ffxi or eq2, and why?Follow

ok this is freaky.. friend of mine and I where just sitting here talking about ffxi and why we left for eq2. I played a blm/whm by the way.

And I left for the same reasons you want to leave. The economy was horrible. You pretty much hard to farm if you wanted to buy anything cause it cost so much gil. We also left cause everything was just laid out. At this level you xp here.. and get these items.. once you hit this level you move to this zone nad xp there and you want these items. it was horrible. I can't think of a single reason i would ever go back

EQ2 is based off of 6 person groups as well. But the beauty in that is you can solo.. you can duo or trio or have 4 people it really doesn't matter cause you can find places to xp with any size group. As for gear as time goes on the choice are just growing. I was next to two other bruisers lastnight and expect for a few pieces of armor quest stuff we all had different weapons and rings and neck pieces.. We all looked different as well...


As for your ninja they only thing to compare that too in eq2 is wards.. SK's have self wards but for the most part wards come from other classes like priests. Shamen defilers to be more specific. If I had to pick a class of the warrior ninja I would say berserker cause they are a good tank and deal out some nice damage as well. but there could be many other classes you would enjoy..

that should get you going.. post any other questioins or concerns you ahve and I will answer away..

In EQ2 there is no damageless tank. The closest you could come are monks/bruisers, which base a lot of their tanking abilities on avoidance, but they still take plenty of damage as main tank. (They also do more damage than other tanks, and are not so good as raid tanks, from what I've read here.) All tanks, by the way, are based off of the fighter archetype.

Now, scouts (except bards) are meant to be sneaky, high damage classes. While they can take some damage themselves, they aren't meant to be tanks (though with a decent healer a scout tank can work OK in regular groups). All scouts have sneak, which allows them to safely travel to many places where others might get attacked.
Scout classes: Predators use many attacks which require them to be in stealth mode for the attack to work.
Rogues use attacks which require them to be behind the enemy, or flanking the enemy (positional attacks).
Bards, while they have some OK attacks, are primarily meant for buffs (and some debuffs).

Ok,

thanks for the responses.

A few more questions:

I have a whm friend (60) in ffxi that will probably be porting over with me. Is the game pretty much the same for mages? or will he have more options other than casting . CURE CURE CURE HASTE, rinse, repeat.

Is the money/auction house system the similar to ffxi? and is the game as 'money' oreintated as it is in ffxi? In ffxi I have managed to amass quite a fortune in items, due to luck and the insane inflation in the game.

Ive also heard that eq2 will allow and host gillselling.

I have read about the assassin job, and to be honest it sounds great. If anyone from ffxi has experience w/ this job I would like to know, ive combed some of the forums for assassin and have not really found much. I do NOT want to play a job like thief in eq2 as I hated being totally gimp until my sata timers were up, and then again pretty much replaceable post 60 by any heavy hitting melee.

Also, how is the crafting compared to ffxi? I did goldsmithing on ffxi and I am quite drawn to it. It was ridiculously expensive and incredibly complex. I need something like a solid crafting system to keep me interested as well!

How is farming? Is it something that must be done in this game? or are items moreso gained by doing quests?

I have combed forums and have not found them to answer any of my answers directly. I am asking on here because you guys can tell me YOUR personal experience on some of these questions =)

Thanks again for your time!

Wrekt

Thanks again for the hasty reply =)

Your help has been wonderful, but I have one more question!

In ffxi you are allowed to have every job available to you but running to your moogle house and simply clicking 'change job'. When I started ffxi it was my first mmorpg, I was very influenced by leveling to level 30+ and then deciding what job was right for me. Do you have a similar option in eq2 or are you stuck?

Thanks again!
wrekt

Once you choose your class and crafting professions in EQ2, you're stuck with them forever. However for the first 9 levels in crafting you are an Artisan and can make a bit of everything to find out what you enjoy the most.

I may be able to help there... my friend plays ffxi and has a level 63 or so THF and I play eq2.

Ok first... forget about SATA. That only-one-decent-attack-per-fight nonsense is gone. As an assassin you get a line of specific attacks that you can only do when stealthed and have quite a big recast timer called "XXXXX Blade". You normally open up the fight with that (as you will have cast stealth in the gap between pulls) and it will do damage along the line of SATA. Then you have loads of other attacks that do similar large damage, such as Vladiminn's Focused Volley (if you go for that trait choice - read about traits to find out more). Basically assassins have loads of damage skills that do lots of different things, some just pure dps, some slow (i think), some snare, some silence etc. Each of the different line of attacks are on different timers, and there are easily enough different lines to keep you casting constantly the entire fight.

To top it all of for scouts dps, there are poisons. Poisons (as you probably know) are potions you use to give yourself an offensive damage proc. The beauty of poisons is that they have a chance to proc on every hit, not just every skill, but every hit. So for example, if you use a Vladiminn's Focused Volley (100-200 dmg per shot and 3 shots - its a bow skill) and you have a 100 dmg poison proc with an extra 30 damage-over-time (which starts immediately, giving you 130 dmg per shot) you do a whopping great (taking averages) 150*3+130*3 = 450+390 = 840 dmg in one skill (once again SATAVB damage).

