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Home What the hell was that? updates

Final Fantasy XI boss causes vomiting, takes 18 hours to beat
7:55 PM on 08.12.2008, Joseph Leray 80 comments

Final Fantasy XI boss causes vomiting, takes 18 hours to beat photo
     What the hell was that?

A few months ago, 1up ran a story detailing a Square Enix-produced strategy for Final Fantasy XI's toughest boss, the ridiculously-titled Absolute Virtue. More recently, at the Premier Site Summit event in late July, Sage Sundi, the Global Online Producer and Lead Game Master for Final Fantasy XI, claimed that the Absolute Virtue battle takes about 18 hours.

Yeah, you read that right. There's a boss in Final Fantasy XI that takes 18 hours. This raises a few questions, the least of which is WTF. Secondly, why would anyone spend 18 hours on one boss? There's a reason I will never understand MMOs, and this is it. Nevertheless, the linkshell (like a guild or clan) Beyond the Limitation has since beaten Absolute Virtue.

A recent update to the game, however, has brought an entirely new set of megabosses along with it. The toughest of these has an equally grandiose moniker: Pandemonium Warden. Never ones to back down from a challenge, Beyond the Limitation took it on, but had to quit after a grueling 18 hours.

Says player Sylphet of BtL: 

People were passing out and getting physically ill. We decided to end it before we risked turning into a horrible new story about how video games ruin people’s lives.

Sylphet also mentions that several members of the linkshell actually vomited over the course of the battle.

With this in mind, Square-Enix' reminder that players shouldn't let Final Fantasy XI interfere with their school, work, families, or physical health -- shown at the beginning of every play session -- seems ironic at best and hypocritical at worst. Square Enix' critics are quick to accuse that these types of time-consuming challenges are simply an attempt to keep players interested and to stem the loss of players that Final Fantasy XI servers have been experiencing recently.  

[Via PetFoodAlpha] 


Next page: More Final Fantasy stories




KMCC's Avatar
KMCC at 08/12/2008 19:55
WTF Indeed.
funran's Avatar
funran at 08/12/2008 19:56
it's linkshell, not limitshell.
Jon2309's Avatar
Jon2309 at 08/12/2008 19:57
They should seriously scrap that boss. Someone will be "hardcore" enough to end up really ill as a result.
Joseph Leray's Avatar
Joseph Leray at 08/12/2008 19:57
@Funran -- shit! You're right! Thanks. :)
Xhumation's Avatar
Xhumation at 08/12/2008 19:59
WTF?

That's why I can't get into MMO's some of us like to have lives between videogames
-PL-'s Avatar
-PL- at 08/12/2008 20:04
I really don't like FFXI... they make the game take a long time just for the sake of taking a long time, ultimately to squeeze more monthly fees out of people.

Note that I didn't say the game is HARD, the game is actually very easy. Characters get very few abilities (except mages with spells), and once you figure out how to do your job, it's basically just a mindless grind where you repeat the same thing over and over for hours. People tend to confuse difficulty with tedium when talking about FFXI.
TheDespised's Avatar
TheDespised at 08/12/2008 20:11
And ya thought this site was hardcore? Compared to that it's the Girl Scouts over here.
TheDespised's Avatar
TheDespised at 08/12/2008 20:11
And ya thought this site was hardcore? Compared to that it's the Girl Scouts over here.
Aex's Avatar
Aex at 08/12/2008 20:14
It sounds awesome... but it isn't. You'd think a battle that takes 18 hours would be chock full of surprises and fun times... but no, it's just chock full of people doing the same thing and switching in and out of the alliance when their turn to do damage is up...

Basically... What -PL- said... Most encounters are the same thing, the bosses hit harder, there is no real way to mitigate the damage sides throwing bodies at the thing, and the risk(time) vs reward absolutely sucks balls... When tiamat was first downed it dropped a single fire crystal. In wow terms, a 5+ hour battle = 12 copper
007's Avatar
007 at 08/12/2008 20:22
It would have been more hardcore if a few of them shit their pants for the sake of not leaving their chairs.
pendelton21's Avatar
pendelton21 at 08/12/2008 20:29
So Matt and Trey speak the truth...people DO play MMOs like that!!!!
TheDirtyHobo's Avatar
TheDirtyHobo at 08/12/2008 20:40
Absolute Virtue was added in the Chains of Promathia expansion (not Wings of the Goddess), he's about 4-5 years old now, and people still haven't figured out a way to consistently beat him. All the ways that people have successfully killed him were using random luck of him not using certain abilities, or using terrain glitches to make him unable to fight back, which have since been patched up and made impossible.

