to be using Pet Food Delta, which not only required yet another flour ingredient, but also included Bird Eggs. After half a level of grumbling, muling the flour, and searching for the Bird Eggs... I decided to take a look at the other recipes in range and stumbled across another opportunity for cooking/fishing synergy: Fish Broth. This is the same scenario as the Sliced Sardine recipe. Using a Sabiki Rig in Port Windurst will allow me to target Quus for fishing skillups (to 19), and Bastore Sardines for cooking skillups (to 37). The recipe caps a couple of levels lower than the pet food, but I'll take it and probably skip the pet food recipe altogether.
I look forward to fishing tonight ^_^
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Fishing for gil
I think it's time to make a little money, and I hear Nebimonites are in demand by alchemists crafting Black Ink. I haven't had a chance to check the market to determine whether the raw fish will sell for more profit than the ink, but in any case this sounds like a fun way to make some gil and change the scenery again.
At my fishing level, the safest way to target these will be to use Crayfish Ball on the Mhaura ferry (releasing any !!! for obvious reasons). So it looks like it's time for me to take Cooking a little further to 45. The skillup path to that level looks pretty painless, so I'll be cooking a bit more for the next few nights.
At my fishing level, the safest way to target these will be to use Crayfish Ball on the Mhaura ferry (releasing any !!! for obvious reasons). So it looks like it's time for me to take Cooking a little further to 45. The skillup path to that level looks pretty painless, so I'll be cooking a bit more for the next few nights.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
And for the obligatory cooking
It's become evident that I'm going to need lots of Insect Paste in the long run. Several tons of it, from what I gather. At 1500-2000 gil per stack, that's quite a gil drain. So I've taken a few sessions to level Cooking to 28 (and change). Synthing my own paste also saves quite a bit of room since 4 stacks of materials yield 12 stacks of bait.
Leveling cooking from 6-11 allowed me to multi-task and skillup fishing at the same time, since Sliced Sardine was the recipe of choice in that range. I used a Sabiki Rig in Port Windurst and caught Quus for fishing skillups, while using the Bastore Sardines I was catching to level up Cooking. Fun stuff! I hope to have more such moments of Fishing/Cooking synergy.
Getting cooking past 10 has also enabled me to synthesize Sairui-Ran with my Alchemy skill, but I'll probably hold off on crafting those until my Woodcraft enables me to synthesize the Bast Parchment myself.
Skillups in fishing have been slower than expected, but not discouraging, since I'm not exclusively targeting the skillup fish. I want to collect carp as I go, rather than skillup as fast as I can and then worry about them.
I think I'll head to the jungles instead of Jugner this afternoon and fish there, just for a change of scenery. I'm very vigilant for the !!! messages, so I'm not too worried about fishing up a nasty mob.
In the back of my mind, I'm also itching to level NIN to 37 and be done with it, but I haven't found the consecutive time to LFG and party yet, so fishing & crafting will have to do for now.
It's been quite a relaxing process so far.
Leveling cooking from 6-11 allowed me to multi-task and skillup fishing at the same time, since Sliced Sardine was the recipe of choice in that range. I used a Sabiki Rig in Port Windurst and caught Quus for fishing skillups, while using the Bastore Sardines I was catching to level up Cooking. Fun stuff! I hope to have more such moments of Fishing/Cooking synergy.
Getting cooking past 10 has also enabled me to synthesize Sairui-Ran with my Alchemy skill, but I'll probably hold off on crafting those until my Woodcraft enables me to synthesize the Bast Parchment myself.
Skillups in fishing have been slower than expected, but not discouraging, since I'm not exclusively targeting the skillup fish. I want to collect carp as I go, rather than skillup as fast as I can and then worry about them.
I think I'll head to the jungles instead of Jugner this afternoon and fish there, just for a change of scenery. I'm very vigilant for the !!! messages, so I'm not too worried about fishing up a nasty mob.
In the back of my mind, I'm also itching to level NIN to 37 and be done with it, but I haven't found the consecutive time to LFG and party yet, so fishing & crafting will have to do for now.
It's been quite a relaxing process so far.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Gone Fishing
In working toward the 2 million gil mark that would allow me to purchase the Amemit Mantle +1, everything has been progressing pretty smoothly (about 700k to go). I've been supplying the AH with Sleeping Potion, Poison Potion (camping the Bibiki Bay shop for the cobalt), Firesand, and Carbon Fiber for a pretty steady income. Rather than opt for Concoction, I purchased the Trituration key item with my guild points, and I'm glad I did. Since I farm all of my Water and Lightning crystals, I appreciate the savings in crystals. And given my short time-windows I definitely enjoy the time savings (most recipes yield 3, so it only takes 4 synths to make a quick stack).
