Legion, current playerbase and endgame content

[Afania]

It seems that a lot of ppl been talking about Campaign/VW/Nyzul issue, but not a lot talk about Legion issue. So I decided to brought it up. Below are just some of my opinion, feel free to point out if there are anything I do wrong that I can fix to solve the problem.

I don't know about JP community nor other server, but atm it's extremely hard to make an ally of 18 ppl(nor 36 of course) for legion hall of Mul full clear run.

I don't mind having a hard and challenging event to do, but if even making a full ally to even start the event is hard, then this problem should be solved first.

And there are a few possible reasons.

1.Legion is an event that actually require experienced ppl, and possibly tweak their gear set/merit/play style just for this event, so they know what to do and how to avoid mistake. Some of the more hardcore/experienced/elite player I know of, recently either quit for FF14/GW2, or just stopped doing it after got everything from it.

It's extremely hard to find rep for this event too, since new member need to start learning everything again, and possibly build legion specific gear set for their jobs. Majority of player isn't interested in spending weeks or months to get certain gear for one of the job just so that they can do 1 event. Majority of player isn't interested in doing an event with high chance of failing. Majority of players would rather do Nyzul, dyna, salvage, VW where you have less chance of failing nor got into a shitty group.

2. The fact that you need to tweak your gear set/merit/play style just for this event, kinda shut off half of the ppl interested in this event when it's already not very popular. Say if I need a SCH, out of all the SCHs I know probably only a few has right skill level for stuns/embrava, and even lower % semi interested in legion, and out of all the SCH interested in legion with right skill set, probably none of them has stun macc set or comfortable with stun position.

3. This event also needlessly shut off many jobs/weapons on the job list. And it really has nothing to do with whether you're hardcore/elite or not.

For example, currently it's known that Mul wave 2 has enemy crit-hit %- trait. This is a needless penalty for any crit-hit WS DD such as Ukon WAR/Vere MNK. On top of all the NM with high evasion and def, also pretty much been saying "Ragnarok or gtfo".

Rag has such advantage over other weapons in Mul due to WAR 2hr and high accuracy, that it's not really fair. Why would none-rag DD have to suffer such large gap in terms of DD ability?

Now you're probably going to say, "Just build a Rag!" As stated before, majority of player isn't interested in building a relic just for 1 event.

Now you're probably going to argue, "Why are you complaining about min-maxing in MMO? You're the one who choose to use optimal setup first!" "DD job will have hierarchy no matter what!"

But that's really due to the structure of legion hall of Mul.

If I can't find a bunch of Rag DDs for VW, I can still use other DDs, the difference is just clear it in 2 min or clear in 5 min.

This applies to Nyzul. If I can't find most optimal setup, I can still aim for F80 clear for 25 times. Also plenty of groups been using none optimal jobs and get F100 clears.

In order to get Mul wave 3 clear, you need to deal over 1 million damage in 30 min with 5 DD, and probably WAR 2hr reso zerg. With the time so limited, there are very little room to make mistake, only thing you can rely on is perfect stuns/PD and good dmg.

If you don't clear wave 3 NM, you won't get worthwhile drop(nobody is interested in wave 1 2 drop anymore except Gallu/rex drops). So it's a hit or miss, that the room to use sub-optimal setup is way less than VW/Nyzul etc. If you didn't clear Rex, you won't see Rex drop, so 1 million+ dmg or gtfo.


So, when this is an event that only small % of playerbase is interested in it, and small % of player has right job, and even smaller % of ppl has right gear for their right job or willing to make right gear for legion job just for legion, it got very hard to make an ally with high winning chance for it. And 36 player ally isn't even common at all in NA/EU playerbase.

My server has about 1.1k~1.3k players on NA prime time, which was much lower than last year. I feel at this point of time, NA playerbase is just too small to have this sort of elite/hardcore event that requires 18+ ppl. And if you're EU playerbase or even something like GMT+3, good luck finding a group at all.

This event needs to be more friendly to more players. I'm not asking it to get a nerf with displacer, nor asking it to be easier. I'm asking it to be more accessable to more players, the whether they clear or not is depend on them.

So I'm going to make following suggestions:

1. Remove enemy crit-hit rate- trait on wave 2, lower all NM's evasion, defense and maybe their level too. This should close the gap between rag and other weapon DDs. High evasion/defense and crit-hit rate- trait is just needless penalty on many jobs/weapons.

