Update for great justice

That's about it.

Not been on much thanks to this awesome essay that I'm failing miserably at. 1500/2500 words and I've got tomorrow left to finish it, which may sound like nothing, you could probably bust out a 5k word essay in a day if you have your shit sorted, but I've been managing maybe 300 words per day ._.

My shit is anything but sorted.


Oh well. Over soon, then I get the joy of christmas shopping and exam revision to look forward to.

Hurrr FFXI

Possibly the weakest version update preview I've ever seen. My god.

Even if they did announce something remotely interesting, like deleting all jobs beside WHM, PLD and SAM, I wouldn't be terribly interested because I've got a ton of RL shit to sort. Shit like:

"oh sorry, that three weeks worth of data collection you devoted yourself to organising (very well, might I add) is going to be scrapped and all your efforts were wasted :) Hope you didn't neglect any other area of your work to make sure it was done properly! Oh you did? Whoops! Glad I'm not you. Now could you start from scratch and re-collect twice as much data in 4 weeks? thx! :)"

The above is obviously exaggerated. It only refects a FUCKING IDEAL SCENARIO and I have no gurantee that the stimuli for the experiment are working reliably, much less a full 4 weeks to test in, as I need to recruit more participants from a now dwindling pool, wait for their responses (fuck people who don't check emails for 7+ days), arrange dates for testing, and make sure I can get someone in to test them. If I can't get anyone in, or they decide they feel like FUCKING OFF ON A HOLIDAY WITH TWO DAYS NOTICE RACHEL, YES I'M REALLY NOT HAPPY ABOUT THAT, guess who has to cover for them? Moi.

Fuck

My

Life

Of course, nobody has specifically asked this of me, but I seem to be the only one that can get shit done without having to be told explicitly what to do. Despite this, I probably have the weakest CV out of the lot of us simply because I've not done any part-time cannon-fodder jobs at a warehouse or fast food outlet. Fuck yeah employers.

Maybe I'll just take off for a few days and hope everything is peachy when I come back.

CUT ALL THE REST BECAUSE IT GOT SERIOUSLY WHINEY AND DEPRESSING :)

INSTEAD HERE'S A KITTEN IN A BOX WITH HIS KITTENY FRIENDS :))

Bad form from me. Hopefully this post is more amusing than it is depressing.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

So by now everyone has relised the add-on scenarios are pretty bad. Like "WTF why have I even payed for this" bad. It appears SE have realised this as well, but instead of actually changing the content from bad > good (the logical solution) they instead tease us with powerful quest rewards (see earlier rage post) and now random convenience items!


Why it has a 40 hour recharge, I don't know. Apparantly you can abuse convenience. Now having scanned over the list of areas you can use it in, I see it has little use in gathering people for endgame activities, although it could be useful if people have spare characters to park them in certain areas (say, Uleguerand Range / Attohwa Chasm for easy-access ENMs).

I could say at the very least it prevents idiot party members getting lost in the jungles, for example, but chances are you don't want to be partying with the kind of people that get lost in the jungles.

So anyway, I leveled MNK a bit.

Blessed Radience nom nomnom. 15~21 still works pretty nicely at Buburimu outpost. I intend to do parties from 21~37 now I can get some decent gear going.

I also noticed an odd thing with Counter:


I'm 99% sure that the counter skillup came from the WS, and it's already known that counter can proc on WS, but I don't think I ever saw a 'miss' message before (this is speaking from 60 levels of MNK experience on my mule, obviously kaya hasn't done much punching).

Standing on the shoulders of giants

So I'm off back to uni for my 3rd (and likely final) year. Even though I'm on for a 1st I'm not sure I want to continue in academia (unless it pays well) because despite everyone being relatively human and sensible in face-to-face encounters, for some reason the whole scientific community seemingly adopts a holier-than-thou attitude and leaves pragmatism at the door during written correspondance.

While this may not be down to each individual's choice or preferance, it happens regardless because of the rules, and while the rules themselves promote clear and clean projection of knowledge and opinion, in a universal format, everyone takes this as:

"Try to be as fucking confusing as possible, nobody can disagree with you if it isn't clear what you are saying in the first place. Bonus points awarded if your audience must refer to a dictionary every 5th word in your work."

Not to mention I'm slightly bitter about being criticised in the past for breaking the rules in my writing, when in reality I had followed them to the letter, and the genius marking my work had the audacity to give me a page reference without reading it themselves.

But what do I know? You don't have an opinion until you have a PhD. Not that I'm criticising the bureaucracy of the system, I just hate how people take 'scientific writing style' as 'make as little sense as possible'. I mean seriously, grown men and women trying to squeeze the rarest possible synonyms for each and every word in their work, at the cost of gramatical correctness and fluent prose solely in an attempt to SOUND MORE CLEVER like a 12 year-old might do.