But I've decided I need to branch out further. One of the deciding factors has been the fluctuating Alchemy market, which I think is mostly due to the new expansion and the time spent on new jobs rather than CoP activities. One week Poison Potion will be scarce at about 10-20 stacks with constant demand for about 40k per stack (massive profits here). The next week, demand dries up and random Alchemy newbies spam the AH with stacks bringing supply into the upper 50's and the price plummets to something around 23-24k (you're better off selling the Mercury at this point). After seeing this happen a couple of times, I've decided to diversify.
And I'm really enjoying fishing so far. After selling a few stacks of Moat Carps for the crack-like high (9k of free money per stack ... wheeee), I decided to start tucking them away for the Lu-Shang quest. I've studied fishing quite a bit and can tell I'm about to step into something that may very well spiral into obsessive depravity, and I'm perfectly OK with it. I still want to eventually alternate fishing and crafting (especially when I can fish up alchemy ingredients), but for the next few days, I think I'll be skilling up and storing Moat Carps. I like the Titanictus.com guide that provides options for people who want to collect the carps as they go from 0-50, rather than wait until they hit 50. I think I'll be following that method for awhile.
And I'm really enjoying fishing so far. After selling a few stacks of Moat Carps for the crack-like high (9k of free money per stack ... wheeee), I decided to start tucking them away for the Lu-Shang quest. I've studied fishing quite a bit and can tell I'm about to step into something that may very well spiral into obsessive depravity, and I'm perfectly OK with it. I still want to eventually alternate fishing and crafting (especially when I can fish up alchemy ingredients), but for the next few days, I think I'll be skilling up and storing Moat Carps. I like the Titanictus.com guide that provides options for people who want to collect the carps as they go from 0-50, rather than wait until they hit 50. I think I'll be following that method for awhile.
Saturday, May 06, 2006
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Noobs
As some of you may have guessed, I haven't been on in awhile because...
My daughter Scout Amelie Bauman was born on April 27th at 8:08 AM. She weighed 7 lbs. 8 oz. and has regained most of that weight now (they lose a bit after birth), and she measured 20 inches (she's probably already a bit taller now). She's an amazing little person, and Hunter is being a terrific big brother. I'll post a pic soon.
And yes, my wife and I are fans of To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee). The middle name is there in case our daughter wants a 'girlier' name when she gets older. Hunter's name was inspired by an awesome little actor in the film Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders).
In FFXI news I met a couple of bonafide noobs a couple of days ago while I was perusing the Bastok AH. They were green enough to not completely understand the UI (couldn't reply to my tells at first), nor had they sold anything on the AH yet, or bought any maps to Gustaberg... yes, that new. I befriended them, gave the Warrior an Axe (the other guy is a BLM for now), gave them tips on how to get started, and answered lots and lots and LOTS of questions. It's been a bit overwhelming, so I try to only tell them as much as they need to know & focus them on their immediate goals, but it's a fine balance between helping them out and hand-holding them. I expect another round of questions tonight... so far they haven't begged for anything, which is a good sign.
My sessions -- for obvioius reasons -- have been pretty limited, so I've been focusing on earning Guild Points in order to purchase the Concoction key item (20,000 GP). This will open up another crafting option for me: Hi-Potion Drops. They sell for around 60k per stack of 12, a market that is a bit less crowded than the flood of 5k Hi-Potions. It's not a fabulous option, but the more products available to me, the better. I'm not sure whether I want to pursue Iatrochemistry yet, at least not until the Puppetmaster market stabilizes a bit. I'm working on diversifying my sales because, once again, the Silent Oil market bubble has burst, and stacks are back down to 30k. Yes, the Alchemy party's over.
Since I'm on a 4-week paternity leave, I've been signing on at random hours and buying up tons of Cobalt Jellyfish in Bibiki Bay. I'm swimming in Mercury now (hmmm, that can't be healthy huh?). I'll probably keep 2-3 stacks for personal use and sell the rest as Poison Potion (40k/stack). Next on the list will be Firesand, and eventually Hi-Po drops.
During one of my random afternoon sessions (while Hunter and Scout were sleeping), some LS members formed a skillup party in Boyhada Tree and I joined up for a short while ... long enough to cap out my Great Axe at 203. What a relief!
