Being Saleh: Why this thing even here?

So I just found out that a private ISP has a more interesting offer on a monthly fee, but apparently they're not even covered my city? There's like twenty different cable provider out there but nothing touched my city, So what's their ad running up and down in some corner of my town? Why they're even there? I was wondered they have some kind of ISP mafia in here in this town (Spoiler: Yes there are)

In Final Fantasy XIV you got attribute points for leveling up, you can spent it on every major attribute (STR, VIT, etc), anything you like, the question is: How viable are they? If I'm as a tank can spent every attribute on INT (spell power for mages) why can I do that? It's not a question of what would I do, the choice is there, even the 'wrong' ones, if I can be scolded by my group for spending my 30 points on MND (healing spell power) why the game gave me a choice to do that, and if the attribute points are not viable, why it was even there? And there's also abilities you can import from another class, like cure from conjurer can be exported to my Paladin, but it didn't scale up, because apparently there are Cure 2 and Cure 3 (which can't be imported) so a 40 HP cure against 1200 minimum physical damage from an enemy is ridiculuous, if I can slot this thing in my ability slot, why this thing even here? I'm a paladin, I should be able to self heal in some amount, also why the hell there are ROLES if I can spend 50 points STR on my pally, and still won't be able to outdamage DPSer, yes because I'm a tank, good answer, thank you, so, why do I need INT again?

On some other game however it was meant to be a trap, in an F2P MMO called Perfect World (yes, from that Perfect World company) you can spend your attribute points wrongly because of the unclear description of each attribute, it will make your character so underpowered that you must reset it, and in order to reset it you must buy an item on their cash shop, well since it's an f2p game, what do you expect? Even in Guild Wars 2 they can avoid this by retuning their double stat skill trees over and over again

Of course it's a different thing from Final fantasy XIV, but still i have a feeling that the dev tested me, 'oh okay you spent everything on your vit, you're cool, the one that spent eveything in MND are fails'... what? Yes it was me daydreaming but still why the wrong ones is even there? It was another matter with rotation, there's a clear instruction of that. You see: WOW takes 7 years to keep class on their tracks by eliminating rolling need on a gear that wasn't meant for the class, segregating the attributes by labeling it: "this stat is not useful for your class", reducing the weapon types so now hunters can't wield everything (monks can :P), why can't Final Fantasy XIV just... you know... being better than it by eliminating the bonus numbers and giving us something more... I don't know, innovative? Awesome? I really want some cool talent tree though that can suited my tanking style (which is bottom rock).

Being Saleh Dual Wield: A Game for XX

My mic is still busted and I'm too lazy to get a new one on the nearest (next door) audio store, so instead I'm just sitting on my linkshell's Teamspeak channel and become a mute (interspersed with broken voices from my internal, unreliable microphone), but last night there's an interesting chat with my friends there, one of them said: that in just a few patches, the only ones progressing into the next tier of PVE is just the eight of them, in term of progressing means they're decked in fully melded AF2/Allagan, have a few 50s in like every class, and blasted Binding Coil of Bahamut up until Twintania, and also: Defeating the Garuda Extreme Mode (and for some of them: Extreme Titan)

The statement could become a delicious debate of Casual vs Hardcore, or Old Guard vs New Guard, Noob vs Elitists, and some more of it, but I'll try not to get there since it's been debated from like the dawn of men, instead I'm going to talk about the root of all of it: Life (yes, like I have one) :D

The Group

My Ilvl is 61, which means I'm decked in my class quest armor with a little Darklight tier sprinkled here and there, and since I'm not online every night I only have like two hundred mythology token (after making my zenith shield), last week was like the busiest week of my life and I've just returned a few days ago, exhausted, and only want to sleep until two days afterwards, I'll get back to it later but for now If I'm (and no I am not) a main tank in a dedicated eight man group there will be consequences: Either I'm replaced by someone else (and if I got into extended hiatus: not needed anymore) or they won't progress since they waited for me. Was it a lose - lose situation? It depends on how you and everyone in your group take a look at the game and how fast you and everyone else want to progress, which also means when everyone feels good together they will stick, thus brought us to the next one

