Does Playing FFXI Take Skill?

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Does playing FFXI take skill?
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By 2018-08-12 15:11:24
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 Asura.Geriond
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By Asura.Geriond 2018-08-12 15:21:43
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Every content where your gear doesn't greatly outpower the content level takes skill of some degree. There's a reason why pickup parties have notoriously low win rates on even mid-range stuff, even when gear is vetted.
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 Leviathan.Comeatmebro
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By Leviathan.Comeatmebro 2018-08-12 15:34:26
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Playing one character in an existing situation takes minimal skill at best.

A successful run at group content requires organization and instruction, or 'skill' on the part of the leader.

If you have the gear and can follow basic instructions, there's no complex thought or reaction time involved and everything can be compensated for by having proper pre-fight strategy talk.
 
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By 2018-08-12 15:39:47
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 Asura.Geriond
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By Asura.Geriond 2018-08-12 15:42:20
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DirectX said: »
What level are we discussing though? 128 or 135?
What are you defining a "low win rate" as, as a %? Are you claiming your anecdotal experience with PuG to be objective or have you collated a lot of data on PuG win rates?
Yes, I have. Over thousands or tens of thousands of PuGs, I can 100% say that the majority of players do not even reach the "passable" state that Comeatembro is assuming to be the baseline, and even those that do often make blatantly wrong decisions regarding things they weren't specifically told about. For example, running into Glassy Craver range while weakened and not in PDT.

If 0 is brain dead, 100 is perfect play, and 30 is "is able to follow instructions and do a job passably", the majority of random players are below 30.
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 Leviathan.Comeatmebro
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By Leviathan.Comeatmebro 2018-08-12 15:43:10
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Asura.Geriond said: »
Knowledge of how the game works that is relevant to how you play?
Example? Most of this is stuff that can be covered in a 30 second pre-content briefing. If the leader takes the time to organize properly, the other members don't need it.

Asura.Geriond said: »
Reflexes to quickly react to unexpected (or expected) situations?
Nothing in FFXI requires meaningful reflexes. I would wager that short of disabilities or extreme age, 99.99% of people have the reflexes required for FFXI. TP moves have a 2-3 second reaction allowed, over 1.5 sec after accounting for worst case latency.

Asura.Geriond said: »
Ability to interact smoothly with other people during content?
Social skills, fair. If you make everyone hate you, you won't get much done. Pretty low bar, though.

Asura.Geriond said: »
The knowledge of what gearsets are best?
Freely available everywhere. Already used the example of having someone else's gearswap.

Asura.Geriond said: »
Heck, even the ability to correctly follow instructions is a type of skill that many lack.
Probably the most meaningful 'skill' that FFXI players have or don't have.


If you want to go strictly by dictionary definition you can substantiate an argument that it needs skill. Realistically, the people you find unable to play are lacking the ability to speak the language of their group, suffering from a complete lack of communication skills, or think they are too good to listen to those smarter than themselves.

If you want to make an argument that the vast majority of people(on FFXI or otherwise) are drooling baboons that don't belong in higher civilization, I'm not going to argue with that either.
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By Lakshmi.Buukki 2018-08-12 15:44:04
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Playing ballista takes skill. If we're talking about specific instances.
 
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By Asura.Geriond 2018-08-12 15:51:39
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Leviathan.Comeatmebro said: »
Example? Most of this is stuff that can be covered in a 30 second pre-content briefing. If the leader takes the time to organize properly, the other members don't need it.
Mob resistances, magic accuracy and how INT/MND affects it, how accuracy relates to hit rates, how enmity works, how defense down debuffs stack, etc. There are tons of players that don't have even basic knowledge of relevant game mechanics.

Leviathan.Comeatmebro said: »
Nothing in FFXI requires meaningful reflexes. I would wager that short of disabilities or extreme age, 99.99% of people have the reflexes required for FFXI. TP moves have a 2-3 second reaction allowed, over 1.5 sec after accounting for worst case latency.
Then you don't understand how the reflexes of the majority of gamers work. When they see "mob readies a WS", they do not automatically hit their DT sets because they don't have that reflex ingrained with them. Instead, they read the TP move, then think "oh, this might be dangerous", then hit their DT set, at which point it's too late. There's also other situations where you need more twitchy-type reflexes, such as any mob whose TP moves don't have a whole second before they go off, or curing a melee that suddenly got hate and took 2k damage (before the next physical kills them), or any number of other things.


