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Ever since the introduction of the ZNM system in the last update, players have been spending their time going up the ZNM tiers in order to gain access to one of the most difficult enemies in Final Fantasy XI: Pandemonium Warden. But we have only heard of a few accounts of the fight which talk about PW changing into different forms along with the Pandemonium Lamps.
The LS “Beyond the Limitation” on Seraph has given Pandemonium Warden a great attempt and even after EIGHTEEN hours, was unable to defeat this monster.
This begs the question “How Long is Too Long?”
We’ve recently learned from the Premier Site Summit that Sage Sundi believes the Absolute Virtue fight to take eighteen hours (or less if you’re lucky). Could it be possible that with the introduction of this new endgame NM system that they decided to add another extremely difficult NM?
BtL had gone through twenty possible forms of the Pandemonium Warden. Some of the forms alone took a few hours to defeat. But the many forms of this monster aren’t the worst thing to come from this fight. After the fight had raged on for 18 hours Sylphet from BtL had posted this in the BG Forums:
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 has also informed me that several members of BtL actually ended up vomiting by the end of the night from their intense focusing with no breaks for 18 hours.
I think with the recent AV news and now the news of how long PW fights are lasting (without defeating the NM) It might be time to remind Square-Enix of their own message.
Right now the members of Beyond the Limitation just wish Square-Enix to carefully consider their own warning that shows up before a user is able to log into the game.
Hopefully enough people will voice their opinions about these long battles that will make Square-Enix rethink their endgame monster design to include a battle that is still very challenging, but doesn’t require you to spend almost an entire day to defeat.
We are one of very few LS who have killed AV (not using the wall trick) so we know quite well what is futile and what is not. None of us doubt that PW can be killed. We just call into question exactly what the development team thinks is reasonable from human beings.
-Sylphet
This is also the round table disccusion for this week. Please post in our forums and let your voice be heard here.
A member of Btl has updated their Live Journal with an entry detailing the fight and helping to clear up any confusion people may have. View it here.
We would also like to remind those commenting to keep it clean. You can get your point across without using a bunch of cursing.
August 11th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
To endure 18 hours of battle and sacrifice your day (and health) to doing this is the ultimate signal from Square Enix that they despise their paying customers.
If they want people to have full and productive lives and then require these same people to sit at their gaming rig for 18+ hours to fight, is in a word “ludicrous:.
This just further solidifies my opinion about SE and their lack of respect for all of the customers…..
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2. OmiAugust 11th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
OMG… physically ill…
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3. ZamesAugust 11th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
some would say it’s what players want, if you look at other online games that have there 18-20hour fights. i don’t do this fights but i know alot of ppl that don’t like the boss fights that don’t last 10+
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4. Nick_SeraphAugust 11th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
I can only imagine the amount of stress and physical strain on the mind and body.
Staying awake for that long in front of a computer, while thinking with every passing moment that you are close to beating that new monster only to have it all come crashing down when you just completely hit your mental limits and become physically ill. . .
I’m not sure what kind of message Square Enix is trying to give to its players at all.
However if there is a message, it is a very negative one, to actually put out something such as this and actually have a group of fellow gamers fight it for more than 12 hours and reap no reward whatsoever is terrible.
The warning that we see from each meticulously-placed message above our “Play” button is nothing but a cautionary pause for SE, and a disgruntled sigh from the players from their knowledge that some events in this game are nothing but a thorn in players’ sides.
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5. BillAugust 11th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
SE has gone out of their way to alienate the players. The way they do interviews proves it. The japanese interviewers get full answers to their questions, the rest of the world gets nothing but “I don’t know” and “we won’t tell you, learn it for yourself”. It makes it look like they don’t even know how their own game works. It isn’t surprising that they’re increasing the time sink factor of FFXI to keep people playing. They are hemoraging users so badly, that this type of time commitment was the only thing they could think of to keep people playing.
The vague and dismissive answers they give is the main reason I gave up. Dealing with SE employees, like Lyman Tuttle and William Bisby, trying to get ANY support have left such a bad taste for me, I’ll never buy another square-enix product again.
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6. Brandon BrownAugust 11th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Honestly i wish people would stop complaining. If you cant handle that long of a fight, DONT DO IT!! There are plenty of other bosses that you can fight that will give just as good gear. But if you decide to fight this monster dont complain when you fight it for 18 hours and lose cause you dont know how to beat it.
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7. YumichanAugust 11th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
wow 18 hours is just wrong, i would say like 6 hours or so should be the borderline
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8. Weesol of RamuhAugust 11th, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I do believe that this fight, and the AV fight are both beyond the physical and mental endurance of most players. SE’s reminder to not forget your friends, family, work and life seems to be misplaced when confronted with this hard evidence.
As to Post #6: There will always be players who wish to beat the hardest monsters in a game. It can be considered the pinnacle of ones efforts. SE is blatantly abusing this desire and placing ridiculous obstacles in the way that are nothing more than overtly time consuming. This should not be confused with “Challenging Fights”
It is not a “Challenging Fight” to force players to grind through 18+ hours in one sitting. That is simply abuse of your customer base and of your brand. SE should seriously reconsider the ramifications of this, before someone is seriously injured in the process of attempting to marathon through the defeat of this or any other video game ‘challenge’.
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9. DirtywhiteboyAugust 11th, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Brandon Brown: GTFO. FFXI is a largely elitist game in the endgame perspective. Introducing the best (and i say BEST because nothing else will give “just as good gear” as you put it) gear in the game, and requiring a group of some of the best players out there (yes, im on seraph) fully prepared with relic weapons etc to actually become physically ill during a fight to have a chance at winning? This isn’t about “do it” or “don’t do it”, for most of these guys its the only thing in the game they haven’t done yet. If the only thing after HNM and sky/sea that Square Enix has to offer is to make people physically ill, this really is becoming a dead game. Not to mention all the flak they take for Absolute Virtue and their total BS video of “how they beat it” cut into shreds…I just cannot bring understanding to why they would do this. If there isn’t a gimmick to beating this thing, SE has outdone themselves in the most horrible of ways. To make a long story short, why would you “NOT COMPLAIN WHEN YOU FIGHT FOR 18 HOURS FOR NOTHING”? “you dont know how to beat it?” well who’s gonna try 5 or 6 18 hour fights until vomiting until they figure something out? That’s the most ignorant thing i’ve ever heard.