I want in and I want out

Most of the endgame instance in Final Fantasy XIV are eight man locked, you can substract a few, like one tank, or one healer, or just threee DPS, but unfortunately, you can't add anyone. The recent Nightmare Tower content from Guild Wars 2 brought in 'the more the merrier' stuff to a big instance,but they failed to implement it into a permanent content and since GW2 is not progression based the rewards were felt inadequate due to sheer difficulty of the tower since it's all a 'chance' (chance of precursor, chance of acended, and so on)

World of Warcraft however planned to push their flexible raid content further on the next expansion, creating more choices on progression and terms of endgame content, flex raid will scale the mobs on a raid based on the player numbers (5-10) and they reapproached holy trinity in a different way: the all-in-one armor eliminating the grinding for offspec, when you change role your armor also changed stat, it makes roles on raids extremely flexible, the plan sounds viable but it hasn't here yet.

So what happened when you picked a new member for the guild/FC which has some quality of raiding and he/she wants in? Of course in a locked group it means he/she are either rejected, or must find seven more people, or just plain running a 'mandatory' runs where he/she replaced one of the core group members. And when some of the core members wants out because of things happened you have to find new ones, recruiting, otherwise: you won't progress.

Life in a cup of coffee

The Old Guard vs New Guard debacle rotated around the demonic circle of how the new members can't keep up with the old members in terms of grouping endgame content so when old one leaves and new ones comes, both will struggle to adapt, especially when endgame content takes up much skills from the player, and when no new ones comes or both sides are failing to comprehend each other it will break the group eventually often creating bad taste afterwards and also some drama.

I understand one thing: Life happened, sooner or later life can either take us away from gaming and it can also brought us back, even when you dedicated your life to gaming sometimes something will happened to you (ex: Youtube), why? Simple: You're connected with people, in real and in gaming, the former will definitely did something to you (and if you said I'm wrong tell that to your government tax and electric service), the latter CAN'T happened unless the former happened. People come and go, and in gaming they will effect something if they're in your dedicated group, especially if they're a game jumper (like me). I once wrote something on my old blog (it's deleted now since Multiply shuts down and I'm again too lazy to back it up) that a guild/community is like a coffee shop, I have my preferred flavor, everyone has one too of course, sometimes we ordered the same one, sometimes we hang out and chat together, sometimes there's a little friction, sometimes there are indifference, sometimes new people came, sometimes old people left without saying anything, but in the end of the day I had a good coffee, good chat, and good experience as I walk home

What I want to say is: you can't limit on an MMO, people come and go so it's your cue to do something or not to do something about it, there are no wrong answer, because eventually you can't force people to stay, you can force them to leave though, it's easier =)), or change yourself a game, or a playstyle, or role play, whatever, however the dynamic life of an MMO is always the things that attracts me to it, even when there are repeated events here and there, it's so dynamic that you can't focus to game content alone, you will be forced to dealt with happenings if you want to progress in a group content, some games eliminated it with LFG/LFR tools and left the social aspect to a guild, you can choose to be in it or just solo your progress all the way, it's up to you, it's all there, but however you choose it you will still be dealing with people, human beings, so remember to always say hello :)

Five Things I Like from Final Fantasy VIII

I guess I'll write this since I'm feeling a little nostalgic, Final Fantasy VIII hits PC for the second time, and after so much confusing moves from Steam and Green Man Gaming by moving this game in and out of my region it's finally available now.

