1. A history of FFXI through COP:
. He was part of a 30 year plan since they fought him 30 years ago. And, again, the Zilart were using him for their means the whole time.
3. I wonder why there are no monk tanks in qufim?
4. There are no "other endgame examples of exactly that in pre-toau."
Well since it doesn't matter whether there is a single world or multiple instances of the whole world lets just have one party in an instance of each zone. It's the same experience....
5. The shadow lord fight was introduced when the level cap in the game was 50. I'm sure it was hard then (before US release). ROZ was the first expansion with a 75 cap and most of the boss fights needed level 75s, who were rarer at the time, due to the increased difficulty. You had to go from 50-75 for those missions. COP changed everything a bit with the level caps that increased as you accomplished missions so you had to go back and get your lvl 30, 40, 50, gear. Again, COP was an inrease in difficulty over the previous games and continued that tradition. TOAU was introduced, again with a 75 cap and did nothing new the way the previous games did. Lots of people were already level 75.
Grahf wrote:
1. The Shadow Lord was being used by the Zilart to drain the power from....something so that they could go to heaven or some place like that. The Shadow Lord was part of the Zilarts plot for the past 30 years. The Zilart Kam'lamaut fought the Shadow Lord in the great war but that was just a sham. Him fighting the shadow lord in the present game was also just a sham. It was something to do with the final ROZ fight that started the reaction in Delkfutt's Tower. And then COP deals more with the Zilart. All three games went back to the Zilart.
2. TOAU did make them more prominent.
3. Ridiculous
4. Yes I do know how instances work... The zone of south gustaberg is an open world for anyone to go into. If anyone goes in that zone they will see everyone else who is in that zone. It's not like that in modern MMOs that vare heavily instanced where it's just you and a group in a particular instance of that zone or world. Sitting around and waiting to enter a BCNM for the party before you to finish is not the same as five different groups being in different instances of the same zone. Spending 30 minutes in Salvage with virtually anyone else you can get to come with you while multiple other parties do the same thing in the same zone (but different instance as you) is basically modern dungeon runs. This is not the same as BCNMs where you get 2-5 very specific other people together who want the same items from the fight to trade in their much rarer beastmen seals and go to a area where virtually no one else is going to be. But if other people happen to be there they will be waiting.
5. Virtually no one solod the shadow lord. Like maybe 1% of the server population solod the shadow lord... I never had any trouble with a single TOAU mission and I can't speak for other people.
asuranknight wrote:
1. Neither did rise of the zilart nor CoP have anything to do with the shadow lord, in fact they had even LESS to do with thim than ToAU did because they explain exactly nothing about him and are more about the ancient races and the gods, the shadow lord there is how you put it... whispered in passing? After the first cs that ties the end of the shadow lord into zilart there is nothing to do with him. In ToAU it at least directs you to his origin and goes into explaining the origins of the kindred (which the shadow lord is as are the demons that surround him).
2. Sly gave you a list of them, and as said they were not uncommon AT ALL before ToAU. Once again you are mistaking your experience for reality. Very few mobs would prove resistant to the way mana burns work, and they were very efficient parties... they didnt come around because of ToAU, ToAU just made them more prominent.
3. This is completely false, again just because YOU didn't know of them doesn't mean they didn't exist. Monks have and had access to a fair amount of -pdt, had high hp, and did a fair amount of damage. They worked perfectly fine as off tanks and would be used on occasion (merit is easy because the mobs die fast and you didnt really need a maxed out defensive tank).
4. You clearly don't know what instance means. There is AN instance of the zone south gustaberg, players being able to enter and exit that INSTANCE is irrelevant to it being an instance. Is it the common usage of the term? No. But the only difference between an instance of a regular zone of ffxi and an instance like assault is who is allowed to enter it. The reason why they are called instances is to distinguish that there IS more than one but even a single one is still an instance. Further, you failed to point out where the difference of importance is between having a limited number of instances (having to wait til the instance is cleared) and not. To the player the experience is the same, you go in with your party and only your party.
5. The shadow lord wasn't even hard before ToAU, you could solo the fight. Again, ToAU was comparable in difficulty to zilart (moderate intricacy). Zilart did have divine might and the like but those are not part of the missions. I can't think of a zilart fight that was notably more difficult than the harder points in ToAU (and the ToAU areas were notably more dangerous than were the areas that Zilart took place in with the exception of sky).
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1. The shadow lord was shoehorned into the zilart plot as a way to get it started. He was not part of a 30 year plan (the cs actually states him as secondary to the actual plan), he wasn't anything meaningful, he has very little to do with the plan at all. As said, he plays literally no part after the first cs.
2. I never denied that it made them more prominent but your entire argument on the point was that ToAU made them, which it did not.
3. Try it in game now, its just as viable on nasomi assuming -pdt works the same way and that is really saying something since here defense is much more critical thanks to a retail update to the formula (hint, -damage taken% is the most potent way to reduce damage why you don't see its possible even when the game mechanics itself support the idea is beyond me). Thats part of why rdm tanks were also a thing, if geared with good -pdt gear many jobs have viable damage reduction capacity.
4. Not a valid response given the other endgame examples of exactly that in pre-toau. So regardless of if there are multiple or just one you get exactly the same experience you just gave.
5. I really doubt your "nobody did it!" comment because it wasn't even a hard solo. If you move past solo, any number of players over that make the fight not a problem at all. The fight was harder at levle 60 but it wasn't capped, 2+ 75s and its a walk in the park. I ran the fight somewhere around 9 times (3 for myself, 6 for linkshell members) and not once did we bring more than 3 or 4 (and that many was because we were bringing more than one person who needed the mission). As for ToAU, just look through the actual content, most of the stuff is statistically tougher than Zilart fights (for example, alexander vs eld'narache or w/e his name is the final zilart battle), statistics aren't everything but I maintain that content was comparable (by MY personal experience I didn't have any major issues with zilart either but again thats pure personal experience).