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10. OrtizAugust 11th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
@Brandon
You should read up on the fight a little more before you judge, because you’re as far from the fact of the situation as possible. No one knew the fight would take anywhere near that long, and it’s not about ‘not knowing how to beat it.’
Everything went as it should, and that’s how the fight is. No one knew it would be that kind of a fight until that LS tried it, and the problem was that they reached a point where they found it would take another 5 hours to beat and decided against it.
By your logic no one should try anything new or attempt to figure any NM out, on the off chance that it ends up being something they can’t figure out/ends up taking more hours to do than it should. But the NM was figured out, and now it’s a matter of it just being utterly ridiculous… Which is what people here are complaining about.
The problem isn’t with the people, it’s with the NM.
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11. MarkAugust 11th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
It’s also important for SE to understand that difficulty and challenge factor of encounters with toughest NMs shouldn’t be raised only with lenght of the battles. Useful hints and tips are great too, of course theres alot of fun in discovering them alone but where is the limit? AV is 4 years long and all we got is some useless info that nobody can make anything of, isn’t it time for SE to finally cooperate and communicate with playerbase or will we have to wait another 4 years to see next not so obvious video?
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12. FalcorAugust 11th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Yea that is a pretty absurd amount of time to spend on ONE mob. Why didn’t they just make a bunny called Undefeatable Peter Cottontail. That woulda been way more entertaining than an 18 hour demon in a chair who changes on you. But I’m pretty sure the key to defeating this guy is…..get a Beastmaster to charm AV then sick him on it.
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13. DrakesonAugust 11th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Honestly… I applaud SE for doing it… Everyone is so touchy about having hard battles… If we wanna play an easy game we can play WoW… Now about the length of the fight… So get more people and do it in shifts… I am sure thats what SE was thinking when they made it. Yeah 18+ hours seems rediculous… But also remember the gear may be insane… Like remember when we all first got to Kirin… It was 36-40 people to fight and took 4 or 5 hours… Now I have heard of 16 people doing it in like an hour and a half. Kirin didn’t get nerfed… we got better… SE has arguably the hardest MMORPG out there… If you want the easy button Log onto WoW create a rogue and spam sinister strike til it dies… Just my 2 cents…
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14. JimmyAugust 11th, 2008 at 9:40 pm
SE, and anyone that thinks this fight is acceptable really, when exactly are people supposed to eat? Or go to the bathroom? Yes, an 18 hour fight is definetely going to be very intense, very dificult. But the question for SE.. is making gear so hard to obtain more important than your customers health? What are you going to do as a company, when one of the players die from trying to stay up for this fight, without a break for food, water, or going to the bathroom.
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15. Brandon BrownAugust 11th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I am aware that no one knew it was going to be this long, however i am sure there are was to make the fight not so long. but i understand wanting elitist gear however… to get the best gear in the game, you have to be the most hardcore players in he game. just think, the dev. team had to sit there and record beating AV so honestly its not like they havent done it themselves.
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16. XambaAugust 11th, 2008 at 11:54 pm
I agree 100% with SE making challenges for the players along the way, but 18+ hours for a fight is just ridiculous. I laugh every time I log into the game and see the “Public Service Announcement” of not forgetting real life. As for PW and AV it already takes alot of time and energy to get the pop items needed to spawn these mobs. After all that work to only find out that you have to sacrifice yourself for a video game is crazy, there is no “pause” button on this game. We as a player base should be enjoying the game. I agree with making the fights hard and challenging, but they shouldn’t go over a few hours at most. Also SE should consider having the possiblity of some gear or items drop into the treasure pool during the fight. That way if something happens at 18+ hours into the fight at least it isn’t a total loss.
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17. TherinAugust 12th, 2008 at 12:01 am
Yay for time sinks!
A fixed Warden and Absolute Virtue would make me very happy. :(a
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18. EvangelonAugust 12th, 2008 at 12:46 am
well i understand SE’s desire to keep the game challenging and i also think that 18+ hours is not an imposable feet, i just think SE needs to come about it in a different way. For instance why not have diferent rewards for fighting him for a certain amount of time, the gear could get better for longer attempts and eventually you could get the ultimate gear for killing it. but now that people know to prepare for the long haul i do not think it will be long before we see this dude go down.
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19. FantoneAugust 12th, 2008 at 1:21 am
18+ hours to do something in this game? I’m sorry that is an impossibility for me. It saddens me to think Square Enix (whom seem to be so “for the players”) would allow this to be. I pay my monthly FFXI bill and it chokes me with rage ( lol ) to think i physically can’t do these contents I’m paying for every month. what a crock.
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20. MalkavionAugust 12th, 2008 at 5:13 am
I understand that some things in MMOs will be unobtainable to some people like casual players. Not everyone can beat every monster.
But when a Linkshell with multiple relic weapons who can take out any monster in this game at the drop of a hat (besides AV and PW) can’t beat this thing after 18 hours, something is horribly wrong. Sage Sundi said that AV is beatable in 18 hours, less if you are “lucky”. These monsters are not broken, they are unrealistic.
Yes, this is just a game, if you don’t like it don’t play it. But this is just a game which shouldn’t push it’s paying customers to the breaking point or to the point of physical/mental/emotional exhaustion even if it is just an extreme option not meant for everyone.
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21. GuildedAugust 12th, 2008 at 9:05 am
This is a message to SE (mostly):
If I was in BLT, by the end of that fight, I would have promptly logged off, deleted my characters, delete my content Id’s, look up the president of Se, and burn his image in effigy.
This is truely ridiculous! No fight, that is actually meant to be done, should take more time than the average person stays awake throughout a day. SE needs to return to their roots! Look at your own damn message, look at Pandemonium Warden, then look in the mirror. If you can tell me you are not yourselves disgusted, you are the highest form of repulsive out there.
