Level 75 Content

Points systems aren't a scam, its just a system that worked for a lot of shells. The people who bitched about point systems were always the ones butthurt they couldn't lot because they showed up to 1 event every two weeks. They were also the very first people to ditch the shell once they got the ***they wanted, something I won't ever miss doing again. The leaders and sacks/regular attendees were always at the top of the points list because they actually showed up to everything and played the game. It was the most fair system when we still had alliance content, imo.

The only bad part was that the point worth of said items were subjective to the LS leader. Some shells wouldn't let you lot certain items if you didn't have the job(s) they felt benefited the most from the item, even if you had the points. I was also in a shell that would penalize points for not showing up.

Or the people who got cheated out of points. My anecdote is an example that was well known back then.


There were established people who did that. I can name a half dozen people in Leviathan's history who were known for getting a thing or two, hopping to another shell and repeating, if the rules didn't say otherwise.

So a point system's fairness was dependent on 1) fair rules that were not tailored so that those who joined in later would nearly never get anything, no matter how often they attended and 2) leadership that was fair and just instead of playing the system to reward sycophants (GoL...).


That's one thing I do remember our LS never did. If you had the points and could use it, you were eligible. We did not restrict people based on personal feelings on who should get what. Example, our first haidate went to a Bard. There were a few people super pissed about that but they got theirs not too long later so it wasn't worth shuffling the deck and using personal feelings to determine "Ok, this guy is more important than you this week because he leveled X, so he goes ahead of you even though 3 people have been put ahead of you already".

DKP, Dragon kill point i think it was called, was actually balanced tbh, but joining HNM ls's that had DKP was a ***experience, especially if it was based on windows

I loved using DKP to get Ridill for my THF offhand. So many WARs in my LS died inside that day, but hey, I had like 300+ DKP from near perfect attendance and rarely lotted anything (especially when I got N.head from 3am random Nidhogg spawn that like only 7 people woke up for and nobody wanted it so I didnt spend any DKP)

It's sad we will never get a HNM type system in pretty much any MMORPG ever again. It was broken as all hell with claim bots but it was still fun when you got it with a lowman team and everyone had to rush to camp.

I remember one day, going out to Jugner Forest. Had never done Arthro before and got the claim using stun on DRK against 20-30 others. It was pretty cool, even more so because I had spent ridiculous amounts of time competing with RMT over Castle Oztroja NMs, who would often already have claim the second they popped. It was never fair, and I don't miss it.


As for DKP, I used a system in my Dynamis LS which would not let you lot if you fell under a certain % of attendance. You would get one point for turning up, another point for attending at least half a run, and a third point for seeing it through to the end. We would also split the money made from currency in to a monthly salary, and handed it out based on attendance.

This encouraged people to show up more. Neither me, or the other leader, ever made anything extra on the side. We allowed our members making a relic to buy currency from us for cheap after runs, and some of that gil would find its way back to them anyway. There was no restriction on who could lot Relic armor, but you had to make a wishlist so others knew what you were going for. Shadow pieces were worth a ton of points, but DL never liked to drop, so not many got them.

We never "funded" a single relic, because we felt that making a full linkshell put all its effort in to one persons weapon/shield was dumb and unfair. Everyone was working towards that gil, so players got back what they put in. This pocket money helped our members to buy equipment and get stronger.

The level 75 HNM system was trash and anyone who believes otherwise is deluding themselves. Important HNM's always spawned claimed until s-e implemented the split second claim delay, and even then you still needed multiple people running bots to get anywhere. The only people who actually liked the system were the ones who had already gotten the drops because they could flaunt it as an accomplishment in the faces of the rest of the playerbase. There is no reason to time gate drops behind one or two spawns per week per server, and then force people to stand around waiting up to 3 hours for the thing to appear, possibly at 3 or 4 am in the morning.

The systems Tanaka developed to keep players playing in the 75 era were archaic design. Their purpose was to force players to schedule their life around the game, rather than visa versa. They were built upon principals in the prior generation of mmo's (Everquest) which made it far more of a virtual skinner box than it should have had any right to be. Sure there were good experiences to be had, but character progression was unnecessarily difficult. People reminiscing fondly on "the good old days of 75 cap" are just doing so through rose tinted glasses. That era was more grindy than it should have been; to the point it was unhealthy.

Remember when we found out people paid thousands of dollars for some claim bot or w/e and someone leaked all their names?

Dramalama, good times.

Taj pulled off some stupid things with his hacking, and I'm honestly surprised he got away with it for as long as he did. It's just another reminder that the timeframe early ffxi operated in was the early days of the net. Taj didn't just hack the ffxiapp website, he hacked someone's bank account and posted screenshots of their transaction history on the forms to prove they were a gilbuyer, and even hacked s-e's servers and force disconnected a GM to prove a point. Some (even many) of his stunts were downright illegal.

Edit: Changed to reflect more FFXI.