Some linkshells have had solid attempts on him lasting over 24 straight hours, 18 hours really isn't much to write a report over. He's basically impossible to beat, though the FFXI Dev team has insisted through the years that there's a trick we're not using that makes him doable. You'd figure that after 5 years of searching someone would've either figured out the trick or it leaked from the dev team. Naturally he drops one of the most useful items in the game, so people are constantly trying to kill him.
mix's Avatar
mix at 08/12/2008 20:41
Does it mention the 1056 hours it takes to walk there?

Prime example of why I steer clear of MMO games as I have no desire to spend 18 hours, let alone 2 hours, on a single boss.
Joseph Leray's Avatar
Joseph Leray at 08/12/2008 20:45
@Hobo -- thanks for the correction. The MMO enthusiast press can be a little dense if you're not familiar with MMOs. :(
F Whipple's Avatar
F Whipple at 08/12/2008 20:54
wow...i have lost my faith in humanity
Monte's Avatar
Monte at 08/12/2008 20:56
Ah, i remember FFXI... level 55 paladin fighting crawlers in the tunnels late one night with a party repeating the same line of commands over and over again... and that's when it hit me, "what the hell am i doing?!", "this isn't fun", "why am i spending hours grinding(not to mention the hours to get a party) to gain a single level when it isn't even fun"... few weeks later said good bye to the linkshell, got rid of my account, and was finally free from it's evil...

I have played FFXI and i do not understand why i kept playing or why anyone else would want to play it (addictive personality maybe)... the idea of fighting the same monster for 18 hours just repeating a string of commands utterly baffles me... honestly, i would think that those guys would die of boredom before they became physically sick
TurboSpaz's Avatar
TurboSpaz at 08/12/2008 21:00
Fuck.
That.
Shit.
Fronz's Avatar
Fronz at 08/12/2008 21:10
My jaw dropped.

What Hobo wrote in the comments makes me want to finally play that game for the first time, it sounds nuts.
Flakor's Avatar
Flakor at 08/12/2008 21:18
What...how would you? Mana?

God, why would you even make a boss like that.
keener's Avatar
keener at 08/12/2008 21:20
i used to play this game. like what others said, it sounds like it could be this crazy long adventure, but it isnt.

it such a pain in the ass to even get AV to pop, let alone give it a good attempt. you have to have SO many people willing to throw SO much time and effort at it, its ridiculous. the reason no one has found the "trick" in the last 4 years is because it takes SOOO much just to get an attempt on this guy that NO ONE is willing to "experiment" on a new way to do damage or pop him or what have you.

could it be something like making sure you kill the minibosses that lead to his pop in a specific order, specific way, specific day of the in-game week, or moon phase? it could be any combination of those things, but when you need 40+ people to ALL get together and sacrifice 12+hrs on an attempt (when its not even guaranteed he will be there) it is an exercise in frustration at its best.

the game is good, i loved it. but when youve played end-game for a while it becomes love-hate. you have a lot of nostalgia for the lowlevels and learning the ropes, the friends and the first times of stuff... but when you spend 3hrs at a time sitting in the middle of nowhere waiting for a pop, competing with other linkshells for pop items, and wrangling dozens of people with different personalities, schedules and agendas just to have the chance to maybe piss away tens of hours only to wipe at 1%... it loses its charm.

these experiences are far from fun... the only payoff is bragging rights and 1 of a kind drops... and then the arguments of who gets/deserves what start...

UGH.
twesterm's Avatar
twesterm at 08/12/2008 21:21
@Flakor
You have people just constantly rotating in and out of the alliance (big group)

FFXI = pure awesome.

If only I still had the time to play it. ;_;
Rucksack's Avatar
Rucksack at 08/12/2008 21:23
That really doesn't sound enjoyable.
Unicorn's Avatar
Unicorn at 08/12/2008 21:24
why not just set up macros or have bots do it? if it works in WoW... why not some shitty grindfest final fantasy style?
Edarios's Avatar
Edarios at 08/12/2008 21:28
wow..I used to be a hardcore raider in WoW a few years back, i remember nights when we'd be wiping periodically in the same dungeon for 8-9 hours straight..

