Endgame...

One of the downsides to playing FFXI is that in order to upgrade the equipment for your character, you have to participate in endgame events such as "Dynamis, Sky, Sea, Limbus and HNM Camping". Most of these events are pretty enjoyable, but the commitments one has to make in order to participate in these events, can be very demanding and stressful.

Ever since I got my PLD to 75, I wanted to be able to get the full Valor Artifact Armor set, which is only available through Dynamis. I have also been interested in upgrading my Gallant armor set to the +1 version, which can only be done by doing Limbus. Unfortunately right now, I don't yet have access to Sea which is needed in order to do Limbus. And then there is the Koenig armor set, and in order to get this you need to get abjuration items that drop from the gods in Sky, as well as HNMs (Land Kings) found throughout Vana'diel.

Right now, I am a leader for a dynamis LS called SpiftasticAdventures. We currently do one run a week, so our progress is much slower than most established Dynamis LSs. I've been participating since November, and though i've had a few opportunities to lot on 100 coins and Valor Coronets, my luck has always gotten the best of me and I never ended up winning. We also had a pretty rough start at first, because we had problems establishing a permanent roster so getting drops period was a rarity within our LS until early this year. (And a note, why is it that people sign up and commit to a dynamis LS, show up for one run, and are never heard of again? Don't you people have the decency to say you're no longer interested? -_-)

(Archmage, Raesylil, Spalko, Jazz, Moonyoung, Selph, myself, Feirion -- SpiftasticAdventures Dynamis LS)

The good thing about my dynamis LS is that the people in it are extremely friendly and pretty goofy. We all work really hard to do better every run, and even if we make a mistake the leaders are never harsh. We don't talk down to our members, but instead we encourage them and try to help them learn to do better the next time. We're all very supportive of each other and I think because of the friendships, we have really good communication which will pull us through as we progress.


And if you've read my previous blogs, i've recently joined a sky LS called CrimsonSky. There are a couple of people so far that have been friendly, but for the most part I feel very unwelcome because most of the time when I login and say {Hello!}{Linkshell}, I might get one "Hi" back. And while being focused during events is really important for success, you still need a little bit of a warm atmosphere and unfortunately so far, I find this is lacking in my sky LS. I just keep hoping it'll get better as people get to know each other, because the LS is fairly new.


At the moment, i've been able to participate on 2 god runs and 1 farming run with CrimsonSky. The way that our LS works, is that you gain 1 point per hour you put into farming. When it comes time to kill the gods, if there is an item that you want and it drops, if you have a minimum of 20 pts, then you will be on the list of people that will get to lot the item. The leaders decide who gets to lot it first, and I believe that they go with the person who has the most points first with the goal of eventually having everyone obtain what they're seeking in Sky.







So as of right now, I participate on Monday and Thursday nights regardless of whether its farming or killing gods. The LS runs on Sundays, but seeing as I am very attached to my social/event LS TheBrotherhood I asked to be able to come 2/3 nights which as far as I know, was acceptable. I would love the opportunity to earn more points to get my gear faster, but weekends happen to be the busiest for TheBrotherhood in terms of our lower lvl members getting help with missions and quests, and plus i'm also invovled in a CoP static with some of the members and depending on availability, we sometimes do our missions on Sunday.


It seems that if I put a lot of time into Dynamis and into Sky, i'll eventually get the gear i'm wanting to upgrade to... but as my lover Xean would say, "puk endgame, its hella boring". I think he would probably enjoy killing gods, but I know that the work you have to pour out in order to do the "fun things" is too much so thats why he often plays something else or helps LS members when i'm doing endgame because he has no desire to get involved in endgame.

I often wish that I could find an endgame LS that did events based on occasion, so that the members could still have the majority of their time to do what they want in the game but to date most linkshells want you there fulltime. Me and Xean often talked about one day having enough high lvls in our LS TheBrotherhood and doing events based on member's needs, but right now we don't really have a roster for that so I guess we just have to wait and see.

Its just too bad that the only way to get anything nice in this game, requires commitments that players often aren't able to give, or don't want to give because it takes them away from the other things to enjoy in this game. I'm glad that i've been able to find a Sky LS that doesn't need me there 24/7, because I can't imagine abandoning my friends when I know that helping them out is a lot more fun than farming mobs up in Sky. Who doesn't like getting owned by Miser Murphy? Who doesn't like going after Ash Dragon and dying 10 times because his aggro range is insanely large (Poor, poor.... poor.... Suko... little tarutaru must of lost at least 10k experience that night, haha) Ok, well its not always fun dying..... but it is fun doing these kinds of events with my friends, because we always laugh in the end and that's what keeps me playing this game ^^