My daughter Scout Amelie Bauman was born on April 27th at 8:08 AM. She weighed 7 lbs. 8 oz. and has regained most of that weight now (they lose a bit after birth), and she measured 20 inches (she's probably already a bit taller now). She's an amazing little person, and Hunter is being a terrific big brother. I'll post a pic soon.
And yes, my wife and I are fans of To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee). The middle name is there in case our daughter wants a 'girlier' name when she gets older. Hunter's name was inspired by an awesome little actor in the film Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders).
In FFXI news I met a couple of bonafide noobs a couple of days ago while I was perusing the Bastok AH. They were green enough to not completely understand the UI (couldn't reply to my tells at first), nor had they sold anything on the AH yet, or bought any maps to Gustaberg... yes, that new. I befriended them, gave the Warrior an Axe (the other guy is a BLM for now), gave them tips on how to get started, and answered lots and lots and LOTS of questions. It's been a bit overwhelming, so I try to only tell them as much as they need to know & focus them on their immediate goals, but it's a fine balance between helping them out and hand-holding them. I expect another round of questions tonight... so far they haven't begged for anything, which is a good sign.
My sessions -- for obvioius reasons -- have been pretty limited, so I've been focusing on earning Guild Points in order to purchase the Concoction key item (20,000 GP). This will open up another crafting option for me: Hi-Potion Drops. They sell for around 60k per stack of 12, a market that is a bit less crowded than the flood of 5k Hi-Potions. It's not a fabulous option, but the more products available to me, the better. I'm not sure whether I want to pursue Iatrochemistry yet, at least not until the Puppetmaster market stabilizes a bit. I'm working on diversifying my sales because, once again, the Silent Oil market bubble has burst, and stacks are back down to 30k. Yes, the Alchemy party's over.
Since I'm on a 4-week paternity leave, I've been signing on at random hours and buying up tons of Cobalt Jellyfish in Bibiki Bay. I'm swimming in Mercury now (hmmm, that can't be healthy huh?). I'll probably keep 2-3 stacks for personal use and sell the rest as Poison Potion (40k/stack). Next on the list will be Firesand, and eventually Hi-Po drops.
During one of my random afternoon sessions (while Hunter and Scout were sleeping), some LS members formed a skillup party in Boyhada Tree and I joined up for a short while ... long enough to cap out my Great Axe at 203. What a relief!
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
Blue Mage & Puppetmaster flagged
Apparently all the talk about true sight mobs only applies to the Corsaire flag quest, since I encountered no such enemies in either the PUP or BLU run, both of which were completed last night without too much fuss. The only thing I really hated about the PUP quest was that infernal boat to Nashmau. Good lord, so much time wasted! I seriously hope they have outpost quests for these places.
I'm tempted to try the COR flag soon, since the new zones are still crowded with high-level EXP experimenters and people still flagging the jobs. Some of these zones might become more or less deserted later on, depending on the EXP setup and how many parties will be supported, making it more difficult to trounce through the area in search of the ??? point.
I'm really mostly interested in BLU, since it seems to have high survivability as a solo job. It might be interesting to level this job for a little variety when I'm tired of BST every once in awhile (or maybe try combining the two?). If I had the time, I would start looking into PUP, since the alchemical tools just seem ideal for me, but it doesn't seem to be a highly solo-able job. So it will probably get placed on the back burner, behind WAR, BST, BLU (and of course WHM/BLM which I need to level for BST). Who am I kidding...I'll probably never touch it. But the puppet is so damned cute, I just had to unlock the job. I'm a sucker for cute stuff that you can upgrade/collect; still recovering from Animal Crossing, if you have to know.
In the middle of the questing (literally while I was running semi-lost in Caedarva Mire), I get an invitiation to EXP in Uleguerand Range. Figures, doesn't it? It was 11PM so, um, {Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass}. Dammit, I hate passing up EXP.
I have an early hand rehab appointment tomorrow, but I'm still going to try to get some EXP on my Ninja tonight, once I rebuild my macros... While we're on the subject, this 'rebuild' process from the 360 migration is going to take longer than I'd thought. The macros are OK; nothing too complex there. But my maps! My precious, precisely marked maps! *Sob*... Those will take awhile to restore.
I'm tempted to try the COR flag soon, since the new zones are still crowded with high-level EXP experimenters and people still flagging the jobs. Some of these zones might become more or less deserted later on, depending on the EXP setup and how many parties will be supported, making it more difficult to trounce through the area in search of the ??? point.