Final fantasy is and online GAME, emphasis on game. Baiting someone with ZMN’s and then, at the climax of the whole ladder, slapping with this atrocity is only hurting SE. People are quitting en mass and it shows. I came back from a year long break not too long ago, and immediately noticed that the very active server I had left was now small and subdued. I think the main reason for this is ridiculous Monsters like Absolute Virtue and PAndemonium Warden.
The concept of difficulty are great on paper. Keep it! Embrace the actual difficulty that we love in this game. However, reject the rediculous amount of HP, and thus time, that NM’s have. Either make the HP smaller, or watch your quarterly profit get smaller. It is your choice.
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22. BillAugust 12th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
The secondary problem is even the reasonably hard mobs have horrible drop rates. How many times have you killed Kirin and gotten nothing but a crystal? We’ve had 9 of those. That can be more than 18 hours wasted by 20+ people over all. Kirin is old content and not a challenge anymore. Just because those hours aren’t contiguous doesn’t make it any less of a problem.
Why should people do the same events again and again and again and again and again and again and again and not ever see the items that most people want. Events like Salvage, Dynamis, Einjerhar, even when done correctly may yield nothing for those participating. Kings are a complete joke when you consider some items can only be obtained maybe 52 times each year. Items like defending ring you’re lucky if your entire server sees 4 each year. I don’t agree with botting, but I completely understand why people use claim bots on content like this.
Our dynamis shell has 3 pld bodies. We started in 2005 and only 3 have dropped. Thf hands we’ve never seen. Events like this stop being fun and many people just give up on the event or the game itself. With such a backlog of people waiting for some of these items there’s no incentive for new people to start playing FFXI. Even trying to get xp for a different job is problematic now because there just aren’t enough people between 37-70.
AV and PW show that SE has run out of real ideas to make things challenging and are now just trying to milk the players stupid enough to continue paying for buggy mobs, horrible drop rates and a dev team/support staff that just doesn’t care. It’s almost as if they’re designing this stuff to make people stop playing. Maybe this is their way of getting people away from FFXI and ready for their new MMO.
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23. OpalflameAugust 12th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
really I think one big thing people should also wory about is if they ever make a boss like that for final expansion . . . pnd 18 hours + or don’t beat the expansion. although I can’t see them being really that cruel
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24. FadianAugust 12th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Also, consider this. The Dev teams knows the secret to AV and the fact they know how AV works and still took them 18 hours to kill doesn’t show much merit. I learned a teacher in any school when giving a test should take it themselves. If they can take the test in a small period of time, then the class can pass that test given enough time. a 2 hour exam for example. if the teach can pass the exam in 45 min. 2 hours is plenty of time to pass for the average student. I’m using this as a analogy.
I am the End Game but I have yet to face any ZNM *wow i’m bad but i’m going to start soon*. Effort put forth should reward equal to those standards. But at what risk?
I have never played a game for more then 9 hours straight *and even at that time I went crazy*. If SE intent is to keep the players playing the game for a period of time, having a 18 hour fight will accomplish that along with law suits, loss of revenue, and moral for upcoming MMO.
Well that’s my 2 cents on this matter. I say it’s bad enough when you have people/linkshells spending 16-20 hours a day, camping NM, doing events because it’s what they do and when get get the gear they can’t enjoy it because their off camping or doing something else.
To camp the 3 kings average 4.5 hours a day. Include Khim, Tiamat, Cerb, King V, KA and other NM’s. Dynamis, Einherjar, Sky, Sea, Popable NM’s, ZNM, Salvage, Missions, Quests, time to take to regain lost XP. Take into considering those aspects. Now with me, We were in a very very active linkshell at one point and on average 10-12 hours a day was covered on those event’s and camps. Take 6-8 hours of sleep, time for food, excersize *for some* Work, School, Family and Friends. At what point do we sacrafice those just to play a game where we can’t enjoy it because it’s just another job.
I hope I get my point across. lol. Sorry for long post. But this is a touchy subject for me because i’ve been there, wasted time and can’t enjoy the game, or do what I want because I’m dedicated to reward those with help camping NM’s.
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25. LyseriaAugust 13th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Where did SE go wrong? I understand the Idea of Creating new and Intresting Bosses, Making things more difficult and Just trying to have a good time. But where do they get off thinking that this form of “Torture” is alright? I say Torture, mainly because thats exactly what it is, pure Torture in its purest form. Giving the Illusion of something that is obtainable, and then turning it into one of the most ridiculous things that could ever happen to a good game.
Secondly, how can a leader manage to keep people playing for this long?! To me thats mind boggling in and of itself. Yeah I understand people have a freewill to decide to keep going, but they also have a freewill to STOP. I don’t care how awesome a gear drop is, theres a place to know when and when you can’t obtain something. But lets break it down farther. Yeah you kill it it, but theres no garuntee on drops. Its all up to chance wether an item of worth will drop. In addition to something dropping… how much argueing would there be about who gets what and when? Seems to me there woulda been a broke linkshell after this if they did manage to kill it.
All in all I beleive this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. SE should feel ashamed for making a monster this strong. 1 AV is enough in my book.
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26. PastryAugust 13th, 2008 at 12:43 am
18 hours for ONE monster is a tad ridiculous.
A single event should never exceed 5 hours, including preparation time.
People have other things to do then devote all of their free time to a single video game.
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27. DrakesonAugust 13th, 2008 at 12:50 am
Blah!!! Everyone is just saying the same thing “Blah blah health, blah blah out of ideas” FIRST OFF PEOPLE! There are TONS of 75s… TONS of them… Many people have multiple 75s… SE (Foolishly since apparently no one in the player base likes to work together “Blah this linkshell blah that linkshell”) probably invisioned a boss that took 24 hours to complete with 100s of players together to beat him… Is it rediculous? YES! But that is part of games… Someone is going to push the envelope of what can and can not be done in games and I for one am glad that it is the MMORPG that I choose to play thats doing it. So the next time someone pops AV or PW maybe they will call friends from other linkshells and the monster can be brought down.
