I rarely ask.... I generally will go to any party and see how it's going. People that have played with me enough know that if the party is not going great, I'll just close FFXI and find something else to do.

I do agree though, it was extremely common on retail. I don't think twice if someone asks me when I'm making a pt... and if it's someone that I know is stupid, or they are like rank 1 and we're high level.. I'm probably going to ask for setup. I've had a few respond like you've gotten when I've asked, and I don't really understand it.

Everyone's allowed to go waste time in a shitty party, it's their time. I'm not sure why you feel entitled to waste my time too, though.

_________________
yikes

Fixed for you.

_________________
Fruitpunch - best BLM75 taru trollster you'll ever find.

Most of the time, I don't care to ask. As a 62 BLM i got a party invite for Bird camp in Bhaflau. All i did was cast Stone, Dia and Bio to spell lock the birds. I got fantastic skillups and the exp was better than sitting in Bastok seeking. FWIW; the Party make up was BRD, THF, THF, PLD BLM and while we didn't do insanely awesome exp, we hit chain 6 numerous times and i got skill ups out the ass. You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit.

I'd say the failed parties I've been in were 50% bad players and 50% shitty setup. I've had double BST parties go as good as typical setups and I've had mostly meta setups that go bad on the first pull, and people tilt and don't recover. Either way, you can just make a shitty excuse or straight up leave without saying, "this setup sucks and so do you".

Some jobs have power spikes because of skills and weapons at certain levels and I won't even pretend I have a good grasp on what jobs are good at what level ranges so much that I would judge the setup before we start XPing. I'm not saying you should never worry about setup, and everyone values their own time differently, I just feel like I didn't lose out too much over the course of my 75 grind to make questioning the setups worth it.

Since you asked: I got to 75 as RDM on this server, with no retail experience, and the godmode XP I was referring to was 3 relic DD, 2 BRD and me on RDM with just one PL IIRC. Rings were active and I capped my merits to 10 in under two hours. Going back to birds at Misareaux the next week felt like pulling teeth.

I personally don't ask UNLESS i'm in the middle of doing something with my flag up(ie. farming/camping an NM etc). In which case i would be determining if it's worth leaving what i'm doing to come to said exp party. However, if you're just sitting around in your mog house touching your dick with your flag up and you're still enough of a dbagger to ask for a setup before joining and looking for yourself... you don't deserve the exp you'd get anyways. My invites are always similar to this; "Experience points party <area> level sync bla do you need it @x/x W/PL". I've literally had someone reply asking for my setup and when i replied with "Do you want exp or not?" i was told.. "I'm basically a BiS samurai with my own PL, so i deserve to ask your setup".... He was a Taru... and was far from spectacular... AND his "PL" was a galka rdm with like 450mp that he didn't even know how to use... Short and simple, some people are dicks. Some people just want to know if it's worth their time. Judge for yourself.

_________________

Hi Achillies(sp?), seems you're still BIG MAD. My PL has 727mp and my SAM is still basically BiS.

You also didn't include the level of the party in your initial invite.

Edit: what about my gear wasn't BiS at the time besides no Rajas or Valkyrie's Mask?

Final Edit: I have 473 MP naked, does this mean you caught me PLing with a Cassie/Physical Earring on my Galka?

_________________

This society is really tryin me, ain't no hide and seek
I hide to be far from anxiety, I need my space,
I need my privacy, I need some signs please,
You're all too loud you don't speak quietly, opinions violently.
Deft/Drop

sounds like a job for the gimp thread

_________________
yikes

Max mp isn't that important, mp recovery drags the total pool out to be much larger and the difference in max mp is dwarved