I'm really mostly interested in BLU, since it seems to have high survivability as a solo job. It might be interesting to level this job for a little variety when I'm tired of BST every once in awhile (or maybe try combining the two?). If I had the time, I would start looking into PUP, since the alchemical tools just seem ideal for me, but it doesn't seem to be a highly solo-able job. So it will probably get placed on the back burner, behind WAR, BST, BLU (and of course WHM/BLM which I need to level for BST). Who am I kidding...I'll probably never touch it. But the puppet is so damned cute, I just had to unlock the job. I'm a sucker for cute stuff that you can upgrade/collect; still recovering from Animal Crossing, if you have to know.
In the middle of the questing (literally while I was running semi-lost in Caedarva Mire), I get an invitiation to EXP in Uleguerand Range. Figures, doesn't it? It was 11PM so, um, {Thanks for the offer, but I'll have to pass}. Dammit, I hate passing up EXP.
I have an early hand rehab appointment tomorrow, but I'm still going to try to get some EXP on my Ninja tonight, once I rebuild my macros... While we're on the subject, this 'rebuild' process from the 360 migration is going to take longer than I'd thought. The macros are OK; nothing too complex there. But my maps! My precious, precisely marked maps! *Sob*... Those will take awhile to restore.
Monday, April 24, 2006
New jobs, zones... and markets
Bad port gripes aside, I'm happy about the new jobs and areas since they've given the Silent Oil market a boost, as well as left other markets and guild camps open.
Rampant undercutting had dropped oils down to 30k or less per stack for weeks back in March, which made it more lucrative to either sell the ingredients on their own, or craft random batches of other alchemical items that sold at a fair profit (Mercury, Poison Potion, Hi-Potion, Firesand, Sleeping Potion) and salvo the AH.
The second night I logged in I noticed Silent Oil stacks were going for 60k. $_$ I had no hope of actually crafting any new batches since Giddeus had been overrun by Blue Mages, so I quickly sold the 3 of the 4 stacks I had for personal use. Before I'd noticed or even thought about the Silent Oil rush, though, I had camped the Bibiki Bay fishing guild (completely deserted in the new job rush) and cooked up 7 stacks of Poison Potion, which go for a steady 40k. Then I noticed there were only 4 people in Korroloka Tunnel, so I farmed up a few stacks of Slime Oil, which go for around 40-50k.
I like this expansion...
The reason for the gil-drive though -- other than opportunism -- was to make the final stretch to the Utsusemi:Ni price (between 720-760k; about 100k higher than when I'd left). I got the scroll yesterday, with about 200k left over. So that's done... on to my other checklist items: cap Great Axe, get last pieces of AF, get to 61 for LB4 quest. I tried to form a Kuftal skillup party to no avail. There were about 100 people in Jeuno, in contrast to 500+ players in the Alzhabi/Whitegate zones. Then I tried to form a level 60-61 EXP party with similar results, since everyone is level 10-20 now. I think I'll wait until the 30's get more crowded and try to exp my NIN to 37 (possibly tomorrow night).
Some friends of mine hopped on and decided to do the BLU quest, so I tagged along for the fun of it (I'm actually aiming to unlock and level PUP once I get more information about it). I'd already aquired a boarding pass by turning in a random BST testimony that I'd kept (for no apparent reason; here's to being a pack-rat). We bought the Sunsand on the AH for 2000 gil, got the Siren's Tear (had to unequip our weapons for this, not sure why), and skipped the Bloodstone (again not sure why; I was tired and didn't really care if I had to make a trip to Dangruf Wadi later).
Once I finally made it to the NPC in Whitesands who 'divines' fortunes, I had to waste a few minutes after my first attempt at answering his questions only resulted in a 1000 gil fee and a vague dismissal to 'go harvest' in the new zones. One of my friends, Les, was asked for the Bloodstone (doh!), and the other, Lee, got the same 1000 gil fee and no hint. On the second attempt, I checked Allakhazam and used the answers some players provided, but got the same results (and another 1000 gil fee ><), while Lee got a request for Sunsand (which he didn't have ... double-doh). Les Mog-warped to Jeuno to go hunt for the ??? in Dangruf Wadi, and Lee logged off since he was fallling asleep. While waiting for a Vanadiel day to pass, I read further and noticed people were getting different results with the same answers... So I decided it was either random, job-based, or day-based. I tried the exact same answers as the previous day and got a request for something blue from the banks a river (i.e. the Siren's Tear). Joy!
Traded it to the NPC. Nothing... Talked to the NPC, and he would say something along the lines of 'I can't charge you for my services'. It was late, I was dozing off, and there were no BLU on the LS to help me out, so I logged, assuming I'd probably have to wait another Vanadiel day & trade again.