But I digress, the angry cynic in me got a little out of hand there. I was basically saying I don't want to continue in academia unless it pays well (I should probably know this by now), or I might continue for a title (Dr. sounds pretty sweet, even if it's not a proper one) but that is unlikely to be worth the cost. I've not looked at careers, because I'm stupidly indecisive, and don't know where to start (so the future doesn't look too hot for me).

Anyways, I'm not quitting FFXI but I don't have internet sorted out for my house so I won't be doing anything for a while, not that there is much left to do outside of events until the next update :3

Good thing I've been getting back into fallout 3 lately!



I'm pretty much done with the main game content (not that there's much of it, considering it's a bethesda game) but the expansions should keep me entertained if I'm desperate. Also I could get a PSP+dissidia while I have the money, but I don't fancy getting a handheld for one game (well, MGS Peace Walker looks decent too). Also, with no internet I can finally finish this goddamn book I'm on, haha.



Back in a week or more~

So close...

But still pretty damn nice. Not far off a free enfeebling earring, but +2 MND on that would have been epic. I guess I can also use it for after-WS elemental breaths for my wyvern...but I don't really bother with that because I just tend to mash macros until they fire so any /wait lines get screwed up. Maybe worth a try if I can get Dragoon's earring from that T1 ZNM.

I asked if anyone wanted to help me with 5-1 since we were right outside the BC and a couple of lovely souls did offer to help, but others just fell silent. Except one of them, who asked:
"What mission is it?"
"The skeleton fight" I reply
"o" *warps*
What an ass...


They were more interested in going off to do more ACP missions, so I can take some small consolation in the fact they will fail miserably at the final fight. And suffer through the painfully mediocre cutscenes for the preceding missions.

And I got a nice earring.

Kupo.

Old news, but whatever man. I'm not playing a great deal due to exams, still a week of those to go D;

Basically people need to run around and find 11 tablets (which were all found by the time I knew about the exams), and can be found across the original/zilart areas.

From what I gather, anyone who finds a tablet gets this ring and extra goodies:



And when all the tablets are found, you get a bunch of spiffy bonuses:

"Thrifty Transit": Outpost teleport sites will operate free of charge!
"Martial Master": As an added Signet effect, battle skills will increase more rapidly!
"Blood of the Vampyr": Signets will be boosted with the abilities of Regeneration and Refresh!
"Treasure Hound": Signet will grant you the Gilfinder and Treasure Hunter abilities!
"Artisan's Advantage": The chances of losing ingredients due to failed synthesis will be significantly lowered!
"Mystery Boxes: San d'Oria": Treasure Caskets will appear more frequently around San d'Oria!
"Mystery Boxes: Bastok": Treasure Caskets will appear more frequently around Bastok!
"Mystery Boxes: Windurst": Treasure Caskets will appear more frequently around Windurst!
"Mystery Boxes: Frontier Lands": Treasure Caskets will appear more frequently in the north and other distant lands!
"Swift Shoes": Adventurers who are fully rested and healed will temporarily be able to run with great speed!
"Ease of Exploration": A teleport service connecting the towns of Mhaura and Selbina to the three nations will appear!

Which are pretty awesome, especially movement speed+ (though I've not noticed a major increase), skillups and regen/refresh from signet. Best part is you can still get these bonuses after the adventurer appreciation campaign, even if it's only three random ones/week. But getting the SAME DAMN MESSAGE every time I zone for the rest of my life might get a tad annoying.



The only downside to this event is how it coincides with my exam period, so I can't actually take advantage of it, and I've just changed nations.


So my signet duration sucks right now :\

Stuff what I done: first Ultima!


It went pretty smoothly, until the end where it decided to spam Citadel Buster and some magic shield almost exclusively, when we only had BLMs and one MNK for damage (other DD forgot to buy soap...).

Dynamis was supposed to be Valkurm, but we ended up doing Windy due to low numbers, which is pretty much the worst case scenario possible for me. Not only do we miss out on a nice short dreamlands run (particularly the zone that drops the D.chap -1, which is about the only thing I -really- want from dynamis now), but we have to do the most annoying city run, that features fun things like AOE stun moves on every normal mob, sleepga/slowga/paralyga from statues, silencega from pets, Death house, etc etc.

Of course no DDs are capable of subbing anything other than WAR (DRK/war what is this I don't even?) so I have to main heal a party full of people fecklessly taking damage just trying to prove they are the BEST AT DOING DAMAGE EVAR! Along with my usual sleep/debuff/nuke stuff regime, because of course we would have one less than the bare minimum of BLMs again. With that said, it wasn't a terrible run (actually better than a typical windy run) but we still might have actually cleared had people got themselves fucking killed less (hello /nin) and we had a better strategy for the Heaven's Tower mobs.