MMO's like WoW and FFXI are like crack to some people, you get addicted, and you're willing to physically suffer for virtual loot that's just going to be replaced in a few months by the next new thing.
Maxxthepenguin's Avatar
Maxxthepenguin at 08/12/2008 21:45
Ok so, here's what you need to know about Pandemonium Warden

First off, this is the 3rd known attempt. The first two weren't nearly as successful, they wiped about 1 hour in the first time and 5 hours the second time. He is very hard to pop and it requires a lot of luck and effort to do so. He also seems to drop some powerful items (we know of the items, he's the only place left for them to drop.)

He spawns as a big grinning demonic monster in a floating chair called a Dvergr. He immediately spawns 10 Pandemonium Lamps.

Then, he changes into a big robot Chariot type mob. The Lamps turn into gears. You have to defeat the 10 gears (each with huge amounts of HP and nasty Area of Effect attacks) because they will destroy you if you don't. Then you have to get his HP to 0.

Then he repops as another slightly different Chariot and does so 3 more times

Then he repops, in turn, as 15 other bosses. After killing those, each of which took one of the most skilled groups in the game 45-2h, he repops as the Dvergr. Then you get his HP to 75% and he restores his HP to 100% and spawns a second set of monsters, this time avatars (Ifrit, Shiva, etc), that immediately do huge AoE damage. This is when BtL was all vomiting and stuff from going 18 hours on this totally shitty monster. They were prepared for a long fight... Just not this. Now we are sending letters and stuff to SE because, frankly, we're really annoyed.

That said, only pandemonium warden and absolute virtue take anybody over 2 hours to kill. Dynamis, an entire event, can take up to 3h30. And yes, that fucking sucks.
Sir Unimaginative's Avatar
Sir Unimaginative at 08/12/2008 21:48
Wow. A tied gold medal in the insanity Olympics.

Seriously, if you have to resort to bosses so hard they make your PLAYERS physically ill, it's time to pack it in.
Maxxthepenguin's Avatar
Maxxthepenguin at 08/12/2008 21:52
Oh, and though BtL DID beat Absolute Virtue, it did so with the help of glitches that have since been fixed, so AV is also a an unsolved mystery type thing... of course, PW is 2 months old and AV is 3 years old.

Btw, Sage Sundi, one of the producers of FFXI, DID say AV can take up to 18 hours. That's when the FFXI community officially gave up on AV.
king3vbo's Avatar
king3vbo at 08/12/2008 22:18
As a hardcore MMO player, let me say this:

FUCKING STUPID
NihonTiger90's Avatar
NihonTiger90 at 08/12/2008 22:46
Square Enix, you are a bunch of sick shits. That is all.
Colette Bennett's Avatar
Colette Bennett at 08/12/2008 22:47
Every once in a while, I used to consider going back to this game, but reading this pretty much confirmed for me that I don't ever want to do that. If that's the pinnacle of what I can achieve, I think I'll just spend my 28 hours in the real world instead. Doing something that doesn't induce vomiting.
nerpin's Avatar
nerpin at 08/12/2008 22:57
What Colette said.

I know asian MMOs love their long, tedious grinds but...ye gods.
MnM333's Avatar
MnM333 at 08/12/2008 23:05
Maxx said it best. I'd like to also mention that there's a multitude of other ways to spend your time within this game. This isn't some linear progression you need to do to "beat the game". There is no end unless the servers eventually shutdown or you end up quitting. Absolute virtue and PW drop about 6 or so items each.

I remember making a fuss about Linkshells taking over 6 hours to beat Tiamat in the past. Nowadays most folk kill it within an hour very easily.

Again, I'd like to state that your game experience is entirely dependent on what you want it to be. Rukenshin and Sylphet both have a linkshell that enjoy documenting these things.
kintaeb's Avatar
kintaeb at 08/12/2008 23:11
For those of you saying that you steer clear of MMO's because of this, really WoW is nothing like this. The longest I have spent in an entire dungeon is 6 hours and that was several bosses. The only reason dungeons in WoW take a long time is that you wipe. Most bosses in WoW take no more than 15 minutes, some exceptions go over that.
Roth's Avatar
Roth at 08/12/2008 23:25
This is the most ridiculous and moronic thing I've ever heard for a game. I really can't think of the words to express what I think of this, actually.
Rainbowblack's Avatar
Rainbowblack at 08/12/2008 23:30
that game is the mother of all timesinks