Final Fantasy VIII was first released on 1998 on PC and PS1 and was my second Final Fantasy after FFVI (back when it was released as FFIII in US version), the animation was so awesome at that time and as a highschooler it quickly grabbed my attention, however at that time I'm still a hot headed gamer and burned my way through the content before completely stuck on the last boss, I re-played it several years later with a pace of a snail, reading all dialogues, question all NPCs and stuffs, and I experience the full gist of it. Speaking of 'it' here's five things I like about Final Fantasy VIII

5. Selphie

I must admit that I used to be madly in love with this character, Selphie Tilmitt has a cheery optimistic aura, she truly cared about all of her peers and the total opposite of Squall, she thinks Squall's too aloof while Squall thinks Selphie is an annoyance, she do have some emotional meltdown moments in the game but always bounces back at her feet after some well designed conversation or scenes.  You encounter her early at the game before you recruited her to be a permanent squad member. Her Limit Break is called Slot, it's a roulette where you can cast some super-powered spell with no cost... well, almost... since the mobs will continue to attack as you tried to find THE END, the spell that will end battle, even the LAST BOSS BATTLE!! (upgrading her weapon helps you gain much more higher level spells)  Lovable character, truly, joking all the time and put a joke in the last battle itself =))

4. Limit Breaks

Limit Breaks are high damaging super powered flashy moves of playable characters (also some NPCs too), They sometimes go beyond all reason to emphasize how devastating those attacks are, when I first watched limit breaks scene I was stunned and realize it will be the major legacy of Final Fantasy series, I was right (especially when Limit Breaks on Final Fantasy VII is not that flashy)

3. The Setting

Gaia is a world where Magic and Technologies go side by side, although techs are seriously hindered, it will be explained during the storyline so I can't spoil it. The setting is a total revamp of other Fantasy series where it's usually set on Medieval-like era with some touch of tech, in final Fantasy VIII everything is the future: trains, tanks, APCs, gunblades, big cities with neon lights, while maintain the fantasy side with well designed monsters and GF (summoned creatures). Gardens as the  mercenary breeding grounds fit perfectly in this warmongering era although the war itself isn't really showing, instead FFVIII push the stories of trained hired hands teenagers to the audience and portrayed their emotional conflicts, not perfectly, but still great

2. Deep Sea Research Center

The Deep Sea Research Center is an optional dungeon and it's the House of Horror of FFVIII, it's not even in the map and house the baddest mobs ever, worse it you can't skip them with no-encounter junction, you can't run away and you must fight them with a chance they will one shot you even if you're maxed your HP because of sloppy junctions, at the end of the dungeon you'll face Ultima Weapon: The strongest monster in the game (well... no, it's not) :D
The reason why I like this dungeon because it's scenery was traversing from beautiful seaside platform into a dark, depressing hell hole accompanied with mobs and hellish random encounters.

1. Triple Triad

Triple Triad is the FFVIII card mini game, the rules are simple but sometimes hard to execute winnings, you can play triple Triad with most of the NPCs scattered around the world of Gaia by pressing 'O' button (if i'm still remember), there are numbers of picture card, ranged from the monster card, GF cards, and character cards (which usually the strongest ones), there's even a society of it where you challenged the lowest member and climb your rank up until the unknown king of cards (which makes a satisfying reveal of mysteries). And what do you do with cards? You can keep it or refine it into some useful items, you can also create cards with GF abilities (usable on mobs) and if you're a completionist you won't waste a chance travelling the world between stories just to reach an NPC rumored to have some cards (there's a guide of course, scattered on the web). I can't put my finger to the real reason why triple triad is my favorite aspect of the game, perhaps it's a welcomed break during random encounter battles, or perhaps it's the thrill of obtaining new rare cards (and the frustration when you lost it), nevertheless this mini game is the reason why my play hour is longer than my sleep hours =))

Spoiler: The strongest monster is Omega Weapon :)

Being Saleh: A Relic Reborn

I think I'll just post this thing here

That Dullahan doesn't stand a chance

That is Curtana, Paladin's Relic Weapons, it's kinda like Legendary Weapon but Relic is upgradeable, on this patch it's +1, on the next: +2, and so on, +1 is simple since you can buy all the stuff with money and dungeon tokens, I really hope +2 and the next will feature more intense solo and group battle since I must admit in order to obtain this baby I was carried through hardmode primals by hardcores =))