THINK about this! SE was the first and only main stream MMO to just mix all the different countries on the same servers… They I am sure thought “Lets have a monster that people can log in and find out is being fought and come join… Also… I would like to point out this is a pop mob which makes for much more realistic planning around the idea of shifts.
We play MMOs because it is real people interaction, because it is difficult… because they are unlike any other game…
So Once again I applaud SE for making a monster that not only trancedes previously thought difficulty levels but encourages us to truly unite as players of the same game around the world and accomplish not only a first for Final Fantasy 11 but a first in all of gaming.
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28. NakorAugust 13th, 2008 at 1:35 am
Ok starting over. Because it is quite clear some people are not getting it. Does SE have the RIGHT to ask its people to sit down for that long. The right to say we will give you this, you just have to risk your IRL health and well being. Doesn’t matter that some people say yes. Some people say yes to the most self-destructive behavior. Guess what happens? They self-destruct. This isn’t standard complaining about difficult stuff. This is honestly a fight that has been shown to be biologically harmful to attempt. There is a difference between impossible and improbable. And there’s no gimmick that’s gonna make this fight easy enough that you can cut 18 hours to 9, and 9 is still too much, You can’t use a phoenix down and watch it 1 shot and die. If I said I’d give you a million bucks, but you have to stay under water for 3 minutes. I know half the people who would try would drown. They’re stupid for trying. I’m evil for asking and letting them try.
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29. BillAugust 13th, 2008 at 2:53 am
I’ll take drakeson’s bait..
Warden isn’t setup to allow lots of different people around the world to help kill it. You get 18 people, no more. Think of it as a KS99 fight in terms of how people enter the zone to kill it. There’s no way SE could have considered interaction between hundreds of players from around the world, as you have suggested. Either there is a trick to the fight (which SE won’t talk about for years and exemplifies the dismissive treatment of players by SE) or it was meant to annoy the endgame community to give up. You could argue that SE designed the mob and didn’t actually test it before releasing it and the player base is the beta-test team (as players are for all their other “updates”), but that’s a different troll topic.
AV, while allowing for that type of battle, is not designed for that, as their own video showed. The video Square-Enix gave to us, explaining how to kill it, gave us one of 2 possible solutions (and after 3 years, shows just how vague and dismissive SE’s dev team can be). Either you cheat using dev commands (multiple 2hr ability use in under 2hours) or a 10+ hour battle. SE’s own video disproves your theory on how SE designs these mobs.
While I normally welcome interesting trolls, the facts disprove your ideas on SE’s methodology. My ideas that SE is trying to force people to stop playing by making mobs annoying/unbeatable or that SE is out of ideas to make mobs unique and interesting to fight, while slightly trollish, are based more in the facts of the current situation FFXI players face.
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30. DrakesonAugust 13th, 2008 at 8:27 am
PW is a battlefield fight? I was under the understanding that it was open to everyone… And more over… Even in KS99 fights someone could leave the battlefield and the next person could go in. Now it is possible I spoke out of turn if indeed only 18 people can fight him and SE decided to make a monster that takes the SAME 18 people fight for 24 hours straight… But I didn’t think that was the nature of the battle. And I am not trolling I am stating opposition… My goal was not to get flamed lol
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31. KuishenAugust 13th, 2008 at 8:48 am
I’ll agree that AV is still ridiculous, 18 hours is too much.
However, PW is still a very new NM and concept. This is SE we are talking about here, there has to be some tirck or method to shorten the battle time.
If there isn’t, shame on them, if there is, shame on all of you for jumping to conclusions. It’s just a game, so why are all of you getting so angry about it? Nobody is forcing you to go out and fight this mob. And if you’re going to get so bent out of shape that you’re going to quit the game over one aspect of the game that they added (undoubtedly) for ‘hard-core’ gamers, then you really shouldn’t be playing it in the first place.
I honestly feel bad for this linkshell because they did put their all into it and the game, in return, pissed all over them. But you gotta remember, this is all still experimentation. Did they plan for an 18+ hour fight? No. But they had to get to that point to provide us all with the information neccessary to make an informed decision as to whether we should fight it ourselves.
SE always has a method to their madness. Sometimes that method is madness itself. Either way stop acting like children who are pissed off that they got spanked for something. Try something different with the mob. As we’ve seen, brute force obviously isn’t the answer in this fight, and I’m sure SE never intended for people to make it that far into the fight only using said brute force.
But ya never know, they could be the bastards you all make them out to be. We won’t know until somebody beats the thing now will we?
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32. CizuzAugust 13th, 2008 at 11:17 am
I applaud SE for doing this.
This needs to be done more often, and longer.
There is no problem with it, if you want the monster to be a real challange, other then hitting high, or forms, or attacks, or random, or any of that bullshit, make it long. The longer the better, fatigue sets in, people start to get ill, it becomes a REAL battle these people never experienced before.
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33. GaryAugust 13th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
I’m not trolling, I’m just curious.
Exactly how ‘intense’ is the gameplay during the 18hrs? Is there room for breaks, toilet breaks, eat etc? I assume you all had meals, drinks etc prepared for the marathon.
It was also mentioned that it became apparent that the battle could have been completed within another 5 hours. I wonder, wouldn’t it have been to battle on, achieve a world first? Becoming ‘physicall ill’ is due malnutrition; prepare more wholegrain carbs and water (yes, I am serious -sugary crap will make you ill) -with this a 24hr session at the computer should be fine.
The devs have tried to create a legendary accomplishment, and the effort to achieve such should match the gravitas of the occasion, surely?
I commend the efforts so far, I hope you make another attempt!
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34. ShikubokuboAugust 13th, 2008 at 2:11 pm
“AV, while allowing for that type of battle, is not designed for that, as their own video showed. The video Square-Enix gave to us, explaining how to kill it, gave us one of 2 possible solutions (and after 3 years, shows just how vague and dismissive SE’s dev team can be). Either you cheat using dev commands (multiple 2hr ability use in under 2hours) or a 10+ hour battle.”
