Partay!

Originally posted in my other blog 14 April 2008.



Parties in FFXI are a vital part of the game play, and really what the game is all about. Up to six players can form a party, and fight monsters. This allows the party to tackle higher-level (tougher) monsters than they could otherwise, and share Experience Points. A full party of six gets more Experience for killing a monster than you do individually, and the number of items found is increased, so everyone wins.

There are several areas that have become popular over the years with certain levels of character. For instance, once you hit level 10-11 after playing solo for the initial levels, you head to Valkurm Dunes. Here, similar levelled players congregate, form parties to gain Experience, until they hit Level 18-20.

I had already played through the Dunes with my first Jobs (as White Mage) a while back, but I had returned as Black Mage (lots of offence spells, like Fireballs).

You meet all sorts of player when partying. New players, still getting to grips with their own character's abilities and new to partying where every player has a supporting role to everyone else. Experienced players on their fifth, sixth or higher time through the dune, perhaps with another main job already levelled to 75. Players who want to level up as fast as possible, irrespective of who they piss off along the way.

Parties have several elements to them. There is the Puller; the designated bait that goes off to find a suitable monster, and bring it back to the rest of the party to beat up.

The Tank; the one with the heaviest armour or best evasion skill who attracts the monsters attention so that it doesn't hit those with lighter armour (i.e. the mages).

The Damage Dealer; who can dish out large amounts of damage on the monster, but usually has little armour (Black Mage and Thief) and are squishy.

Finally, Healers, who do what it says on the tin, and are very squishy.

Sometimes you have bad parties, where the mix of characters just doesn't work, or have a bad tactician as leader (been there myself!). These, you might die a couple of times, but you never seem to get a lot of experience. Time consuming for little reward, but better than sitting around waiting for a party invite.

Sometimes you have good parties, where everyone knows what they need to do, all bases are covered with respect to skills and the new players are encouraged and supported as they gain new skills. Good fun, lots learnt and mutual respect earned.

Saturday night, we found a third type or party.

I was fortunate to get an invite from a guy putting a party together even before I left Windurst for the Dunes. It took 30 minutes to arrive there, and as I was running up to the party, I got a taste of what was to come. The Puller had been aggroed (picked on) by a Goblin that was too tough. As I arrived, he keeled over at my feet. Not a good introduction to the party.

One Raise from the Friendly Passer-By later, and he's back on his feet and we are learning how the party works. It usually takes a few monsters to establish who does what; which spells/abilities people have that support (or not) or spells. It didn't take long to realise that this party didn't work. It took until the ninja was killed, about 30 seconds into the first monster.

I can't even remember what jobs people had in the party, except we had an inexperienced Ninja as main tank (which should work) and a Ranger as back-up Tank (which doesn't but was the only option we had, as the only other person with a Warrior sub). Once the ninja's Ninja shield thing wore off, the Ranger would take over whilst the Ninja re-cast her shield and re-take control. Fine, when it worked. Death for one (or both) when it didn't. It worked so badly, in fact, that it was funny.

This was added to by a neighbouring party trying to charge us for Raises (5k Gil? I think not). This set off some (initially) playful banter, and ended up with us blacklisting them. In FFXI it's designed that you can't attack other players (with exceptions for specific sub-games); there ways, however, that we explored in chat with both our own party and the linkshell, with some great ideas and much laughter.

See, no one in our party actually cared that two people died many times over. Or that the Experience points gained sucked. We were having far too much fun and laughing our asses off.

What really set us off was when Elwen (from Chocobo Kingdom) was so incensed by the neighbours trying to charge for Raises that she came over to help us out, along with a friend of the leader.

We wanted Elwen to go and PL the troublesome neighbours, whose own PL had left. I suggested she let them pull in a really tough monster, safe in the knowledge that she would keep them alive; then calmly walk away. Then, when they were dead, offer up a "(Raise) (Do you need it?) (You can have this) NOT!!!".

Anyway, with two PLs, and we should be smoking, right?

Wrong.

The Ninja died again, despite four of us trying to cast Cure on her.

Elwen, by the way, felt really bad about that. We couldn't stop laughing.

Eventually, Elwen had to return to what she was supposed to be doing (Besieged, or some other high level thing what I not know of) and we were left with our single PL.

We're all healing up between mobs, and the PL is running around the woods, looking at stuff as an excited six year old might. This was more amusing as the character was a Taru and, let's face it, they are cute. But strange behaviour from a Level 60-odd Mage.

Anyway, we move camp to a wrecked boat on the shoreline, and set up to continue with some tougher mobs as most of us had levelled up a bit. It was going to be harder without Elwen helping, but we did have our other PL.

Who, unbeknownst to us, had gone to make dinner, leaving the character under the control of his six year old son. With strict instructions on how to keep the Ranger and Ninja alive.

Yeah, right, that'll work dude.

Half way through the first monster, the PL gets bored and starts running laps around the boat, with lethal consequences for the rest of us.

Alas, we had to head on to bed, as it was 2am. The six-year-old's father was, apparently, very sorry we had died. Elwen was sorry that she had left us. "Don't worry about it" I said.

I didn't care. I'd had the funniest night in a while, gained a little expererience and some new friends.

Who says online gaming is unsociable?








* PL, or Power Level - a higher-levelled player (usually a White Mage) who hangs around the party, casting Cure to keep everyone alive. They're usually a bored (before they joined in, not during) friend of one of the players in the party, a second character controlled by one of the party, or a friendly passer-by who just wanted to level up their Healing skill. PLs mean you don't have to rely on the White Mage in the party and can therefore attack even tougher mobs, and kill them faster, than you could without the additional help.