The Edge of the Mists

I've told you that politics changed people to be the worst of them, you know what didn't get worse? World of Warcraft, What have Blizz done to WoW? I can list a few things, don't worry, just follow the number
 

1. Maturing the talent tree
   Talent tree are a bunch of passive and active skills your character will unlock in his/her progress, in the first incarnation each class have three talent tree with a bunch of skill without clear meaning how you can play your class, you can put it so you become so OP or so weak that your character is not needed in every bunch of unforgiving massess of Vanilla WOW, then it become clearer on cataclysm that you supposed to fill this role-based talent tree then you can go to other, which makes cookie cutter talents (if I did this combination of talents this bleeding passive skills will raised my DPS to 100 points) so they scrapped it.
   On the latest talent tree gone is the 50 or some-of-it passive and active skills, instead now you have three choices every 20 level, it become more like: how you want to play your character? favoring single target devastating instant attack or the AOE effect? do you want to make a shielded stand against big dungeon bosses or just received every attack but you can mitigate it by repeated regen? your choice. it's like fiddling your thumb or your other finger in your keyboard, it becomes more of your... playstyle.
2. Polishing the encounters
   It's bad when you have the talents but you don't need it in an encounter/dungeon/raids/stuffs or the mobs has an immunity to it, or the encounter is so punishing you can't actually use your active talents, WoW is making all encounters met the requirements of players of all talents without losing it's originality
3. Scalable content
   Flex Raid, nuff said, hello Guild Wars 2
4. Daily quests vs Encounter-based Timeless Isle
   on the first patches of Mist Blizz made removed the caps of daily quests and added so much of it on every new NPC factions, this become somewhat a put-off for some people, so Blizz (again copied from the Guild Wars 2) make 'dynamic events' in an area which 'combined encounters and discovery', Timeless Isle has one NPC faction: Emperor Shaohao which reputation can be gained in some other ways, whether slaying beasts, NPCs, do dynamic events, slay world bosses (champion events), trading coins which can be gained by almost everything you do at the island, you can also explore the map which sometimes yield treasure chests contained some epics, pets, vanity items, tradable items for NPCs, or just Timeless coins.
   Yes, basically it's just a rip-off from hearts renown and dynamic events on Guild Wars 2 but people like it, and sadly some people will call it an 'innovation', poor them, but nevertheless: Blizz did it and will implement it on their next Xpac: Warlords of Draenor
5. The Lore
   Mists of Pandaria is probably the most optimist and shiny of all expansion, it didn't have such heroic moment like Wrath (Bolvar) or Cata (Thrall) so I called this the best lore of WOW expansion so far but don't take it for me, WOWinsider have it all

Well, my character is now asleep in his 'prototype instanced housing' content (The Tiller faction) in Pandaria, I think I'll wake him up in seven or eight months to kill some orcs :D

Aesthetic and Necessities

Final Fantasy XIV has a number of aesthetic animation on characters, including some gesture and emotes, for example when your character laughing he's actually makes the laughing expression on his face and the appropriate body language, it's a trick taken from Aion and RIFT but FFXIV made it better. Your character head follows an ally or even a mob when targeting it, the legs tilted when on uneven ground, even the death animation is satisfying (other word from frustrating) and I like the fact that when I logoff a character on an inn, he'll make the wake up animation when I login

Of course sleeping in front of the inn can be considered a public offense :P

Another one is the sound: music of Final Fantasy is one single point from being perfect, it's gorgeous and atmospheric, it's rare for some repeated theme can be so familiar and still enjoyable even after a few weeks, Ul'dah Theme for example is different on day and night, creating a feeling that at night your character should be in bed rather than huddling in the nearest market =)), I also have suspicion that the upbeat tempo of Garuda's theme is my downfall since I tend to sync anything, (including my tapping) to a song, I might accidentally push that limit break button too soon =))