How do people not understand this yet? That video was for demonstration purposes only, it was never meant to be “this is us killing AV from start to finish”. The people in that video likely had unlimited 2hours for the purpose of showing us how it’s done, although the trick still hasn’t been figured out.
“Warden isn’t setup to allow lots of different people around the world to help kill it. You get 18 people, no more. Think of it as a KS99 fight in terms of how people enter the zone to kill it.”
Ever heard of outside alliances? There is more than one mob, they will not all be claimed to the main alliance, meaning you can very easily take in two, or more, alliances to fight this thing.
PW is a new NM, there may be some trick to killing it faster or reducing the number of forms. It’s new, we can’t say for sure that it was intended to take 18+ hours to kill this thing. Back in the day people would fight AV for hours and hours before wiping. Then the wall glitch, the 2hr locking trick, etc were figured out and it took considerably less time to kill it. Granted these methods or killing it were patched, but that’s beside the point. My point is, there may be some undiscovered trick to beating this, we may even figure it out very soon.
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35. Okano7August 13th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
People with Maat’s caps, relics, multiple 75’s, million of gils by their names (many of which most likely earned bot’ting and cheating), thousands of merits, at least 400+ days (on average…) of actual playtime under their belts who’ve probably spent half of the past 5 years sitting on their asses in front of a monitor whilst attending the biggest weeaboo grindfest in the recent history of electronic entertainment…bitching about the lenght of a top-end boss fight, how deliciously ironic. If I was the SE representative who lurks on BG I’d kick their accounts in the troposphere for going overboard with sheer idiocy.
If it’s such a concern why didn’t they just ally with another linkshell and took shifts? Tell you what, this is just a bunch of dumbasses (how else could it be, they’re FFXI “pro’s”…) whose greed for in-game pixelated items has gotten out of hands. How about you stop being butthurt hypocrites just because you couldn’t take it down instead, and stop craving for intarnetz notoriety while you’re at it.
Also, who in their right mind would play a videogame to the point of getting phisically sick and start throwing up…they’re even more ???????? than I thought.
besides, who the ???? DOESN’T stay awake and active for more than 18 hours straight on saturday evening/monday morning whether they’re playing FFXI or not; I would’ve understood if they gave up because it was getting overly boring but…what kind of pathetic spineless tool couldn’t PHISICALLY handle something AS BASIC and EFFORTLESS as typing on a keyboard/looking at a screen, even if it was for whatever hours straight, I mean are you kidding me?
Just for the sake of comparison, I’ve recently worked on a research project on the OVID database (activity which is, intellectually wise, much more tiresome than playing ????ing FFXI, trust me) for one of my classes for what…most likely 36~40 hours in a row (can’t remember exactly, I just recall my notebook had just fried its motherboard vaporizing all the stuff I had been working for the previous 2 weeks and the paper was due a few days later) without sleeping,
then did my public presentation in front of the medical staff,
then worked 8 hours as usual
and then picked up my gf 40 miles away at which point I
proceeded to have the usual friday night (aperitif > dinner > cinema > club > sex > hazelnuts icecream, you get the point) and was feeling just fine before hitting the sack…and I’m no superman either.
These guys must’ve been seriously out of shape for someone who’s supposed to be in their 20’s (educated guess) and those who read these articles but aren’t actually into FFXI should realize that:
A. most of the people involved are either basement dwellers or insane JP Otaku who spend, on average, more than 10 hours/day playing their MMO’s ANYWAY and regardless which boss they’re fighting and that
B. the aforementioned battle wasn’t even the longest ever reported, a couple of years ago some LS on Remora stalled Absolute Virtue for about 48 hr’s IN A ROW before taking it down
thus their complaints are totally out of place, besides no one has held a gun to their head intimating to fight Pandemonium that way either.
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36. CarlosAugust 13th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
I played FF11 for a year of my life. I consider it wasted time.
Square-Enix’s design philosophy regarding this game is garbage and no sane human being should be playing it.
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37. KyuneAugust 13th, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Neat tricks are fine, but when you have to rely on abusing and bending the fundamental mechanics of the game in ways that were clearly not intended just to have a shot at completion, something’s wrong.
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38. NyiriAugust 13th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
If anything, I’d think that people with Maat’s Caps, relic weapons, etc etc would be the *most* qualified to complain about something being too grindy. After all, if they’re not allowed to complain, who is? If they’re not going to play the content, who is?
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39. Okano7August 13th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
What you don’t seem to get is that all of the stuff listed above take way more time and commitment than fighting PW or AV and that you don’t deserve to complain when you waste just as much time on daily basis on other things since 2003.
People camp Kings or Tiamat/Khimaira for 3~12 hours/day and I’ve personally seen some exp for even longer stretches to get their princess job to 75 as fast as possible so that they could’ve joined the local JP LS full of bot’ters, do you SERIOUSLY think that a few more hours spent on something like Pandemonium would make any difference for them? Think not, they’re just pissed they couldn’t take it down and show off the “l33t” loot afterward and you all fell for it.
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40. RaiokuAugust 13th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
To those butt holes complaining that 18 hour boss fight is just wrong then dont do it. But if you want a good fight and want to know the limits of not only your character but yourself then go for it. you have my support.
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41. LeonoxAugust 13th, 2008 at 7:18 pm
I now that in previous Final Fantasy games have had their big, long fights. And they tend to be way harder than the final boss. So by beating this Boss makes you feel like you have truly beaten the game. I am sure this is what SE was trying to do with Absolute Virtue and now maybe even Pandamonium. I am sure you need the best players with the best gear to defeat these guys, but there has to be a certain line that shouldn’t be crossed. Driving players to fight all day is simply unhealthy. Having multiple people playing the same characters or having other players take shifts is not the way to be the “Ultimate Player”. It needs to be a fight that 18 people each controling one character can kill in 5-6 hours. That is like between meals so more plausible to me.