I tried it this morning with no results when it dawned on me that I hadn't zoned after getting the request (duh). After this, the NPC still did nothing but stare blankly when I traded the item. So I spoke to him, and he started telling me to 'forget about what he said'. I almost hit the ceiling when I saw this until he gave me a response option to follow through on the quest. Once the CS ended, I spoke to him again and he instructed me to deliver the item to another NPC in Bhaflau Thickets.
Guess I'll be exploring that zone tonight, which I'm assuming will require Sneak and Invis in some areas until I find the NPC (and a careful avoidance of the True Sight imps I've been told about).
Rampant undercutting had dropped oils down to 30k or less per stack for weeks back in March, which made it more lucrative to either sell the ingredients on their own, or craft random batches of other alchemical items that sold at a fair profit (Mercury, Poison Potion, Hi-Potion, Firesand, Sleeping Potion) and salvo the AH.
The second night I logged in I noticed Silent Oil stacks were going for 60k. $_$ I had no hope of actually crafting any new batches since Giddeus had been overrun by Blue Mages, so I quickly sold the 3 of the 4 stacks I had for personal use. Before I'd noticed or even thought about the Silent Oil rush, though, I had camped the Bibiki Bay fishing guild (completely deserted in the new job rush) and cooked up 7 stacks of Poison Potion, which go for a steady 40k. Then I noticed there were only 4 people in Korroloka Tunnel, so I farmed up a few stacks of Slime Oil, which go for around 40-50k.
I like this expansion...
The reason for the gil-drive though -- other than opportunism -- was to make the final stretch to the Utsusemi:Ni price (between 720-760k; about 100k higher than when I'd left). I got the scroll yesterday, with about 200k left over. So that's done... on to my other checklist items: cap Great Axe, get last pieces of AF, get to 61 for LB4 quest. I tried to form a Kuftal skillup party to no avail. There were about 100 people in Jeuno, in contrast to 500+ players in the Alzhabi/Whitegate zones. Then I tried to form a level 60-61 EXP party with similar results, since everyone is level 10-20 now. I think I'll wait until the 30's get more crowded and try to exp my NIN to 37 (possibly tomorrow night).
Some friends of mine hopped on and decided to do the BLU quest, so I tagged along for the fun of it (I'm actually aiming to unlock and level PUP once I get more information about it). I'd already aquired a boarding pass by turning in a random BST testimony that I'd kept (for no apparent reason; here's to being a pack-rat). We bought the Sunsand on the AH for 2000 gil, got the Siren's Tear (had to unequip our weapons for this, not sure why), and skipped the Bloodstone (again not sure why; I was tired and didn't really care if I had to make a trip to Dangruf Wadi later).
Once I finally made it to the NPC in Whitesands who 'divines' fortunes, I had to waste a few minutes after my first attempt at answering his questions only resulted in a 1000 gil fee and a vague dismissal to 'go harvest' in the new zones. One of my friends, Les, was asked for the Bloodstone (doh!), and the other, Lee, got the same 1000 gil fee and no hint. On the second attempt, I checked Allakhazam and used the answers some players provided, but got the same results (and another 1000 gil fee ><), while Lee got a request for Sunsand (which he didn't have ... double-doh). Les Mog-warped to Jeuno to go hunt for the ??? in Dangruf Wadi, and Lee logged off since he was fallling asleep. While waiting for a Vanadiel day to pass, I read further and noticed people were getting different results with the same answers... So I decided it was either random, job-based, or day-based. I tried the exact same answers as the previous day and got a request for something blue from the banks a river (i.e. the Siren's Tear). Joy!
Traded it to the NPC. Nothing... Talked to the NPC, and he would say something along the lines of 'I can't charge you for my services'. It was late, I was dozing off, and there were no BLU on the LS to help me out, so I logged, assuming I'd probably have to wait another Vanadiel day & trade again.
I tried it this morning with no results when it dawned on me that I hadn't zoned after getting the request (duh). After this, the NPC still did nothing but stare blankly when I traded the item. So I spoke to him, and he started telling me to 'forget about what he said'. I almost hit the ceiling when I saw this until he gave me a response option to follow through on the quest. Once the CS ended, I spoke to him again and he instructed me to deliver the item to another NPC in Bhaflau Thickets.
Guess I'll be exploring that zone tonight, which I'm assuming will require Sneak and Invis in some areas until I find the NPC (and a careful avoidance of the True Sight imps I've been told about).