I want my old friends that stopped playing, long ago, to show up to a new HNM like this:

This is cool. Got me hyped. Lol.

my group does it so that certain items like ebody/abody/ridill etc are point wipes. keeps it so you can bid if you show up, but someone who's been around longer can't just abuse a huge reserve of points.

our ls in pandemonium had the nasa bott, i think we were called deathrawls the guy who owned it lived by the neighbourhood and was a childhood friend of my uncle told me it costed him 20k dollars for the full option like you can give codes to ppl to use it during hnm windows i cant quite remember, we would level any job to 75 in Delfkut tower using that bott when level sync became a thing i was never in those exp parties tho i remember seeing a rlf freind sam go from 30 to 75 in less than a week hated the ls leader tho everytime i wanted to come pld he says no we have another paladin, for being jealous of my HP set lol

Even being fair, that was another tricky thing to deal with at times. A guy who has been in the LS forever, has capped points and only wanted 1 thing (ebody, for example) and when it finally drops, losing it to some guy who joined not long ago. I've never had that exact thing happen to me personally but I'm sure it has and I know how that would make someone feel.

I remember doing many things and they yelled at me for lotting and i was like then please explain to me why i am here if i cant fight for what i need to make my self better.

also never felt like i ever had the point goal they set for anything. but no one told me what the lott goal was

you know you remind me of this video with that picture.

Late reply but the attendance system was broken and corrupt, I knew a lot of linkshells that let players lot on items even when that member with high points was no longer on the linkshell, examp: Linkshell claims faf, leader invites the person no longer in the shell to lot because it HAD high points back then (favoritism/friendship). I have seen lots of leaders adding random points to themselves without assisting in any events at all as well.

Any linkshell or system can be corrupted, so your point makes no sense to what I was saying. There is nothing wrong with a point system inherently, it was one of the most fair systems when done right and transparent.

my groups points are all visible on a spreadsheet going back two or three years. you mark your points yourself and it's get audited. they are pretty legit about it. it's like an xi nerd fell in love with excel. bids can be placed at anytime up until drop. so, you usually know what people are going for and how many points they have.



if someone gets a dalmy or ebody they are back to 0 points. it's pretty good.

Baniak, you have been summoned!

Rose Colored Glasses is all I can say about the 75 cap.


I remember Taj hacked this guy's account once and put his Aegis/Relic in the guy's bazaar for max gil. Pretty much *** his account up since you can't buy Rare/Ex gear.

And how often was it really "done right?" Every big LS in the 75 era on Leviathan broke up because of point systems.

EDIT: Except the ones who broke up because half the LS got banned for cheating, duping, etc.


I missed this. Well said.

I miss those days as they were a lot of fond memories but I'd never do it again. I was fine with sky pops, etc but fighting over those 24 hour NMs got to the point where even if you really needed the money, you skipped out because of the hassle. Sitting somewhere for 3 hours only to lose a claim to someone's addon wasn't fun. Then hearing them claim "I'm just really good".

There was a lot to that era outside of the many flawed systems that were what gave people such fond memories.

Sure, those exp parties were unnecessarily long but you really got to know a lot of people. I met plenty in parties as I progressed and went on to experience a lot of end-game things with them. Or seeing someone 40 levels later and remembering them because you spent a whole day or two leveling with them earlier and had some funny conversation or something funny happened in the party.

Doing a rank mission which required a lot of people and took hours was (as you said) not good design but you met people along the way here too.

Today, most people who interact are premade cliques from years ago. You can make new friends but it's not the same.

It could have had better balance: similar systems, but dialed back about 8 notches. Keep the thrill of competition and the satisfaction of overcoming obstacles, but without making it altogether impossible for 99% of the playerbase.

We must've had the most functional, easy going LS in FFXI history based off everyone's horror stories about points and such - I don't even have any recollection about a gear dispute lol. We had a pretty simple point system, but half the time we went into a fight you pretty much knew who was getting what, and were more than happy to see them get it. It was pretty obvious who was putting in the extra time and work, who the new folks were that had to pay their dues, and everyone got rewarded fairly and accordingly. Most of us shared accounts too, so getting a relic or big ticket item really benefited the whole group, because 5 people had access to the aegis PLD or ghorn BRD when it was needed

You got to play with functional well adjusted adults, you were the 1%, the envy of everyone

That was (and still is) the only thing that made XI (any multiplayer game) any measure of "difficult". Finding the dozen people worth playing with. Many still can't accomplish that task to this day.

This was epic! needs just a mob of all the greats in baddies lined up at the other side lol.

I could sit here listing a bunch of things they could have done. Many private servers already accommodate to these things but yeah, it was not accessible to most people.

I think my biggest complaint was missions that required 6+ people to complete. While many of us completed them, that was still dumb. Many had to be scheduled WITH RANDOMs. As Eiryl said, it was finding people who were competent to complete these things. I cannot imagine how much time I wasted on tasks with people who ended up not being competent. And I would actually prefer not to know...