2. Lower stun resist on Mantis. Mantis death prophet easily ruin a run. And requiring a full macc set for stun to land is just shutting half of the SCH out of the door since it's not needed that much in other events. This should also apply to DD too. You shouldn't need to spend week/months to prepare certain gear set for just 1 event, you should be able to jump in with what you have now. The success of an event should determine on pt organization, communication and skill, instead of relying on having to make certain gear set just for it. If you can stun fast enough, then you can stun it and vice versa.

3. Make wave 3 NMs, Gallu+rex, pop on wave 1 or 2. Or make wave 1 or 2 mobs drop Gallu/rex drops.

Note that I understand the point of legion is "the more you kill the better reward". So dev can make wave 1 or 2 Gallu rex drop has very low drop rate, and the higher wave you reach, the higher drop rate.

Again, this should close the gap a bit and less "Rag WAR or gtfo". A pt with 5x relic SAM or MNK should have at least a bit higher chance to see rex drop like a pt of 5x rag DRK WAR.

Reward wise, legion is actually pretty balanced IMO. The fact that Gallu/Rex on wave 3 has 100% drop slot pretty much offers good reward for more effort. However, this event needs to be more accessable to more players with different job, without having to prepare certain gear/another job for it. Needing to build certain relic/lv certain job just to do 1 event does not make the event more challenging. A lot of ppl I know of suddenly jump to "Ace DD" after their Rag done, without having anything special but just Rag. Before their Rag they're not even close on another Relic/empy DD.


4. Make all the future hardcore endgame content aim for 6~10 dedicated players, but no higher than 12. Ideally only need 6. It may not be that hard to make 18 or 36 ally for JP players, but it's hard for NA players. And probably very hard for EU, near impossible for other regions.

If possible, make 6 player version legion too ._.

Hardcore endgame content means only small % of playerbase can do, and interested in doing, due to higher chance of failure, more skill/gear requirement and so on. FFXI atm already don't have a lot of players, making it requiring 18 hardcore ppl is a pain in the ass.

[wish12oz]

I have some problems with your statements, mainly that you think Rex and Gallu have the good drops.

While it's true they drop body abjurations and meteor/arise, the truth is you cap out on that stuff very, very fast. The good drops are L feet, L head, C feet, Ormulo Ingot and Duplus grip. And if you have any amount of people that want any 1 of those items, I assure you that all your mules will have meteor, arise and body abjurations before you finish those drops.

IMO there isn't anything really wrong with Legion in the way the event is executed, even the random hate the Ironclad has that always results in people dieing. It's hard to build a group for it because most people are just bad, and it's a hard event. The -crit trait isn't really a big deal either, even though I have a 99 Ukon and am sad I am not the awesomest DD ever for this event like all the others. Gallu and Rex spawning in the middle of other waves is the worst idea I've ever heard for a change that could occur for this event. Wave 2 are the important mobs, and theyre annoying enough as it is.

That said, I do think SE should do something to increase interest in the event. And by that, I mean make the items better. even small increases to the potential of the items would help generate huge interest in the event. All theyd need to do really is make the augments on the abjuration stuff better for the pieces no one cares about, like Hugin pants, and leave the ones alone that are good, like Hugin shoes. Then take all the decent items, and make them better. Give Fulad-Zereh 5% DA instead of 3, make Duplus Grip 4% DA instead of 3, make the weapons actually worth using so people would want them by increasing their damage, give Gunmans gambison a good snapshot value, etc. It wouldn't be hard at all and it would greatly increase interest in the event, thus making it easier to find people to do it with.

Also: SovietSpaceDogs is currently looking to do 36 person Mul instead of 18, if you're on Odin and would like to join, send me a tell in game and we can discuss what jobs we're looking for.

[detlef]

Right now my LS finds itself in the in-between position of full clearing regular chambers with relative ease while not being able to beat Mul (yet). I'd like to see a higher drop rate on the regular hall wave 2 equipment drops, abjurations, and synthesis materials.

[Afania]

I have some problems with your statements, mainly that you think Rex and Gallu have the good drops.

While it's true they drop body abjurations and meteor/arise, the truth is you cap out on that stuff very, very fast. The good drops are L feet, L head, C feet, Ormulo Ingot and Duplus grip. And if you have any amount of people that want any 1 of those items, I assure you that all your mules will have meteor, arise and body abjurations before you finish those drops.

IMO there isn't anything really wrong with Legion in the way the event is executed, even the random hate the Ironclad has that always results in people dieing. It's hard to build a group for it because most people are just bad, and it's a hard event. The -crit trait isn't really a big deal either, even though I have a 99 Ukon and am sad I am not the awesomest DD ever for this event like all the others. Gallu and Rex spawning in the middle of other waves is the worst idea I've ever heard for a change that could occur for this event. Wave 2 are the important mobs, and theyre annoying enough as it is.