Friday, April 21, 2006
The 360 version
This Xbox360 should be dubbed the Frustration Machine of Death. I know there's an awesome hardware configuration in that box, but the platform is 0 for 2 so far in providing me with games that don't have glaring bugs which should have been caught with rudimentary beta testing. It's like having a car with an amazing engine, but finicky transmission or poor brake response... and the worst part is that I can't get in under the hood to mess with it.
To anyone with the PC version thinking about getting this version to play on your couch, don't bother unless you have a recent HDTV. It looks comparatively terrible in 4:3 in normal interlaced mode. The gamma has been made incompatible with these televisions (way too high), and the color saturation is much too low. Gamma too high + Saturation too low = a washed out, bland looking, mess. You can adjust RGB gamma manually in the game and turn it down, but this tends to make it too dark, without the appropriate black level, and the saturation is still a problem. And to make things worse there's a screen refresh glitch causing the image to 'stagger' when you turn or move quickly (called 'screen tearing'), making it look like you're playing FFXI through a junky emulator. If you have a nice HDTV, then go for it, and I envy you... it seems to run fine on those.
To anyone with the PS2 version, if you have the expendable $560-$570 and no PC that can play the game without sinking $700+ into it, then the resolution boost on this version is worth it (no more flickering artifacting 10 feet beyond your character), but with some major caveats:
If you have a recent HDTV, by all means get this version. HDTV users seem to be very happy with it. Colors and gamma seem to be OK, and the screen real estate you save by running this in 720p is considerable (you can actually see what you're doing during an EXP party without the chat log taking up 1/3 of the screen).
If you don't have a recent HDTV and plan to play on a monitor, hold on there bucky.
It doesn't matter whether your monitor has been able to handle higher res games before, even other 360 games. SE has not made this game completely compatible with the VGA cable. What's frustrating is that beta testers were able to run things like 1280 x 1024, or 1024 x 768, through their VGA cables with no problems... until the release went live, and for whatever reason SE changed something without testing it (hello...what's the point of beta?). All the other problems that I mentioned about the interlaced TV mode are here: the gamma, the saturation, and the screen tearing (which actually seems worse, but is probably just more noticeable when not interlaced). Mind you the machine you're using is far above spec for this game. It runs circles around most of the machines that have been playing this software for the past 2 years. Yet it ends up looking like you're gaming on a rig that can barely handle it. As Gilbert Gottfried would say in those "I love the 80's" shows: SquareEnix. W...T...F?!
Edit (4/26/2006): I've tested other resolutions, and there are tolerable alternatives that seem to ameliorate the tearing, but still don't fix the framerate. The key is to stick to the 'intended' HDTV resolutions of 480p and 720p (latter recommended). The 720p equivalent in VGA res is 1280 x 720. This results in letterboxing on a 4:3 and the pixel density isn't exactly spectacular, but the tearing is nowhere near as noticeable. I can see this looking much nicer on a 16:9 or 16:10 monitor or an HDTV with adjusted saturation & black levels.
If you only play PS2 on a normal 4:3 interlaced TV, and just want the resolution upgrade on the same TV... it depends upon whether getting rid of the jaggies and distance compression are worth $560 to you (as well as the trade-off for the screen tearing). You won't gain much real-estate (the fonts and text boxes are still huge in 480i), and will have to deal with the color and refresh problems I mentioned above, but the image will be much more crisp and the environments do look a lot nicer when you're not peering through flickering PS2 compression artifacts.
OK, now I'm off to file a bug with SE and be thoroughly ignored. Hopefully they'll fix the problem in some distant patch months from now.
I'll put up another post later about my first actual day back. I just had to unload this one... after taking 2 hours to install this thing and getting this kind of performance, I was fit to be tied.
To anyone with the PC version thinking about getting this version to play on your couch, don't bother unless you have a recent HDTV. It looks comparatively terrible in 4:3 in normal interlaced mode. The gamma has been made incompatible with these televisions (way too high), and the color saturation is much too low. Gamma too high + Saturation too low = a washed out, bland looking, mess. You can adjust RGB gamma manually in the game and turn it down, but this tends to make it too dark, without the appropriate black level, and the saturation is still a problem. And to make things worse there's a screen refresh glitch causing the image to 'stagger' when you turn or move quickly (called 'screen tearing'), making it look like you're playing FFXI through a junky emulator. If you have a nice HDTV, then go for it, and I envy you... it seems to run fine on those.
To anyone with the PS2 version, if you have the expendable $560-$570 and no PC that can play the game without sinking $700+ into it, then the resolution boost on this version is worth it (no more flickering artifacting 10 feet beyond your character), but with some major caveats:
If you have a recent HDTV, by all means get this version. HDTV users seem to be very happy with it. Colors and gamma seem to be OK, and the screen real estate you save by running this in 720p is considerable (you can actually see what you're doing during an EXP party without the chat log taking up 1/3 of the screen).