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42. StikerAugust 13th, 2008 at 7:22 pm
What most people are failing to get is the expectations on going into the fight. The last attempt (before this — there have been 3 now in total) went about 4 hours. The thought amongst the endgame community was that this fight was about 6-8 hours to beat.
Around the 10 hour mark, BtL thought they were about to hit the “final” form of this monster (as it has multiples) and were slapped in the face when it went into a form that no one had previously predicted. That form (and the other resulting forms after) took even significantly longer to defeat, and they kept pushing themselves because the thought was “we are almost there”.
Personally, I would have stopped, but I can see how they did and wanted to keep going. The point is that the length that this fight went to was completely unexpected. Even if there was some “trick” these guys didn’t figure out, dragging them along a 18-hour rollercoaster fight is just plain wrong.
Again, no one knew how long this fight will last. Know that we do know there are very, VERY few people that even want to touch this thing.
@Post 32 — Your statement is beyond retarded. Let me go call Rockstar and let them know I want an IV of alcohol that will activate if I go drinking in the game, have bullets fly out and hit me from the screen, and have a sex doll that will perform “favors” for me if I pick up a hooker. Obviously this would give me the real battle and experience I am looking for.
Games are meant to be fun. If I want a real painful battle, I’ll go fight in a real war.
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43. SnowyAugust 13th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Well…
That doesn’t sound very fun.
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44. incognergoAugust 13th, 2008 at 7:34 pm
This is why only retards play this game. It is NOT fun. Sure, difficulty leaves a sense of accomplishment, but there is also only so much you can do.
To posters like Raioku, you are retarded. It is NOT about pushing the limits of your character. If Square can not create a boss that pushing your character to its limits without making it simply long then they are failures as designers.
I am a firm believer that raiding is about dedication and time, but that time is not spent on the boss, but strategizing and continuous farming. If there is a boss that requires for players to spend nearly 3/4s of a day on one single encounter there is a problem.
Those of you who are condoning this are the reason why stereotypes and negative opinons of MMORPG gamers exist. You guys thing that makes you cool. Sure it makes you cool in your own little world, but everyone in the real world thinks you are a fool and incredibly socially inept.
To those players who even went to the point of causing themselves physical harm you should truly be ashamed of yourself.
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45. SlashAugust 13th, 2008 at 7:38 pm
The real Square-Enix gave up on this game long ago, they now use monkeys, via new technology they have monkeys run the game for you.
This is why everything is crap, and it just keeps getting worse, it all started back in 2006ish when they received an F for customer support.
No need to go any further here, if this upsets you that much quit like most people have and move on to another online game.
It was obvious early on that FFXI would not be properly managed, SE is not Blizzard, they might have experience in making fantastic games, but they had very little experience in running an online game.
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46. incognergoAugust 13th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
SE isn’t Blizzard, but that has nothing to do with the mechanics of this game. I started to play FFXI after I quit WoW got a 75RDM/WM and quit soon after. Why? Because the game was not fun. The UI is terrible especially for healers. It was like they weren’t even thinking when they made it. Group leveling-only, horrible experience. I hated the game from the day I started, but I kept telling myself. Give it a chance, give it a chance. Mobs not leashing? Horrid professions, LOLYOURITEMFAILED, with a plethora of other problems in the game. FFXI in its concepts is not a hard game AT ALL. What makes it hard are the lack of tools the company gives you or simply generic cockblocks.
This is why this game is a failure, because people don’t have fun. Why do they still have members, WEEABOOs. I go to GenCon and find like 0 FFXI players, then I got to an anime convention and there are plenty of FFXI players. Weeaboos are ruin gaming in general with their ridiculous non-real world out look on gaming. People cry because the new FFXI is coming to Xbox, people bought that terrible excuse for an rpg FFXII. And now you are working your ways toward creating the most negative news story in gaming histroy.
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47. jigsaw808August 13th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
wow. 18hrs would be ridiculous, but anyone playing ffxi should already expect lengthy commitment hours. it is a perpetual online game that use to take more than a year (use to be way longer) to reach that lvl of end-game. i remember the game to be an insane grind-fest for anything that you needed or tried to do. so im not surprised to see lengthy end-game bosses.
i also think that the bosses need to be pretty extreme. after years of preparing (lvl 1-75, gil, gear, skill, linkshell,… etc.) to beat the endgame bosses in 5 hrs. would be anti-climactic. i’m sure not everyone will fight an 18hr end-game boss. but there are different extremes of players. a boss of that lvl needs to be there for those die-hards.
ffxi has always been a serious and involved game. its more complex than most mmorpgs and has always been more demanding. i use to refer to it as the grown-ups mmo (no offense). players have always shown creativity in discovering ways around obstacles like that and i think someone will eventually find a working model on how to take down that boss efficiently and quickly.
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48. FeralStokesAugust 13th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
This is where developers and publishers need to re-evaluate just what it takes for players to complete these certain games. Telling the buyer” what it takes” to complete the game may cause buyers to second guess the purchase, but at least players have the choice. There’s nothing worse than not being able to complete a game, because beating it requires cut’s into your lifestyle, physical or mental health.
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49. Hiero TakigushiAugust 13th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Man… that sounds tough. Actually, insane.
@incognergo: I Actually agree with you in some points. FFXI got the worst MMO system ever.
People usually thinks that anyone can play World of Warcraft. “You just need to spam one button lolololololol” anyone who thinks this is either a WoW/Blizz hater or an ignorant. Why we can’t kill a boss in 5 hours? Because Blizzard’s devs made that all bosses have a time limit, after that the only thing you’ll be looting is your own gear across the floor. Just watch on youtube a WoW boss fight, a hard one, like Kael or Illidan. Then watch a FFXI boss fight. I bet you’ll fall asleep pretty soon watching a FFXI boss fight.
FFXI is the worst SE game EVER. (yes I’m including “Dirge of Cerberus” too.)
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50. Felipe RamosAugust 13th, 2008 at 9:36 pm
That’s why I quitted FFXI.. and everyone should think about it.