Leviathan.Comeatmebro said: »
Social skills, fair. If you make everyone hate you, you won't get much done. Pretty low bar, though.
It's not a low bar for most people. It's not just "keep people from hating you", as well; it also includes being able to communicate what you're trying to say properly, and being able to understand communications less formal than instructions.

Leviathan.Comeatmebro said: »
Freely available everywhere. Already used the example of having someone else's gearswap.
This is assuming that everyone uses gearswap (the majority of players don't even bother trying to learn something so complex, even at the "copy and leave it" level), or the ability to make your own sets for your own situations that don't agree with what you can find online. In addition, not everyone even bothers to research things like gearsets.
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By Asura.Geriond 2018-08-12 15:53:36
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DirectX said: »
Asura.Geriond said: »
If 0 is brain dead, 100 is perfect play, and 30 is "is able to follow instructions and do a job passably", the majority of random players are below 30.
The majority as in >50% or a higher majority?
I have seen incredibly incompetent people on Asura get a multitude of gear and Aeonics through shouting for people (mostly SMNs to AC burn ***) to do stuff. Do you think that they have a kind of "skill"? Ultimately you could argue that getting the gear is the aim of FFXI once you reach end game, and they are able to do it.
Yes, I think they have some skill, and most players aren't even at the level of being able to AC burn things without relying on more competent party members to carry them. I've seen so many AC burns completely fail, despite perfectly adequate buffs and gear on the SMNs that even that strat is not idiot-proof.
 
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 Asura.Geriond
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By Asura.Geriond 2018-08-12 16:01:42
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Interference from Omen bosses can oneshot players who aren't topped off if they don't hit their DT sets in time, as do a number of other attacks like Moogle Crystalline Flare, a very large number of WSs from Wave 3 dynamis, moves like Tzee Xicu (MT)'s Dark Invocation, Shadow Lord (MT)'s Blighting Blitz, and a bunch of other ones. Even mid-tier mobs like Gajasimha can kill players with Fulmination if not properly reacted to. I've had times on Halphas where I've died because he turned to me, I didn't get my DT set up in the next second before I attacked, and killed myself on counters.

There's also the fact that even if you don't get oneshotted, MP drain or delays on cures can still get you killed if your healer is similarly slow to react/improperly played.
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By Afania 2018-08-12 16:06:18
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DirectX said: »
Well, when you say skill I think of being an artisan or something. I think there is a difference between knowledge and an innate ability to do something well which cannot really be described by other factors.
I knew a guy that was generally not very bright, very slow to react in general, but when on Halo he was literally a machine. It was not understandable from his general intellect and reaction times how he could react so fast to so many different variables and situations. I would say that he was a very skilled halo player. The quantity of variables in FPS against real humans is infinitely higher than fights in FFXI which are almost exactly the same each time.

FPS is pretty straight forward, you see something, you shoot it. He probably has slow reaction because it takes longer for him to get clear idea of what to do next. But in games like FPS when targets are pretty damn obvious on the screen, he can play it well.

FFXI isn't clear about anything nor what to do in certain situations due to the game mechanics being way too complex. As a result, people without complete understanding of the game mechanic often react with wrong decisions or unable to react fast enough.
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By FichesAquarium 2018-08-12 16:10:45
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I'd say no. I mean sure you can psycho-analyze it and be like "Well everything is a skill, so doing anything requires skill." But generally when you are asking a question like that, you are referring to video game skill.

It really doesn't, what I mean by that is this game requires knowledge, not skill. For example, my dad has never played a video game before. He is absolutely awful at computers and has no natural skill in them at all. I was able to teach him this game and he can play it just fine. I also tried to teach him a game like Blade and Soul and he just cannot beat the first level 5 world boss.

There's job no people just "cant" play in FFXI. Its just a game of decision making. Do you need to keep threat on multiple targets? Well you don't need to constantly swap targets and micro-manage spell rotations while avoiding red circles and performing a dps combo. You just use a proper spell or ability that generates AOE threat.

Do you need to heal? Well you aren't dodging AoEs doing the online interpretive dance, while micro managing your enmity and mana weaving in damage spells, you just stand still and use the proper spell at the proper time.

In terms of MMOs skill refers to four things. Knowledge of the job you're playing, knowledge of your abilities, using the proper rotation of abilities consistently for up to ten minutes at a time that maximize the effectiveness of your job, and doing the online interpretive dance. Well this game has knowledge of job and abilities. It does not have a rotation and does not have an interpretive dance. Its a game of numbers. I'd say 90% of the fights in the game can be done just by standing in one spot.
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By Asura.Geriond 2018-08-12 16:13:14
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"Video game skill" takes as many different forms as different types of video games. Knowledge-based situation awareness is just as much of a skill for video games as reflex-based twitch skill is. That's not "psycho-analysis", it's the basic definition of the concept.