If you don't have a recent HDTV and plan to play on a monitor, hold on there bucky.
It doesn't matter whether your monitor has been able to handle higher res games before, even other 360 games. SE has not made this game completely compatible with the VGA cable. What's frustrating is that beta testers were able to run things like 1280 x 1024, or 1024 x 768, through their VGA cables with no problems... until the release went live, and for whatever reason SE changed something without testing it (hello...what's the point of beta?). All the other problems that I mentioned about the interlaced TV mode are here: the gamma, the saturation, and the screen tearing (which actually seems worse, but is probably just more noticeable when not interlaced). Mind you the machine you're using is far above spec for this game. It runs circles around most of the machines that have been playing this software for the past 2 years. Yet it ends up looking like you're gaming on a rig that can barely handle it. As Gilbert Gottfried would say in those "I love the 80's" shows: SquareEnix. W...T...F?!
Edit (4/26/2006): I've tested other resolutions, and there are tolerable alternatives that seem to ameliorate the tearing, but still don't fix the framerate. The key is to stick to the 'intended' HDTV resolutions of 480p and 720p (latter recommended). The 720p equivalent in VGA res is 1280 x 720. This results in letterboxing on a 4:3 and the pixel density isn't exactly spectacular, but the tearing is nowhere near as noticeable. I can see this looking much nicer on a 16:9 or 16:10 monitor or an HDTV with adjusted saturation & black levels.
If you only play PS2 on a normal 4:3 interlaced TV, and just want the resolution upgrade on the same TV... it depends upon whether getting rid of the jaggies and distance compression are worth $560 to you (as well as the trade-off for the screen tearing). You won't gain much real-estate (the fonts and text boxes are still huge in 480i), and will have to deal with the color and refresh problems I mentioned above, but the image will be much more crisp and the environments do look a lot nicer when you're not peering through flickering PS2 compression artifacts.
OK, now I'm off to file a bug with SE and be thoroughly ignored. Hopefully they'll fix the problem in some distant patch months from now.
I'll put up another post later about my first actual day back. I just had to unload this one... after taking 2 hours to install this thing and getting this kind of performance, I was fit to be tied.
Wednesday, April 12, 2006
FFXI ETA: April 18 ... Baby ETA: any time
I'm still refraining from typing after work until my physical therapy is done, which should be around the release of the expansion. However... my next child is due around that time (actually s/he could be born any day now), so my gaming will be quite sporadic for awhile. Given my RL situation, I'm thinking of switching jobs to something more solo-able, and leveling Warrior when opportunities arise and I have the time. I'll probably slowly become a Beastmaster, with the heart and cojones of a Warrior (not that BST doesn't already require balls of steel), which I think is a great combination personally. It's funny... in RL my machismo is next to non-existant. I'm a soft & quiet & sensitive Dad. But my alter egos in games always evolve into something else, though I'm still pretty quiet in MMOs too.
Anyway, my updates will probably become less frequent, given the amount of time I have to play the game, much less log it. But I will make an effort to update at least once a week.
Terry, feel free to put me in your 'Not So Much' category of blog updates. ^^
And thanks to all the people that have been checking my blog with freakish regularity.
For anyone who cares, I will post a picture of the new little one when s/he finally arrives as well.
Hope you're all having fun out there.
Oh and for anyone who thinks I'm just farting around with Oblivion instead of playing FFXI... meh. It's not the cat's meow, unfortunately. In terms of scope & depth of content, it doesn't hold a candle to Morrowind. It is a very nicely realized gorgeous hack-&-slash set in a rather boring (but pretty) area in the world of Elder Scrolls, with AI that is extremely fun to mess with since it is capable of the funniest and dumbest moments ever witnessed in a game. For RPG newbies, this game is the second coming. For people who've followed the series, it's a prettier, smaller, and more restrictive sandbox than any of the prior iterations. It's still fun to pick up and mess around with for a couple of hours at a time but, they've lost me as a hardcore fan.
Random P.S. For laughs, check out A Smithy's Life if you haven't already. Brilliant.
Anyway, my updates will probably become less frequent, given the amount of time I have to play the game, much less log it. But I will make an effort to update at least once a week.
Terry, feel free to put me in your 'Not So Much' category of blog updates. ^^
And thanks to all the people that have been checking my blog with freakish regularity.
For anyone who cares, I will post a picture of the new little one when s/he finally arrives as well.