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51. Okano7August 13th, 2008 at 9:54 pm
the dude who quoted me on BG could’ve at least copy&paste’d the message correctly, must’ve been way too busy posting obscenities on 4chan meanwhile, eh BRP?
The people acting all outraged on there must’ve been victims of some sort of brainwashing procedure I swear, I bet that if “Rukenshin” or some other well known loser told em the fight was “really cool” and “such a challenge” they’d be all over that shit. Not really sure what’s silliest, SquareEnix questionable game design or FFXI core community severe lack of critical spirit.
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52. EricAugust 13th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
I was linked to this from another site and I did play FFXI a few years ago. After waiting 24 hours to for an NM to spawn I was done with the game. I can’t imagine actually battling for 18 hours.
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53. 12KizunaAugust 13th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
To poster 35, Okano7, I have to say that I was entirely unimpressed with the comment, for the sheer use of unnecessary language… especially from someone who claims intelligence by feeling the need to mention long research reports and involvement in the medical field. Sorry, but I felt the poorly presented argument (grammar errors and all) on you having a life and are therefore better than those who can’t handle taking down a tough NM (it was hard to weed out your argument, but that was what I found) made you seem just as silly, if not more so, than the people you were calling silly.
As for the topic, I think the amount of time Square-Enix is daring people to spend on the game is a bit beyond ridiculous. While it is not enough to keep me from playing the game, as I personally won’t subject myself to anything that tedious and demanding of my attention, I have to question the company’s intent behind it. While one can only do what they want to and one’s actions are their own responsibility (especially when it comes to gaming), provoking people with a tendency to already play too much to play even more is almost irresponsible on SE’s account.
Several people have already said in better words so I won’t elaborate further, but even after hanging in there for so many hours, I applaud the people who finally pulled the plug on fighting this NM. Nothing is worth pushing your body so far that you are feeling ill– heck, I can’t even sit down to play the game for 3 hours non-stop before getting a headache.
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54. FusionxAugust 13th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
Okano7: If you want to bash people on BG do it on their forums, not here.
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55. StevenAugust 13th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
Majority of these comments are purely cracking down, in most cases totally bitching at the makers of this game for an enemy released within the past month. What seems like the impossible becomes reality in due time, this has happened a majority of times in FFXI. Rather than judge on this 1 to 3 attempt post i see logic to start the bitching after this has been tried at least through good theory.
Ive played FFXI for a few years now, i play it for fun, when accomplishing a goal you do get an overwhelming feel of joy, the only reason for this joy is the simple fact it is so ‘difficult’ and ‘painful’ to go through the process of getting these pixels. All MMOs work on the same basis, like a drug, some easier than others, you try so hard with all things possible to get your high, you wont stop, and they make these games well.
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56. ReganAugust 13th, 2008 at 11:01 pm
yeah, sounds dumb, the whole 18hr+ battle i mean. i know alot of players who are keen on this though, i’ll never do it, and that’s my choice, so i can’t complain about something that’ll never have anything to do with me. but like… the playtime is fine, 18hrs+, what i gather to be a very reasonable reason to quit after fighting for 18 hours is that… it’s not worth it when they weren’t even gonna get rewarded for it… i know how these things work, you get all the way through these things and the “crappy item” drops… even then… one person gets the drop… 18 ppl bored themselves to death for this… not worth it, square needs to consider this, either cut the meaningless time it takes or let everyone in the battle get rewarded…
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57. Father WilleyAugust 14th, 2008 at 12:30 am
Moral of the story… get off your ass and do something with your lives
you only live once, are you really gonna spend your whole life trying to find a way to beat bats names coca and cola or whatever?? seriously… come on now…
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58. ReganAugust 14th, 2008 at 12:36 am
touche`
there’re better ways to spend ones time
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59. kingpanAugust 14th, 2008 at 1:24 am
to be honest
it should not bring about a bad name for SE because they made something like this.
these people where willing to play for that long to try and beat this.
no blame on SE.
they could of quit after 10 hours but no they went on.
once everyone figures out how to beat it might not take 18 hours it will go down.
so i applause SE for keeping its reputation for hard games. just if people are willing to do it then so be it.
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60. ZamesAugust 14th, 2008 at 1:42 am
ok it’s now even made it to x-play so if SE doesn’t at least put something up on pol i’m going to be surprised.
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61. dazogAugust 14th, 2008 at 2:02 am
rofl
FFXI is the ultimate catassing simulation.
It’s is a pretty world wrapped around the most grindy, batshit insane design ever.
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62. VadSeraphAugust 14th, 2008 at 2:12 am
Has everyone forgotten perspective on this? I’ve been on Seraph for five years, and the fact is that we’ve taken bosses that previously took four or five hours, and brought them within a thirty minute fight.
We’ve taken mobs that previously required a dedicated, full alliance to beat and have soloed them in less time.
As long as there are people to fight and mobs to beat, we will find strategies, and we will kill them.
Frankly, I’ll be surprised if within two years Pandemonium Warden takes over six hours to kill.
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63. JebusSeraphAugust 14th, 2008 at 3:46 am
This is in response to comment 51.
I think you need to rethink that spirit comment. We prepared well for this fight,
we had people who took time off of work to join in on this event, people capped
their experience buffer the ls spent millions on reraise hairpins,food etc. we spammed ZNM’s and all of us looked forward to this and to being together for
this event. We had plenty of spirit. SE broke our spirit by letting us reach the
final form only to change it completely from the pattern it had been the 20 previous forms at the end. They designed PW to let us think we had reached
our goal…only to yank the rug out from under us at the final minute, throwing another 2hr+ joke in our face after we had been there for 18.5.
As for Rukenshin being a loser……you must ride to school on the short bus.