As my sig says, i play a brigand, not an assassin, but since you want to know about assassins i thought i'd go that route.


Add to that the evac skills (teleporting you and entire group to a safe point in the zone), group SoW (aka. pathfinding), disarming chests and group stealth, assassins in eq2 are really far more well-rounded and flexible than THFs are in ffxi. A group will always have need for an extra scout, regardless of class.

About replacability by a hard-hitting meleer... In eq2 it is the skill hits, not the melee hits that really do the damage. You can play without using ur skills, but you will do about 1/4 of the damage you could do using them. Scouts and Mages will (or should) be far far more dps than tank classes, and no class is 'worthless'. They all have their own invaluable uses. Assassins, along with rangers, wizzes and warlocks are probably the 'purest' dps classes in the game.

oh yeah, and there are HOs (skillchains) too, but most people dont seem too fussed about those, because - unlike in ffxi - you don't really need skillchains to do massive damage attacks. They are, however, fun, and make the time fly much faster :P

In summary, the biggest difference between Assassins and THFs is that Assassins do big damage all the time and dont have to rely on a single skill repop (SATA). I agree, that was gimped. Was boring just to watch my friend play it.

hope this helps


Edited, Thu May 12 05:23:02 2005 by Monyetman

Edited, Thu May 12 05:24:19 2005 by Monyetman

current cap is 50.. there are a good bit of folks there. but the mass of folks are still way below that. EQ2 was built with a possilbe max level of 200. Which means they can scale the game all the way up to that level. I doubt it will happen but it can.

The first expansion has already been anounced for sept of this year. The level cap is being raised to 60 on the expansion. YOu can pretty much guess that they will raise the cap by ten over the next few years. and ffxi started with a lower cap and they raised it over time.. pretty much the same with eq2.. My guess is that they will expand the game a good 5 times or so... making the max level of the game 100.

as for content they have added tons of new raid content.. not to mention expansion packs which there has already been one and the 2nd is announced. I'm betting we will get two to three of those per year..

the people that are already 50 (for the most part) are the super adicts that get on for days at a time(i have to admit i did play for 2 days once)and only stick to one toon, work that toon way up then twink a noob and work like hell on that one. if you live like a normal game player(about 4 hours a day) this could take quite a while, but if ur more like the more competative everquest player(23 1/2 hours a day)then with the right knowldge of where to go youll b there in no time.

Im just starting on EQ2 right now but im a veteran FFXI i had a 75WAR/NIN or WAR/THF, WAR/SAM also a 65RNG/NIN and by the time i got my ranger to 65 i realized the game sucked and was hella repetitive and once you got to max Lv. there was no real reason to play anymore unless you were in a HNM ls which i was and i killed all of the HNM's in the game so i felt it was time to leave. Just from reading the instruction booklet im totally psyched over this game and the endless possibilities of characters and it looks like no two characters really will be the same. While in FFXI every single 75 whatever pretty much looked exactly the same because there was only so much 'uber' end game gear a person could wear and everyone wanted to be a clone of the next person. So i'd say that in my experience with FFXI its definitly worth dumping for a more advanced game like this. /cheer

I rather nosely snuck into this forum, i play FFXI, and whilst your all bigging up EQ2 (it does sound like an amazing game). It sounds to easy. I heard someone saying how SATA 'only one good attack per fight' or something. And i thought to myself, thats the point... If SATA was consistent, it would greatly devalue the other DD classes such as Darknight, Monk, and so on. Totally unballancing the game.

Crafting also sounds fun in EQ2... But i heard someone say something about Sony doing something to bring back the spark into crafting... The only reason you'd do that is if Crafting is too easy, again.

Again i heard someone saying something about being able to solo... SE specifically said FFXI was a team based game, as in there's only two or three jobs that can solo. the rest you have to work as a team, and if you work as team correctively, its a fun and enjoyable expierience, even if it goes wrong its super fun. You accidently pull more then one mob, or the WHM dies, and things get hectic. Its when stuff like this happens your chat log fills up with 'that was fun' and 'wow that was exciting'.

Now i'm not coming on to diss EQ2. Infact my brother has it, and i enjoy playing it occasionally. But thats the thing, I enjoy playing it occasionally,. I could never be as emersed as i am in FFXI, were the economy is ridiculously inflated because of illegal gil selling, and the NM's (Notorious Monstors) are over camped by those same gil sellers.

I enjoy it because when i get on, i know i have a group of 20 plus people that will help me camp and claim that NM, for that overpriced item.

Not to mention Static groups that are the most fun, you level with them, and towards the 40's you quiet literally become a band of brothers, were you'd give your member your last gil so he can buy a scroll that'd help you level up in the long run.