On combat however the graphical aesthetics becomes complicated, my longest animated skill "rage of halone" can be a perfect example, it features the character slashing the enemy four times, ended with a flashy groundsmashing animation, it takes like three second from casting to dealing damage, and this is when it becomes a problem, rage of halone is not a channeled skill which means it shouldn't/can't be cancelled, unfortunately your character can move while using this skill which result into an awkwardly sliding animation. Not to mention a controversial issue: unchanneled long timed skills locked the character position which means no matter how far you are from those red circle area, as long as you're still doing animation for that skill (and cast it while inside red area) , you're still gonna get hit

I also returned to WoW several weeks ago for the last raid content: Siege of Orgrimmar, it's also a perfect opportunity to examine my character animations, my warrior is of course instant casting all the way, and the animations are mostly one second and deal instant damage, it doesn't have much animation (almost none actually) but it does the work. It looks like Square is still using the old MMORPG system for positioning (where miss is not based on positioning but your stat) and failed to update/mix it with the new positioning system. On newer MMO like TERA and Guild Wars 2, positioning is everything since battle occurs actively.

the ability lag is also still a hot topic out there, it ranged from the cancelled skills when chaining attacks until the skill becomes completely unaccessible or didn't deal any damage, mostly blaming the animation and lag on server side, I think SE really needs this addressed since they've been completely silent about this issue,

Aesthetic should be necessary but should be carefully cultivated in order not to breaking the immersion of gameplay, other than that SE has put a real effort to creating Eorzea to be full of beautiful things... and characters :D

Being Saleh: The Sunless, Garuda, and Accessibility

I finally downed Tequatl last night, thanks to TTL for it. Tequatl the Sunless (level 56) is one of the hardest content in Guild Wars 2 now, this dragon requires coordination from numerous people to be defeated,  it's not hard, only need some rythm, even if you screw up you can always be the cleanup crew, you're even get rewarded even when he's not defeated based on how much HP you chipped from him. The one thing I liked about Tequatl (and Guild wars 2) is it's accessibility, even when Tequatl isn't defeated the area itself will still be accessible, you can also skipped Tequatl entirety when you're still leveling on Guild Wars 2, and skipped all the dungeons although some of their stories are pretty interesting and can give you some insight about how the main story unfolds.


 

Now let's talk about Garuda, Garuda is a four-man mid level trial instance on Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, she's apparently a real b*tch and like to wipe you in a matter of seconds, she's also  have a habit of spouting crazy murderous lines, one of the harshest I ever saw on FFXIV. The thing is: you are required to defeat her if you want to continue your questline, and she's not easy, my first try with max leveled people with relic weapons takes abut five tries, my second attempt however (when helping a friend and a PUG) takes 20 or so, since so many can go wrong with her, there are even phases where if you don't stand in a right place you'll be defeated instantly. Her max level endgame incarnation is even more deadly and requires more coordination from group members. 

Access

Guild Wars 2 doesn't have tiered content, no endgame, run vanity-based events, have dynamic combat, and freedom from your usual trinity roles. While FFXIV is gear-based, trinity-based combat and have more social interconnecting roles, it won't be right to compare those two, but I want to talk about accessibility, at least my point on accessibility:

I spent two years on Lineage 2, my first 'serious' MMORPG, where grind is daily and daily online means kill 9,809,876,454,789,432 mob just to level up, there's no significant quest, no means to obtain stronger weapons and armors, everyday you will calculate is this a lose-money day or gain day since you must make a living there by selling and buying stuff from players, you can participate on a raid which requires you to have weapon and armors... dropped on those raids. Come unprepared and pretend you're not there since you'll be stare on an empty HP bar in a matter of minutes, you will work your way slowly to the top and when you make a single mistake and/or RNG hates you you'll lose money, weapons, armors, even guild, and must start from the scratch, character deletion due to failed crafting are a common, it's one thing to level up, the other thing is how you're gonna survive and be better at endgame content after you've leveled up.