For your father, it simply means that he's naturally better at gaining the type of skill that FFXI requires, but not the type that said other games require. Conversely, there are lots of people who are amazing at fast games like technical fighters and FPSs, but are horrid at slower games like RTS and RPGs.
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By Afania 2018-08-12 16:17:58
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FichesAquarium said: »
I'd say no. I mean sure you can psycho-analyze it and be like "Well everything is a skill, so doing anything requires skill." But generally when you are asking a question like that, you are referring to video game skill.

It really doesn't, what I mean by that is this game requires knowledge, not skill. For example, my dad has never played a video game before. He is absolutely awful at computers and has no natural skill in them at all. I was able to teach him this game and he can play it just fine. I also tried to teach him a game like Blade and Soul and he just cannot beat the first level 5 world boss.

There's job no people just "cant" play in FFXI. Its just a game of decision making. Do you need to keep threat on multiple targets? Well you don't need to constantly swap targets and micro-manage spell rotations while avoiding red circles and performing a dps combo. You just use a proper spell or ability that generates AOE threat.

Do you need to heal? Well you aren't dodging AoEs doing the online interpretive dance, while micro managing your enmity and mana weaving in damage spells, you just stand still and use the proper spell at the proper time.

I think the difference between our pov came from "whether you can successfuly play FFXI and get easy things done or perform ok in a top end group" or "be a top end, successful player".

You can "play FFXI" even if you lack reflex nor general video game skill. You can play as COR, spam last stand and miss them all in a woc zerg and still got win because you are in a group that already can. You can play as various job and do SR, CP pt, quests and missions, and what not even if you have difficulty swapping to DT- sets, make decisions on better positining or JA rotations and what not.

Those things never require best of the best player, and even the hardest content doesn't require best of the best player on certain jobs such as COR BRD GEO.

However, if you think a player that lacks knowledge, reflex, FFXI common sense will have same level of success and reputation as another player with those, you are wrong.

In that case, skill does make a difference in FFXI.
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By Afania 2018-08-12 16:21:22
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Asura.Geriond said: »
Conversely, there are lots of people who are amazing at fast games like technical fighters and FPSs, but are horrid at slower games like RTS and RPGs.

This.

I've seen many MMO players came from faster paced MMO like WoW/FF/Blade and Soul/Tera etc. many of them had difficulty making the right decision in pt and often stuck at certain content level, unable to progress because they can't understand why they wipe in ambu D, even though the reason why they wipe is damn obvious to experienced FFXI players who read forums and understand the inner workings well enough.

It's just different kind of skill really.
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By Cerberus.Senkyuutai 2018-08-12 16:22:38
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DirectX said: »
If you believe so, state which content and which job you are referring to to give context to your claim.

Posts like; "hurr durr if you don't believe FFXI takes skill then you don't understand the game" are not rational arguments.
It's more about understanding how mechanics work than actually performing well.

People who have no clue how pathing works were never able to kite/pin effectively, to give an example.

So, if people REALLY want to go there, I guess it's not about skill but about being smart enough to understand how the game works. But even then I'm not even sure it qualifies as smart, it always seemed to me as if some people were the kind to pay attention to details, or were just here without giving a *** about anything.
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By FichesAquarium 2018-08-12 16:24:16
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Yeah yeah, you players who have been playing 5 years take it super personally when someone says this game takes no skill, because you feel you're better than everyone else due to your experience, I get it. It must hurt your pride, but no, this game doesn't require any skill.

Lets look at puppetmaster tank. You use three maneuevers, you send your puppet in and then you stay far away.

How does that require skill? At most you can swap to Heyoka gear for Flashbulb/Strobe if you want to go above and beyond, but a lot of times that wont even make a difference.

That's just one of many jobs that can beat fights without moving.
 
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By Afania 2018-08-12 16:26:01
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Cerberus.Senkyuutai said: »
DirectX said: »
If you believe so, state which content and which job you are referring to to give context to your claim.

Posts like; "hurr durr if you don't believe FFXI takes skill then you don't understand the game" are not rational arguments.
It's more about understanding how machanics work than actually performing well.

People who have no clue how pathing works were never able to kite/pin effectively, to give an example.

So, if people REALLY want to go there, I guess it's not about skill but about being smart enough to understand how the game works. But even then I'm not even sure it qualifies as smart, it always seemed to me as if some people were the kind to pay attention to details, or were just here without giving a *** about anything.