Its moments like these when you smile, hell its not even about the leveling in FFXI, its about expieriancing things with a group of members, and sharing your thoughts, and for those who missed it reliving that moment when 250+ Yagudo (Beastmen that attack anything) pummelled you into the ground because a Yagudo Bard debuffed your life saving sneak, and your not angry, your laughing wildly with other members of your ls, because you and they know, they're next. and the train of mobs is just ridiculously big.

Its the little adventures in ffxi that paint the bigger picture, leveling up really isn't the be all and end all of the game, infact, you will get bored if you came onto this mmorpg, soley with the fact that you want to be the best, and want to get there now.

Because at the end of the day its a VERY difficult game, compared to other mmo's if you really did want to be the best, it'd take over 2rl year of xping, and other money making things to pay for the gear to level up in. Not to mention all the relic upgrades needed.

as for crafting... I hate it. its a chore to me, i only do it because i know in the long run its going to make me money.

But overall FFXI is a fun emersive teambased game.

as for items. New items get added everyweek... plus the new expansionpack (in time for the XBOX360 release) is going to bring loads more new items.

I'm sorry for butting in like that guys. I saw people saying how FFXI isn't a fun game to play whilst on my brothers computer, and got a little annoyed that no one was saying FFXI's goodpoints.

See. Posts like yours i dont get.
What makes a game difficult?

Grinding them same mobs, hours after hours after hours after hours, doesnt make a game hard. It makes it boring and tedious.
I remember when I put in 40 hours in 3 days just grinding the hell out of my BLM. I died twice in that 40 hours.. And all groups were pickup.
Was it hard? Hell no. I only died twice. And only a couple close calls.
Was it boring and tedious? Yes.

A huge level grind != hard game.
FFXI has NMs and HNMs. Which can be hard.
But so are eq2 4xepic mobs. Ive died plenty of times trying to fight those.

AS for crafting. It is actually about the same skill level as ffxi.
FFXI all you have to do is put a few ingredients in a window. And click create. Wait until its done, and do it again. Although you do have to know how good of items you can create... and you also have to research the different things you can make since it isnt all provided in a list.
Eq2 has a list of items that you can select... but each craft is like an "encounter". You have to FIGHT the durability and progress bars to get that prestine item.

Also, I dont consider having to spend 100k a level in crafting "hard". All it is is tedious grinding mobs getting loot to sell so you can buy items.
You do the same thing in EQ2 pretty well. Except you grind harvesting nodes. Or buy them off the market.


" If SATA was consistent, it would greatly devalue the other DD classes such as Darknight, Monk, and so on. Totally unballancing the game.
"

Why is that? Each class gets their own things that makes them special (well atleast most do). WIth my swashbuckler i have atleast a dozen abilities i use EACH FIGHT. This helps keep me entertained. Instead of just clicking attack and sitting back spamming TP macros constantly.. Then once every 30 seconds doing 1 ability.... And if your "lucky" maybe you get to cast utusami (sp?) and go pull.
No thanks, i prefer to use my dozen abilities on my swashbuckler.


Onto your next point.. Solo.

WHY should i HAVE To be in a group to solo?
IF i only have an hour to play I should be able to accomplish something.
Only thing you can accomplish in an hour in FFXI is possibly selling some stuff, farm mobs for a little bit, or a limited amount of other things.
Atleast in eq2 if i only have an hour, i know i can still get 20% exp to the next level.

Im not saying solo is the only way. I love to group also. But Im sure you have experienced the times where you have been lfg for 5 hours just to loog out in frustration.
WHen im lfg in eq2 i can still be soloing mobs for my own exp.

I do agree how ffxi might be a bit more immersive.. Since you are required to group to do about anything. But it can also bring on a ton of frustration.
I remember times when i was LFG for DAYS and not get an invite.
Sure I was farming mobs. But I wanted to level.

Now dont get me wrong, Im not bashing FFXI. I loved the game (for the most part) while I played it. BUt then I switched to eq2. And never thought about looking back.
Only thing i liked a bit better in ffxi was the community... BUt thats about it.

75 rdm
75 blm
75 whm
72 war
70 nin
68 smn
68 mnk
rest 50+
99+3 woodworking 60 smithing 60 alchemy 60 goldsmithing
All AF2 for 75 and AF for others also beat the game. Also had 350 million in hand and way more then that in armor. (fanatic i know)

Ok i played FFXI for about 2 1/2 years until someone named xtek hacked my account. I was not able to get account back either seeing everything was changed. I though about suicide seeing i spent 24/7 practically on this game almost failing school.
But then i found EQ2. I started playing EQ2 and it was pretty kewl there were badass graphics and didnt take near the time to level as FFXI. As seeing since i played FFXI i found EQ2 very easy and helped me progress into the palaldin i am now. Money is easy and soloing is possible and parties are all over all the time and there is no one place to level. Also again the graphics are great and the fighitng system is almost like real life unlike FFXI. FFXi is overrated now that i look at it and WoW is a waste of time.

Now EQ2 has started these updates they are really nuking the game but i beleive that will all change soon with all the complaints. This is another thing i like about the game is the day to day updates guarnteeing the best play.