I think I'm just grouchy because I've not gotten anything new and shiny in game for nearly two months (although I shouldn't complain since the last thing I got was RDM hat). When exams are over I'll get back to the soul-crushing work of Aurum boots I think. Doesn't look like I'm getting homam any time soon, so I think I can justify the effort. I would buy N. head for DRG if the price of the cursed cap wasn't so ridiculous (thanks, gobbiebag quest!). If I could just find someone to sell me Bodb's slops I can die a happy person.

Horse, Weekend pickups and a new salute.

(The following may not follow logically or chronologically, I can't be bothered to organise this entry)

Stuff that I did:


I got asked to help kill Dark Ixion, not that they really needed me at all (and I missed a pickup party that beat the final ACP mission in the process ><), it felt like I was there out of pity and to soak up MP from all the damage I took (it was difficult actually getting near to WS without being hit with some form of AoE), but there was a cool moment when I dodged Wrath of Zeus with Super Jump.


This probably isn't jaw-dropping, but my gear could be better, and I was at least pleased with it considering it was 100%TP with no angon, and my only buff I had was food. I assumed Wheeling Thrust was the best WS for the job, since I was doing SAWS but I would have liked to play around with others to see what they did, Impulse Drive might actually be half decent at 300% TP and with Angon to make up for Wheeling's ignore defense.

Well, I got a title out of it at least.

I got a nice screenshot of Saruta as well while getting the outpost for Cuddles.



And subsequently got my own, along with the few other areas Bastok had claimed. They are seriously poor at conquest for some reason, despite more players being with Bastok than Windy. So Northlands outposts may be a while off.


YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY GREENS.

I did some misc quests to help me get around Bastok a little easier as well, like the Mog House exit upgrade, and the Whitegate warp.


Now, here's a shot of another attempt at the final ACP mission;


SNES graphics were neccessary to reduce lag in the fight. I have a sword out because it all went tits-up and I wanted to melee cloned people for giggles. (Prepare for wall-of-text RAEG post)

I've gone with some workable setups, I won't lie. But I'm still 0/2, so how can this be?
a) I could simply fail so hard at this that I can't succeed regardless of group
b) Despite having suitable jobs, people are idiots and cannot do anything right unless I spell it out for them, which I tend not to do because I don't want to sound condescending.

While it may be easy to assume I only pick b) due to my own self-serving bias and so attribute failure to the actions of others, I genuinely get stuck with idiots the majority of the time and sometimes I can't pick up the slack short of playing their jobs for them.

Now in this particular fight, I didn't go in with high hopes. The PLD wasn't particularily well geared, and clearly didn't know much (if anything) about the fight. The combined total of all his magic damage reduction gear was:
MDB +5, Magic damage taken +5%.
I didn't want to patronise him about his fundamentally retarded gear choices because it would only be met with the usual "I can't get good gear Q_Q", which annoys me greatly, because you can get non-retarded gear pretty easily, especially a half decent magic damage set for PLD, from the AH.

I wasn't too bothered about damage taken anyway, because we had a good WHM and RDM to keep him alive, as long as he could hold hate and not get charmed. I told him explicitly what to do and what not to do before we went in, so that should have been ok.

Right?

Right???

lol,

Wrong.

He proceded to run in, use ALL of his abilities like a champ BEFORE he'd done anything to the crystal, so invincible/sentinel/rampart/etc = 0 hate! It's literally astounding (and sad) how someone can play for 75 levels on one job and still fail to understand the basic game mechanics that surround said job's only purpose.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say he started RUNNING IN CIRCLES around the crystal after he finally flashed it (didn't have hate the whole fight, just ran around it to take damage). Which is something I explicitly told him NOT to do beforehand...

Granted, I screwed up as well and stunned a clone instead of the crystal on it's second cast (I was busy trying to tell the PLD what to do...), which made everyone panic and despite me stunning every other subsequent cast, we didn't recover and wiped.

Now I do focus on this PLD alot, but there was a SAM/RNG10 and dual-wielding WAR, but they can't be blamed for having not-so-useful jobs, even if I do dislike mediocre melee-only people. Couldn't fault the SMN, but with the absolutely tragic performance of the PLD there really wasn't much room left for anyone else to fuck up to a degree that was even noticeable compared to him.

I'm being pretty horrible to him, poor guy. He wasn't a terrible person, just pretty lackluster and could have just broke down horribly under pressure (wat, I know).

What makes this even more irritating is that this guaranteed failure after only 1 minute inside the battlefield means I've got to spend another half-hour climbing a 30-capped tower, and then wait another 30 when I join my next party for the rest of them to collect the key item AFTER they join and keep the considerate people who got it beforehand waiting.

If I'm not zerging this next time, I want to make sure I get a good tank. If not, I'll get my MDB gear (and buy an I.R. Lance) and just give it to them.

Short version: Don't join weekend pickups.