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.
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
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.
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.
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
What Hobo wrote in the comments makes me want to finally play that game for the first time, it sounds nuts.
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.
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. ;_;
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.
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.
Seriously, if you have to resort to bosses so hard they make your PLAYERS physically ill, it's time to pack it in.
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.
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.
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
If that boss ever gets downed, it will be the most notorious case of ninja looting ever.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

surf dtoid with 

Rising (10+)
People you follow














follow