you have to hit around and twiddle your thumbs for 4 hours just to get a chocobo licence

god i miss that game and how i spent an entire week farming silk just to buy a peice of armor that would last me 6-7 levels
Twisted Imp's Avatar
Twisted Imp at 08/12/2008 23:33
I stopped reading when after the typo "reson".
But honestly, that's nucking futs.
dephect's Avatar
dephect at 08/12/2008 23:37
I just drank some Mountain Dew.
aaronf's Avatar
aaronf at 08/12/2008 23:48
In other news, Square developers have a new hobby of sitting around laughing at the losers with no life who try to take on 18+ hour boss encounter.

If that boss ever gets downed, it will be the most notorious case of ninja looting ever.
Black Uroborus's Avatar
Black Uroborus at 08/12/2008 23:49
Between waiting 3 hours before getting into a party, the amount of time it took leveling up, chocobos and trying so hard NOT to lose 5 levels while partying with idiots (one of which was a white mage who thought he could tank goblins), it just became way more of a time sink than any other game ever did for me. I was considering going back to it for some reason, but this article completely destroyed that. I think I'm better off pursuing my degree rather than pixelated bragging rights of self mutilation.
JJ Rage's Avatar
JJ Rage at 08/13/2008 00:00
I love FFXI, but if my Linkshell ever asked me to go fight Absolute Virtue, I'd tell them to go suck a cock. Lucky for me, my linkshell is filled with mostly people that have at least some sort of social life.
Maxxthepenguin's Avatar
Maxxthepenguin at 08/13/2008 00:07
A few random things:

The rest of the game is NOT like AV or PW. You know those raids in WoW that are 6 hours? Yeah, the 3.5 hour is the longest for a single event, and that's the oldest event. A lot of the newer, more interesting events are much shorter. The bosses that take longer than 15 minutes are outside of raid type things, they are "go here, fight this" monsters.

There is no pinnacle achievement. There just isn't.

That's how weird the existence of AV and PW are.
RAB's Avatar
RAB at 08/13/2008 00:08
in after wtf
Cube's Avatar
Cube at 08/13/2008 00:24
I played ff11 until level 75 black mage was done.

that game demands perfection from everybody or death.

boss fights are epic and damn if it is not panic enough just to get to the boss is some places is an ordeal having to sneak around not to wake the monsters that wil group togeather and kill you and your enitre party in one hit.
Aurain's Avatar
Aurain at 08/13/2008 00:29
Alot of things in Final Fantasy XI require a long time to do them, that is just ridiculous though.
Cube's Avatar
Cube at 08/13/2008 00:38
And as for the boss

I tried bim Everybody who has ever played the game has considered him not killable.

but every body takes a stab at it.

we lasted 3 hours until our group started to fall apart. one guys goes AFK and that is it.
Cube's Avatar
Cube at 08/13/2008 00:42
Oh and one more thing

And he is what is called a NM notorious monster.


rare random monster that pop up if you are lucky.

they usualy drop good stuff or are just there to randomly be stronger than everybody else and kill everything that moves when It comes up.

it is entirely optional they choose to do it, and since they would all have to be the best to even stand like 30 minutes they have already finished the game.


this is like a end game secret easter egg that is never ment to be finshed for people done with the game.
TheDirtyHobo's Avatar
TheDirtyHobo at 08/13/2008 04:16
It's not really like this boss is an instanced fight that you can walk up and do any time, he's basically the summit of the entire system that he's in. In order to even fight him, you have to farm certain monsters in the area, which pop a boss which has a chance of dropping an item which let's you pop the next tier of boss, which in turn drops the items to pop the semi-final boss, which has a chance of popping Absolute Virtue (right after the previous boss dies, it doesn't drop an item but pops it immediately).

You would have to be Kaeko to honestly think that AV is beatable with the current amount of information we have, because player skill definitely isn't the issue. Aside from the loot, the only reason people really even attempt him any more is just for the possible fame of beating him.
randombullseye's Avatar
randombullseye at 08/13/2008 05:59
Anyone else get reminded of the final battle in the South Park Warcraft episode?

The only way I would play Final Fantasy XI is if someone paid me to do so. Even then I doubt I would play it to the point of an 18 hour boss.
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