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64. MaximillianAugust 14th, 2008 at 7:28 am
kk gonna try my best to not repeat too much of what’s already been said, so here goes…
1. I think a lot of the ppl that are taken aback by this fight don’t really know SE very well. This is the kind of silly stuff they’re known for. FFVII had emerald and ruby weap. FFIX had the chocograph game, don’t know about anyone else but I spent weeks trying to finish that >..>;; Hmmm…. I played WoW for 2 years and have formed my own opinions of it versus FFXI but this is not the place to be discussing this argument. Blizztrolls please hop back on your epic mounts and ride back to the outlands so you can run heroic Ramp for the 1000th time. ~.^
3. I get so seriously effing tired of hearing the, “I actually go outside and do blah blah blah” remark from ppl. You know what?! Good for you!! Here’s a f***king cookie now go somewhere else please! You have other hobbies, I’m happy for you! Guess what though? This is what I like to do! I’m not asking you to like it or even try it. You want to go do something else by all means do it! Go spend your time outdoors or doing w/e it is you want to do! I hope you have a good time doing it! Just like I do when I’m playing games. Just don’t come trolling around here telling me how wrong I am because I have different likes than you. Grow up, get some self-esteem, and be secure in knowing that it takes all types. Just because someone thinks a little differently than you do doesn’t mean you have to be afraid that they might be better than you so you immediatly have to start putting them down to make yourself feel bettter. They’re just different, nothing more, nothing less.
4. Last thought, promise >.<;; If I could say anything to SE and have them hear it it would be this, the making of an epic fight doesn’t just rely on making ppl sit around for hours on end beating endlessly on a mob. If the fight went as Jebus said and after 18 hrs the mob suddenly changed tactics, that was just dirty pool. That should have occured hours ago. That’s one of the things that I always liked about the boss fights in Zelda. Sometimes you had to change tactics two or three times through the fight. It might take a couple hours and a lot of attempts but in the end I could accomplish it w/o devoting an exhausting amount of time and still feel like I had accomplished something. I had to use both thought and brute force to overcome the obstacle. If you want a fight like this, by all means, it’s your game XD Just don’t have it be something that is as mindless as this fight sounds. Actually make us think but don’t make it something so freaking outlandish (i.e. when the moon is between 25%-50% waxing on players who have the letter X in their name can damage the mob and only if they’ve spoke to the hidden NPC atop Mt. Zhayolm that only shows up every 21hrs for 30 secs…. etc. etc.). lol you guys have shown lots of creativity before! Where did it go? :/
lol well, to anyone still reading, I thank you /bow I’m gonna head out now before reading my post becomes almost as bad as this fight XD
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65. MaximillianAugust 14th, 2008 at 7:30 am
wow, huge chunk of my comment got cut out >.<;; lol disreguard the first section it now makes absolutely no sense XD
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66. NarcogenAugust 14th, 2008 at 8:44 am
@Drakeson, who said: “THINK about this! SE was the first and only main stream MMO to just mix all the different countries on the same servers… They I am sure thought “Lets have a monster that people can log in and find out is being fought and come join… ”
Riiight. Because Eve Online hasn’t existed since 2003. SE did it first.
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67. ArtemizAugust 14th, 2008 at 9:46 am
18 hours on one mob? Sounds like PLD farming to me…..
Seriously though 18 hours is too long for one fight in my opinion and I wouldn’t do it but if others want to then fine go ahead. I don’t see why people see it as a sign that SE is evil, it’s not like they make you fight anything you don’t want to.
No wait!! just remembered I’m about 0/28365 on a PCC…. SE is evil after all.
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68. AnonAugust 14th, 2008 at 10:55 am
Whats worse is people trying to defend SE for this. You guys are addicted to FFXI and won’t admit that this game is the cruelest game out there.
Geez, when was the las time you enjoyed the game?
Even a 2h battle is wrong.
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69. Ami HughesAugust 14th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
I actually believe that PW may have some undiscovered tactic that limits how many times it will change forms. If not, then I can totally agree this monster is ridiculous to make people play the game for that many hours straight. There’s also the possibility that mythic weapons may play a role in its strategy though that’s really reaching. Either way, I’m hoping that the reason this hasn’t been defeated is simply because of an undiscovered strategy that while the battle will still be difficult and last a few hours, it’ll be realistically winnable considering the effort you have to put into getting the trigger in the first place.
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70. PsykoAugust 14th, 2008 at 2:47 pm
I personally think an 18 hour fight is long, but then i remember about 3 weeks ago, the wife and i, on separate servers, got into an exp party at 8am saturday morning. we were in those parties until well after 4am sunday morning. that right there is 18 hours. granted the wife and i were tired after, and i had to leave for work 4 hrs later. still, we did it because we chose to. no one had a gun to hour head making us stay in those parties….
and that was just exp party.
so for all those that say:
18 hours is too long….. grow up. if you dont want to fight in an 18 hour boss battle, dont. its as simple as that. for those that are willing to do it, more power to them.
i dream of a ful aegis and full koenig gear for my paladin, but alas im only level 60….. nice to have dreams tho
i also know that realistically, even though ive been playing for 4 years, im stilll at least 3-4 years away from the gear i want…. thats what keeps me going, knowing im working towards something i want….. regardless of how long it takes me.
the most important thing is that im having fun along the way.
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71. JohnAugust 14th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
Maybe if they were good at the game it wouldent take them 18 hours.
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72. JamesAugust 14th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Knowing S-E and FFXI, there is some inane way to beat both AV and PW with relative speed.
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73. FFXI'erAugust 14th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
One term: Alliance Switching. Who says it has to be the same people there all 18 hours long? The big thing in FFXI right now is having each of the three groups of the alliance be switched out over a period of time so that the prior players get a break while the new ones take over. The fact that the same people were there for 18 hours is absolutely ridiculous and they should’ve remembered the very basic switching strategy to get themselves some relief. I’m surprised that they never called for backup to use this strategy.
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74. TopherAugust 14th, 2008 at 4:46 pm
ok I stopped reading @post 42… but I needed to say something to Okano7.
You sir are a tit. Your ranting is just stupid.
Thats all I wanted to say
Peace
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75. MontablacAugust 14th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
(please ignore any spelling and/or grammar errors in this post,thats just my bad english seting in)
from what ive read there seams to be a few common thoughts here
1.SE shouldent make a figh