That said, I do think SE should do something to increase interest in the event. And by that, I mean make the items better. even small increases to the potential of the items would help generate huge interest in the event. All theyd need to do really is make the augments on the abjuration stuff better for the pieces no one cares about, like Hugin pants, and leave the ones alone that are good, like Hugin shoes. Then take all the decent items, and make them better. Give Fulad-Zereh 5% DA instead of 3, make Duplus Grip 4% DA instead of 3, make the weapons actually worth using so people would want them by increasing their damage, give Gunmans gambison a good snapshot value, etc. It wouldn't be hard at all and it would greatly increase interest in the event, thus making it easier to find people to do it with.

Also: SovietSpaceDogs is currently looking to do 36 person Mul instead of 18, if you're on Odin and would like to join, send me a tell in game and we can discuss what jobs we're looking for.

Legion drop isn't bad, and gallu/rex drop actually worth quite some gil if you can manage to kill both every time.(although meteor/arise/honor price been dropping recently). Also whether gallu/rex drop is good or not is depend on job really, personally I can't even find enough people for Mul if I even want Gallu/rex clear, let alone getting Gallu/Rex drops. The problem is some of the preparations for their job shut off half of the players that may be interested.

Me: I'm looking for people for legion, wanna join?

Player A: Need a DD? I have MNK with 90 Vere.

*Takes the MNK to legion and see him parse a lot lower than a 95 Rag owner lower acc too*

Player B: Need a DD? I have 90 Ukon.

Me(Who learned a lesson): Legion mob has high acc, MAKE SURE YOU BRING ACC SWAP

*Takes him to legion and see him still parse lower than a 95 Rag*

Player C: Need a SCH? I have a SCH with 470 enhancing.

Me: Do you have a macc stun set and Impact?

Player C: No, and magic skill not capped ;(

Me: Stun going to get resist like this, gogo build a Rag and go work on macc set

Player A B C: Sorry I'm out, gl on your event and cya!


I've met plenty of players like A B C, they're interested in it, but they're not going to spend weeks and months to work on one of their job(out of many) just to do this event. There are certainly many ppl interested in it, but the requirement for it just shut the door.
You said it's hard to build a group because "most of the players are bad", but having to get X gear(and in the case of the DD, a relic!) just to have proper performance in 1 event isn't reasonable, considering it takes quite a large of time to build X gear set/weapon. Some of the players certainly knows how to play the job or follow orders. But as soon as they need to get X gear Y weapon just to join the event and have decent win rate, they'd rather not join and do other event that's even less productive. It's more about most players aren't legion job main to devote all their time on, rather than most players are bad. There are many players actually has decent skill and understanding of their job and not bad at all, doesn't mean they'll spend the time and effort to prepare for legion job when they're just mostly logging on for fun.

Now that GW2 is out and FFXIV ARR about to release soon, many older players left FFXI for those games. I know many player doesn't log on anymore and just stays in 14 all day, and it's getting very frustrating for someone who runs LS legion event to gather 18/18 for Mul. When I try to recruit new players, that's the above problem I'd face. I do legion with 2 different LS, both LS haven't been able to find 18/18 for weeks.

It's also affecting economy, staghorn coral is 3~5M each on my server and going up everyday.

Mantis stun resist needs to be lowered, so does NM evasion and enemy crit-hit- %. This event shouldn't require certain gear to do properly when those gears aren't needed anywhere else. Whether you win or not should be determined on other factor, not having a Rag army. I don't have problem finding DD and SCH for VW and Nyzul, why'd ppl have to face problem to find DD and SCH for legion?

[Arcon]

Legion drop isn't bad, and gallu/rex drop actually worth quite some gil if you can manage to kill both every time.(although meteor/arise/honor price been dropping recently). Also whether gallu/rex drop is good or not is depend on job really, personally I can't even find enough people for Mul if I even want Gallu/rex clear, let alone getting Gallu/Rex drops. The problem is some of the preparations for their job shut off half of the players that may be interested.

The problem is that Gallu/Botulus drops have a very high drop rate, compared to T2 mobs. And once you have a decent static group and can clear content better and faster, you will get a lot more drops from them than any other mob in Legion, even more so if you can clear both NMs. We got three Meteors in two runs last Sunday, for example. I don't even remember how many Meteor/Arise scrolls we got in total, but we haven't even seen a single Duplus Grip in all that time, and everyone and their mother wants one. That is the true problem with the drop distribution right now.