Six years has passed and Lineage 2 is becoming more and more accessible to players, they've gone f2p, improving quality of life of classes (healer have their offensive skillset on the same page as their healing skills, before that they can only heal and/or attack at a different mode), provides more means to gain money, even sells some powerful weapon on NPC in exchange of daily tokens or golds, low level character granted immunity from player killers, also: They're just announced their new expansion that brings dynamic combats to the game

Then I came to WoW, even in vanilla days I never found it to be so grindy as Lineage 2, on WOLTK days it become easier, on Cataclysm quality of life of character is improved that when I started a new character I ended up zoomed out so fast on level that I stopped my exp just to get into all Burning Crusade content, although Cataclysm heroic dungeons is not a faceroll and I'm content with not seeing Fireland Bliz gave me LFR and I can pummel Deathwing in the face :P. I have my brief fling with RIFT and CoH before Guild Wars 2, on RIFT dungeons are fun, on CoH the accesiibilty was so great I can go anywhere I want, do anything i want no matter it kills me or not. After I feel at home on Guild wars 2, I tried a couple of alternatives like Tera and The Secret World, they have their own strength and weakness, but nothing turns me off, I just decided that i'll stay on GW2

Easy

If you get where I'm heading, you'll see that all the MMO is becoming easier, in terms of soloing the content, quality of life on classes, special perks, and even ease the restriction on some endgame content, I won't have any saying on endgame content whether they should be hard or not, but putting a big roadblock prerequisite on a leveling content can be considered... unnecessary (at least for western players), and can be a real turn off for some people, GW2 have more accessibility for players, doesn't have monthly sub, and the rate of their content is more rapid, WoW has access for every kind of players with their ripping every other good feature off other MMOs, Lineage 2 still have one of the best massive PVP content out there, The Secret World has unique kriss-crossing their online world with real world, they're also DLC based and with their own gearing requirements

Final Fantasy XIV as I said before: have enticing world and story and a fresh return of the 'old-school' RPG, also great soundtracks but unfortunately their endgame battle content is the weakest link of all,  Eliot Lefebvre from Massively wrote it better than me, so I'm just gonna quote him

"Final Fantasy XIV's endgame is sometimes like a club. Once you're in, you're golden, but getting in can be really rough. 

AK, for instance, is not all that hard. You can do it in full AF with white accessories. But you'll really want to have some party members who are better geared than you are to help make up the difference. Your upgrades from AK will be substantial, but getting them the first time is rough, especially when you're learning the fights. WP is the same way to a lesser degree, as is the Ifrit fight.
While all of these fights are designed to be done at that level of gear, most people don't actually want that challenge; they want a farm. You're not doing Ifrit because you want the thrill of fighting a Primal; you're doing him because you've got full Demagogue and want your staff to match. Consequently, you get a lot more ragequitting than is strictly necessary, and the net result is that it's easy for newer players to feel as if they're not up to snuff. The other problem, really, is weapons. Getting a Level 55 weapon isn't hard; Grand Companies and WP fill that gap. But getting anything better requires slay-and-pray on either Ifrit or Garuda or spending a whole lot of money on an HQ Level 70 weapon. Considering a given Primal has only a 11% chance of dropping the weapon you want, and that's assuming no classes are doubled up... there's an uncomfortable weapon gap between Level 55 and Relics. Hopefully 2.1's dungeons address that.
Also you might get bored of doing the same few things over and over, but I'll take 40 minutes of AK over a slow slog through a raid any day of the week."

source: Massively

My free month ended several days ago, since I got sick and got some exhaustion after that I will be resubbed when patch 2.1 hits (sometimes around December) it's also a part of an experiment of mine about the pacing of the gearing process and observation of the player markets

And, my post about FFXIV aesthetics... it'll probably have to wait, but this pic can say some of it :D