Hope you're all having fun out there.
Oh and for anyone who thinks I'm just farting around with Oblivion instead of playing FFXI... meh. It's not the cat's meow, unfortunately. In terms of scope & depth of content, it doesn't hold a candle to Morrowind. It is a very nicely realized gorgeous hack-&-slash set in a rather boring (but pretty) area in the world of Elder Scrolls, with AI that is extremely fun to mess with since it is capable of the funniest and dumbest moments ever witnessed in a game. For RPG newbies, this game is the second coming. For people who've followed the series, it's a prettier, smaller, and more restrictive sandbox than any of the prior iterations. It's still fun to pick up and mess around with for a couple of hours at a time but, they've lost me as a hardcore fan.
Random P.S. For laughs, check out A Smithy's Life if you haven't already. Brilliant.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Need a little more time (OT)
Sensation has returned to my ring finger and most of my little finger, so I've returned to work and changed my keyboarding habits, etc.
I think I still need about a week's worth of FFXI-less nights to make sure this nerve is functional before putting in more keyboarding overtime at night.
On a happy note, holding a controller and supporting my elbows with a pillow enables me to play Oblivion, so I haven't been completely inactive after-hours. That game is amazing, and surprisingly deep for a single-player RPG.
The only thing I don't appreciate about it are the bugs:
So far, the HDD cache and DRE have solutions, so I'm not too pissed. But come on...when I put a console game into a console, I don't expect these types of issues. It's the whole reason for a closed console; I won't even describe people's problems trying to get their PC rigs to play this thing.
Part of the problem is Microsoft, who basically chose to crap on the idea of a closed box by tweaking hardware with each series of 360's runs. We already know of 2 different HDD manufacturers being used, and people suspect the DVD drive is also changing... The other problem is Bethesda's decision to let the game go gold when it still wasn't quite ready for this. There was probably a lot of pressure to get it out the door, but some half-decent QA would have caught some of the quest problems if only given maybe an additional 2 weeks to play it.
Anyway, I hope to return to FFXI soon. I want to get that Utsu:Ni scroll and then level my WAR to 61 to complete the next Genkai, which will be a breeze. What I do from there is wide open, though I suspect I'll keep plowing forward as WAR/NIN, leveling THF on slow nights once I get my gil pool back up for some decent thieving gear.
I think I still need about a week's worth of FFXI-less nights to make sure this nerve is functional before putting in more keyboarding overtime at night.
On a happy note, holding a controller and supporting my elbows with a pillow enables me to play Oblivion, so I haven't been completely inactive after-hours. That game is amazing, and surprisingly deep for a single-player RPG.
The only thing I don't appreciate about it are the bugs:
- game freezes occasionally (hard freeze, requiring manual reset)
- some quest bugs (making them incompletable if done in the wrong sequence)
- HDD caching problem requiring a silly ritual at every startup
- Disc Read Errors (on pristine discs)
So far, the HDD cache and DRE have solutions, so I'm not too pissed. But come on...when I put a console game into a console, I don't expect these types of issues. It's the whole reason for a closed console; I won't even describe people's problems trying to get their PC rigs to play this thing.
Part of the problem is Microsoft, who basically chose to crap on the idea of a closed box by tweaking hardware with each series of 360's runs. We already know of 2 different HDD manufacturers being used, and people suspect the DVD drive is also changing... The other problem is Bethesda's decision to let the game go gold when it still wasn't quite ready for this. There was probably a lot of pressure to get it out the door, but some half-decent QA would have caught some of the quest problems if only given maybe an additional 2 weeks to play it.
Anyway, I hope to return to FFXI soon. I want to get that Utsu:Ni scroll and then level my WAR to 61 to complete the next Genkai, which will be a breeze. What I do from there is wide open, though I suspect I'll keep plowing forward as WAR/NIN, leveling THF on slow nights once I get my gil pool back up for some decent thieving gear.
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
Resting
I've been a bit dormant in Vanadiel lately due to an Ulnar nerve problem in my left arm/wrist. I've logged in a couple of times to get some quick & painless Poison Potion profits (200k in a 1.5 hour session isn't all that bad), and to help a BLM get his AF2 (with a high-level PLD, this didn't require much keyboarding at all). But I'm sorry to say I haven't done much else since then (except lots of reading). I want to give my arm a few more days to rest and reduce the inflamation that's causing the problem. And no, it's not the FFXI that caused this, but a bad keyboarding habit at work. Don't type with your elbows resting on stuff, and keep your wrists up or you'll be sorry.... trust me >.>
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