Me: I'm looking for people for legion, wanna join?

Player A: Need a DD? I have MNK with 90 Vere.

*Takes the MNK to legion and see him parse a lot lower than a 95 Rag owner lower acc too*

Player B: Need a DD? I have 90 Ukon.

Me(Who learned a lesson): Legion mob has high acc, MAKE SURE YOU BRING ACC SWAP

*Takes him to legion and see him still parse lower than a 95 Rag*

Player C: Need a SCH? I have a SCH with 470 enhancing.

Me: Do you have a macc stun set and Impact?

Player C: No, and magic skill not capped ;(

Me: Stun going to get resist like this, gogo build a Rag and go work on macc set

Player A B C: Sorry I'm out, gl on your event and cya!

While this is a legitimate concern, Legion is simply not designed to work this way. It was meant to be cleared with a familiar group of friends, who will stick around and work together to improve at the event and eventually clear it. This pretty much means LS events, possibly with strangers on less demanding jobs to fill in the gaps. And you don't need a full roster of Ragnarok DDs to clear it, as long as they're still good. It just happens to be a great weapon, even outside of this. We've won Mul several times without a Ragnarok DD.

As I said, it's still a valid concern, some people simply prefer the casual nature of events they've got accustomed to through Abyssea and Voidwatch. But it was precisely the LS activities that I personally missed during that era. Sure, you could still do VW with your LS (and we did/do, to get people clears), but you wouldn't want to spam a NM countless times with people you know don't need anything from it, especially if there's no need for it. Due to how the Voidwatch drop distribution works it's easy to find people to do it with, because everyone knows they'll get their own chest. This does not apply to any other event, which is why people generally hesitate to team up with strangers for those.

If anything, I'd complain that the overall difficulty is too hard to be done by a majority of players. It's simply not very accessible to most people who would actually want to do it. That's why I liked the idea of having different difficulty settings available for it. The critical hit rate penalty sucks, but in most cases it won't make or break a run compared to all the other things going on (high Evasion/Defense, resistance to Stun, spammy AoE moves, including AoE death, etc.). I wouldn't want to see what this looks like with Perfect Defense and Embrava nerfed. That will be a much bigger drawback than the critical hit rate penalty ever was. Just have to hope they adjust the event before those nerfs.

[wish12oz]

My LS has beaten Rex+Gallu with a bunch of Ukons, and Mul T2+T3 is the only place the -crit trait exists. You dont have to have Ragnaroks, its just that a bunch of WARs with Ragnarok will do the most damage during the event.

The mantis is obnoxious, and generally results in killing people, but I would hate for them to take that out, as thats the sort of thing that sets good groups apart from bad groups. Having melees who know not to point it at mages and not stand together, so that only 1-2 die, then being able to recover from deaths and still win. It doesn't always work out in your favor, but thats half the fun I think. Steam rolling all content laid before you gets a bit old after awhile, it's nice to have something where only truely dedicated groups can win, and even then they fail sometimes.

You say you have 2 Legion groups and neither can get 18? Why not just combine the two groups?

[Aarahs]

Have you tried with a relic dragoon? I imagine the defense down effect would help increase the damage done by the other DDs. I haven't been able to find a legion group on my server, so don't know how much it would help.

[Afania]

While this is a legitimate concern, Legion is simply not designed to work this way. It was meant to be cleared with a familiar group of friends, who will stick around and work together to improve at the event and eventually clear it. This pretty much means LS events, possibly with strangers on less demanding jobs to fill in the gaps.

This is exactly the point I was talking about earlier, that current NA population is just too small to do this sort of thing(core member that stick together to learn, must have super situational gears just for this event, specific job/gear set) if it requires 18/18.

I can get 18/18 people from my LS or close friends, but it's not going to be a good setup because some of them doesn't have correct job/gear requirement. If I'm going to just select people with right job and fits gear requirement, then at very best it's only 12~15 people. Not to mention all that people come and go. Some of the player with legion experience will leave after they got bored/sick of it or get everything they want, leaving new members need to relearn everything again.

Maybe it's not a JP problem, or problem with bigger LS. But at this point of time, probably 95% of NA and EU LS isn't going to be big enough I believe. Event like this should be around 12 players or less, so it's easier to get a group of core members that stick together. 18 is just simply too big number for majority of the NA and EU LS IMO.

You say you have 2 Legion groups and neither can get 18? Why not just combine the two groups?

