Does Playing FFXI Take Skill?

o.O

You're both saying that knowing things makes you a skilled player though. I can know many things from learning them, but putting them into practice is what I am sure we all generally consider to be the skill in the context of playing video games.

It's not so much about being hard as it is that you could teach more people to play FFXI at end game than you could teach people to do a quadruple backflip on a snowboard, for example.

You're both saying that knowing things makes you a skilled player though. I can know many things from learning them, but putting them into practice is what I am sure we all generally consider to be the skill in the context of playing video games.

It's not so much about being hard as it is that you could teach more people to play FFXI at end game than you could teach people to do a quadruple backflip on a snowboard, for example.

Opening a tin of beans is a skill others lack, using chopsticks is a skill others lack, turning on a microwave to cook your food is a skill others lack. "Skills" are abilities you learn, so yes FFXI and almost every game takes "skill" and every player needs to be "skilled" to play.

If you're asking if ffxi takes talent where one player of equal knowledge and practice can play significantly better than another then yes of course. Back in the HNM days this was really obvious, there was always a tank or healer that was better than all the others and was incredibly dependable no matter what happened.

Most will die if they are fighting something powerful and the unexpected happens, top tier players can very often take a catastrophic and unexpected occurrence in their stride and still struggle out a win. You used to see this all the time back in the HNM days because failure (just wipe and recover) was simply not an option, someone else would steal claim.

Back in the day on Dark Ixion I saw a group almost fully wipe and only the ranger remained alive, the ranger used all the skills and gear they had to stay alive until the entire group recovered. They used /nin blink tanking with minimal haste, knowledge of its TP attacks to avoid kill moves (cone on lance etc to circle and not run in a straight line) using shadowbind to get into a kiting position at a wall instead of just blowing it pointlessly, knowing the HNM had move speed so letting it get close enough to trigger tp moves so you can get precious seconds on your shadow timers and then knowing how to react to the moves it would use etc.

This was a HNM they camped for 4-5 hours, this single ranger kept their cool and did something incredibly difficult and they kept claim for 5 minutes alone until the tank ran in and grabbed it, which is an eternity for an NM with move speed and devastating tp moves. Vast majority of HNM players would of failed at this.

I've also seen things like an almost total wipe at Tiamat where only the tank and an rdm were left alive and multiple ads were in play, where everyone had to home point and return (and that was a slow run back). The red mage went all out avesta mode, keeping the tank alive and buffed while controlling multiple VT antlions and corses. The amount of things he had to keep track of, keeping his cool while knowing there was no tryover if he messed up was crazy.

It's far less obvious these days as I said because the consequences for failing are far less but yes ffxi does take skill and talent as a player but it is job dependent. Two players who both put 100 hours into the game and are equally practiced can perform totally differently and one can win while the other fails.

Of what is left in this game and the point of it (really it's getting more/better gear once you reach the end) then you don't need mad skills at all. A party of semi-competent people can do Ambu D each month or any omen boss.
Even Dynamis D now I have messed with it in PuG is not anywhere near as hard as I expected. Had we had more competent DDs (I was parsing 35% damage with 6 DDs present) and only used Savage Blade/Reso/whatever on the boss to avoid skillchains and hence only needed to kill the 2 fetters on the shortest path (Jeuno) then I think we could have cleared it in a PuG.

You don't need skill to win at this game, gear, patience and for most people excessive use of scripting which you can download freely will get you by. The "better" players might get stuff done a bit faster but that doesn't make them skilled, generally just geared better and using more automation.

as intended

"The "better" players might get stuff done a bit faster but that doesn't make them skilled, generally just geared better and using more automation."

The game, as it was designed, and if played as intended, requires skill. There are some nice vids of JPs soloing NMs on vanilla, playing the in-game macro bar like a piano.

If lua actually has THAT MUCH impact to performance, we would see all lua player parse within 5% in the same gears.

That isn't the case at all.

Players will never consistently parse within "%"

Too much luck involved. Laziness. Apathy. "don't need to try that hard"

5% is a reasonable variation between 2 scripted robots playing FFXI, it shouldn't be bigger than 10% if no human error factored in.

Even 5% is high if no major external factors influence it(one scripted melee dying through no fault of it's own while the other lives).

I think that getting anything in the game takes only playtime and patience but getting to top ranking in FPS is hard and takes skill. Mostly because of PC vs NPC and PC vs PC. Every fight in FFXI is basically the same each time.

The game is easy because FFXI doesn't lock not-serious player out of content.

On the topic of skill vs other sayings, would it be more apt to say rather than skill, there's a breaking point between serious and not serious players? Cause we sure did make Omen look hard last night, and I don't think it was for lack of skill, but for lack of give-a-***by half the group.

I don't think it was for lack of skill, but for lack of give-a-***by half the group.

Laziness. Apathy. "don't need to try that hard" Everything that skill isn't.

From my experience, The "better" players in this game isn't THAT MUCH better geared than those who doesn't get stuff done fast, nor "more automation". The amount of well geared people with HQ/REMA/SU3-5 and use lua is incredibly high these days, it's not terribly hard to run into a player with REMA/HQ/SU3-5. But not all has the ability to beat the hardest content in game, and not all has the ability to keep up in terms of indiviual performance in pt.

So yeah, there's certainly something beyond gears and scripts. I would say the ability to clear hard content are 50% social skill unless you 6+ box.