I personally don't think it has anything to do with IQ. Has more to do with understanding the inner workings in ffxi and care enough to learn it.

There are many people in FFXI with a successful rl job that requires pretty high IQ (lawyer, manager etc)and they still don't understand why certain setup doesn't work very well in certain content. Then when they wipe they can't figure out why, even though the result of wiping is normally just bad setup, buffs or bad positioning/spell choices.
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By Afania 2018-08-12 16:31:05
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FichesAquarium said: »
Yeah yeah, you players who have been playing 5 years take it super personally when someone says this game takes no skill, because you feel you're better than everyone else due to your experience, I get it. It must hurt your pride, but no, this game doesn't require any skill.

No, YOU take it too personally to assume whoever argued that FFXI does require skill actually care about how others view their skill in a 15 years old video game.

I don't give a damn about how others view my video game playing skill, nor I have any "pride" (lol?) in a 15 year old video game.

I just don't agree with your definiation of skill. You keep arguing that FFXI skill = general video game reflex, which I disagree. That has nothing to do with pride or whatever.

FichesAquarium said: »
Lets look at puppetmaster tank. You use three maneuevers, you send your puppet in and then you stay far away.

If everything you do in FFXI ever is just "use 3 maneuevers, send your puppet in and stay far away" then sure??

In what universe that you only do these 3 things in entire game though?

You are leaving 99.9999999% of what we do in FFXI out and only mentioning the 0.1% aspect of this entire game.
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By Afania 2018-08-12 16:54:05
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Asura.Geriond said: »
"Video game skill" takes as many different forms as different types of video games. Knowledge-based situation awareness is just as much of a skill for video games as reflex-based twitch skill is. That's not "psycho-analysis", it's the basic definition of the concept.

For your father, it simply means that he's naturally better at gaining the type of skill that FFXI requires, but not the type that said other games require. Conversely, there are lots of people who are amazing at fast games like technical fighters and FPSs, but are horrid at slower games like RTS and RPGs.

Sorry for triple post but I'd like to explain how reflex works in FFXI a bit better.

Say you are a DRK, fighting an NM with hate reset, then NM went to the backline and tank's flash is on recast so they can't pull it back immediately.

One correct way to react in such situation on DRK is to cast stun immediately and pull it back to the bubble and avoid NM AoEing the backline. To make such decision on the fly, one player must:

1) Understands the consequences of not pulling the NM back to frontline, which is DD losing DPS without geo frailty and mages takes more damage from AoEs.

2) Know that Stun can be used as a hate tool.

If player lacks the knowledge of 1) or 2), the decision that they will make for this situation would be chasing the NM to the backline, everyone eats aoe, NMs got out of bubbles, DD lose DPS before Tank is able to flash it back again.

You do have quite a bit of time to make such decision, but if you do not know 1) and 2) that I listed above, then you won't make the right decision. It doesn't matter how fast a player can make a decision, their decision could be wrong if they don't already have knowledge in game mechanics.

All the reflex and decision making in FFXI are based on knowledge and understanding the big picture, not how fast you can make the decision.

Thus I don't agree that any experienced video game player can just grab a max geared character and perform perfect, at least I haven't run into anyone able to do so.....yet.

Comeatmebro argued that leader just needs communition to solve the problem. Sure, leader could just say "If NM uses X move for hate reset, DRK please cast stun to pull it back." But in a game with 22 jobs and variety of mechanics, different pt synergy between jobs, people and playstyle, it's not realistic to communicate everything.
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By Asura.Eiryl 2018-08-12 16:58:11
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None of that is skill, btw. Just for those keeping score.

If being skilled means that you can hit 1 without accidentally hitting 2, that's the pinnacle of skill required.

You need to know things, and be motivated enough to do them. That's it.
 Asura.Midgitis
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By Asura.Midgitis 2018-08-12 17:01:02
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the more important question is does post count = skill
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By Afania 2018-08-12 17:01:11
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Asura.Eiryl said: »
None of that is skill, btw. Just for those keeping score.

Unless you want to argue that playing video game itself isn't "skill", I think it's entirely different argument though, since people already brought up FPS and faster paced MMOs. It wouldn't make sense to claim other games need "skill" but FFXI doesn't either.
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By Siren.Attaxia 2018-08-12 17:04:13
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I'd say no. I mean sure you can psycho-analyze it and be like
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LeT's LoOk At PuPpEtMaStEr TaNk
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