Just point system and different lotting rules can cause enough drama, I've been trying to get some of the people from different groups, but it's not exactly easy since they're not going to get enough benefit by jumping groups, your point start from scratch if you jump group, and many people at this point of time got most of the items besides rare drop anyways, so there really isn't enough interest to jump group either. Most of the people will downright say "no" to another group if they know that everyone else in that group has higher point to lot items. This also apply to a lot of new member that interested in legion but never done it, at this point of time not everyone is interested in sticking with an event group for weeks and months to build up enough points to lot items.


Also, regarding the mantis, it's more of a gambling rather than something requiring skill/pt organization. Unless someone can point out a way to have 0 death rate without having specific gear set thats only useful in legion. I do not want to have 1~2 DD died from mantis, I don't want any DD die from it, and whether it's going to have death or not it's just nothing but gambling atm.

As stated before, if you can stun it fast enough, then you should be able to stun it, instead of having to gamble that stun would land or having to spend time to build another gear set JUST for this mob.

[Arcon]

While, in general, I agree with your overall sentiment, I'm not sure why you think some situational gear is required (or even massively beneficial) to Legion. I don't know of any piece of gear at all, for any job, that is only good in Legion and nowhere else. You simply want "good" gear, but I fail to see how this is in any way different from any other event ever.

And setups are also not a massive problem, I think the worst problem is firstly finding skilled players who can adhere to a certain strategy and not fuck up and secondly, finding that many of them. Gear and job selection aren't the real issues (unless we're talking about extremely casual players), as many people have many jobs leveled these days, and while exceptional gear may still be rare, "good enough" gear isn't. The quantity, quality and integrity of players is the crux in making this casual friendly. It's an event that requires a significant amount of cooperation of a large group, with preferably a static lineup of people who won't quit straight after obtaining what they came for.

[Afania]

While, in general, I agree with your overall sentiment, I'm not sure why you think some situational gear is required (or even massively beneficial) to Legion. I don't know of any piece of gear at all, for any job, that is only good in Legion and nowhere else. You simply want "good" gear, but I fail to see how this is in any way different from any other event ever.

And setups are also not a massive problem, I think the worst problem is firstly finding skilled players who can adhere to a certain strategy and not fuck up and secondly, finding that many of them. Gear and job selection aren't the real issues (unless we're talking about extremely casual players), as many people have many jobs leveled these days, and while exceptional gear may still be rare, "good enough" gear isn't. The quantity, quality and integrity of players is the crux in making this casual friendly. It's an event that requires a significant amount of cooperation of a large group, with preferably a static lineup of people who won't quit straight after obtaining what they came for.

Personally I've used several different weaponn DDs in legion, including 95 Rag, 95 Apoc, 90 Ukon, 99 h2h relic, 99 relic RNG, 99 Masa, 99 amano, OAT GS etc. And in general, Rag(not even 99 rag, just 95) has highest performance on top of able to 2hr zerg.

I did not ever once say that if you don't have X weapon you can't clear, there are groups who cleared without them yes. But you can't deny that certain weapon pulls way ahead of another, which is mainly because of enemy crit-hit%- and high evasion+def I believe, which just hurts crit-hit WS job or weapons without acc on them. If you do other event such as ADL/Nyzul/VW T3, the difference between every DD job/weapon wasn't even this big.

I fail to see why enemy crit-hit%- and that high evasion/def is needed in this event, it simply makes certain weapon stand out and that's it. It doesn't suddenly make this event "hard", or your DD suddenly more "elite"(a 95 rag isn't more elite than other weapon no?), it just make the gap between DD jobs even bigger.

As for legion specific gear set, generally I will ask SCH to have macc stun set+Impact(ideally need 500+ enhancing/healing/nuking too, but I'd be happy enough if they can stun), DDs for PDT- MDT- set, and will ask them to tweak TP set for more accuracy. I used to ask SMN to have capped or close to capped summoning magic skill too, but I don't really care anymore as SCH is the one stunning mostly and now I just ask for capped bloodpact delay-. For those ppl who is used to lower tier VW, stun set with macc, PDT-MDT- set and accuracy for DD is simply not needed. A lot of SMN also don't use Ramuh outside of legion. You can argue that PDT- MDT- set and accuracy every DD should have and not just legion DDs, doesn't mean everyone would be bother with them when you don't really need those in VW with fana/fool/temp.

And yes other event you'd still want "good gear", but it's not as hit or miss as in legion, thus more acceptable to use less optimal set. In VW a pt with "good DD" and "average DD" is the difference between 2 min kill and 5 min kill, but still kill regardless. In legion it's between clear wave 3 and get Gallu/Rex drop or no Gallu/Rex drop at all.