Here's an example of what I mean. So, Gryffes and I had been camping Tzee Xicu the Manifest for a while. We liked camping the beastman gods, it was easy money. Juggernaut made us all rich beyond our wildest dreams. Thank you japan. Anyway, Gryffes sends me a tell, "Nam! Castle O!" So I port out and start heading there. I get on vent and he tells me that it popped but some other LS is fighting it. We decide to go anyway and see what happens.
We get there and the um, Decepticons? were fighting it. Something like 20 fools fighting this one bird. The thing to remember about this guy is his perma en-paralyze. If he hits you, you're going to need paralyna stat. So whm just sit there and wait for the NIN's health to go down. Sure it might be from the stun kick, but it's probably coming, health goes down, flash, paralyna, regen.
So, we sit there and watch these guys get completely destroyed by this guy. It was amazing. In the meantime our funtime bard shows up. Don't remember his name. So, things start looking bad for our transformer friends and they start wiping. So, in desperation they run him out into the center of the room down there and die. This is a poor sportsman like move, but we'd have our revenge.
So, we start pulling a line up to the guy. Kill off most of the mobs on the way up and pull him down to where they were fighting it. 3 people. A bard, a whm, and a ninja. We all had mediocre gear compared to the compensating for lack of content gear you kids have now.
We fight him for some 20 minutes and he gets down to 50%. We all know what'll happen any moment now. I get out of range. All of the decepticons stood around in front of me trying to block my view of what was happening. Why does a whm need to see anything anyway? So, in comes Astral Flow, all the decepticons fry, 20 guys just drop dead. Our Bard goes down and I run in and benediction a critical Gryffes. Problem solved. Raise III bard, bard does haste songs, things get golden again.
20 minutes later we walk out with some **** drops, but a mil or so a piece. A lot of money back then. I suppose it still is because of the dropping of the economy. Tzee Xicu is good for one thing and one thing only. And, you'll probably never see that one thing so it's best not to mention it. Like Voldemort.
This story is a metaphor for what's happened to FFXI. The old players knew what they were doing. They learned the hard way by fighting the Japanese for mobs. The kids now have to fight a bot. There isn't any skill in claiming anymore. You just set your bot and walk off. You don't even have to be in the same zone as the mob.
The new kids can't even do drama right anymore. "LIEK OMG I LOST A **** CHARM TO SMONE I DDINT KNEWS."
Sigh.