Adjustments to Embrava and Perfect Defense

[Camiie]

Just gonna pose this to the devs:

Don't you see that impossible or extremely difficult content ends up driving players to seek out exploits, 3rd party tools, and possibly RMT more than they otherwise would? I don't think you want that, but it's what you're promoting when you start dangling the carrot too far out of reach of even the best players.

I used to be absolutely dead-set against their use, but now with the attitude you've expressed, I've changed my tune. While I can't say I'll be using anything illegal, I certainly will no longer think poorly of or report anyone doing so. As long as the house feels it's ok to stack the deck against the players, I have no issue with anyone who wants to try and even their odds. It may not mean much to them, but I apologize to anyone I've given a hard time to on this subject. Do what you gotta do, people. I now completely understand.

Now back to the devs. If my mind can be changed by your "new" stance, what do you think others are thinking? What about those who were already using those methods? Don't you think they might feel emboldened? What about those on the fence? You don't think you just gave them a nice hard shove in a direction you don't want them to go? Really think about what you're doing here guys.

[Hashmalum]

I think we know exactly how to beat him. I don't think there are any more secret mechanisms, SE just expected it to be a long and incredibly difficult/frustrating fight. Here's how the fight was supposed to go:
1) Get awesome Tanks, more than you need, so AV can't kill them faster than they unweaken. - This was possible at 75 with Aegis PLDs.
2) Hold AV while you break his regen by spamming the same element as the day.
3) Also lock AV's 2-hour triplets at the same time by following his 2-hour with your own.
4) At this point you have a monster with low Regen that can't 2-hour and a reliable holding team, so you basically just fight a really long fight whittling him away down to 0 HP.

The problem is that this strategy became totally impossible when they introduced the 2 hour time limit. Not to mention that it was essentially impossible to start with because when AV came out COR and Revitalizers didn't exist and we all legitimately had to wait 2 hours before we could 2-hour again so any mess-up potentially extended the fight 2 hours. If I had to guess, I'd say this was designed to be about an 8 hour fight at 75 assuming nothing went wrong, and partial wipes would add on from there.

The infamous official AV video showed that it was an 8+ hour fight the way the dev team did it--remember the accusations that the dev team were using debug/GM mode tricks of some sort to reset 2 hours, because we saw the same players using 2 hours on the same in-game day? They weren't, they just fought the damn thing long enough for the in-game week to wrap over. This also fits with their statements about how the way we were trying to kill it was "too fast", as well as the fact that they initially designed Pandemonium Warden to be a grueling endurance match against 20 forms each with a ton of HP. They came from the crazed, brutal old-school online gaming culture of EverQuest 1 that thought that literally spending all day to kill a mob once (never mind the weeks needed to farm the pop items!) was totally reasonable.

I'm guessing that the other thing they expected us to do was to have multiple outside parties killing pets and being ready to rotate into the alliance that was actually fighting AV when there was a mass casualty event like Meteor. The fact that this would mean that of the dozens who fight AV, only 18 would even get the title and a handful would get drops of any kind was just one of those classic old-school FFXI screwjobs, like having up to 64 people farming Dynamis for one egomaniac's weapon.

Then they took this same design mentality into an era where everything was on a timer because something something legal liability something something what's "instancing"? something, only just barely watered down enough to avoid riots, and that's why we get these ridiculous NMs that we need ridiculous abilities to beat and ridiculous statements from the dev team about it. They just have never adjusted to the fact that there is massive competition and people will leave rather than stick it out when faced with bullshit, they never adjusted to the mentality of producing an ongoing user experience rather than a static product handed down from on high, and they never adjusted to the fact that their core audience is aging and shrinking and doesn't have the spare time or patience that they did when they were younger.

[saevel]

I'm guessing that the other thing they expected us to do was to have multiple outside parties killing pets and being ready to rotate into the alliance that was actually fighting AV when there was a mass casualty event like Meteor. The fact that this would mean that of the dozens who fight AV, only 18 would even get the title and a handful would get drops of any kind was just one of those classic old-school FFXI screwjobs, like having up to 64 people farming Dynamis for one egomaniac's weapon.

AV originally had no drops or title as was confirmed by the first group to kill him using the wall glitch. Those were added MUCH later, when they made it "killable". AV (and PW who originally had infinite forms not 20) were designed as ultimate boss's that high level players would throw themselves against time after time for the "challenge". Most of us weren't that stupid and recognized the BS, though some still insisted that they could somehow kill those two. Think artificial content extension.

[Llana_Virren]

AV originally had no drops or title as was confirmed by the first group to kill him using the wall glitch. Those were added MUCH later, when they made it "killable". AV (and PW who originally had infinite forms not 20) were designed as ultimate boss's that high level players would throw themselves against time after time for the "challenge". Most of us weren't that stupid and recognized the BS, though some still insisted that they could somehow kill those two. Think artificial content extension.

And remember the temp bans SE handed out to the first LS that "beat" AV using wall hacks? Leave it to SE: "You defeated our unbeatable timesink?! Account suspended! Problem?"

[Llana_Virren]

...they never adjusted to the mentality of producing an ongoing user experience rather than a static product handed down from on high....

This is precisely the problem. They do not understand that mechanics in a single-player console RPG do not work in an MMO.

[Vortex]

Hmm...i wonder why SE is trying so hard to kill their playerbase.

[Lilia]

Hmm...i wonder why SE is trying so hard to kill their playerbase.

need the pl in FF14 and not in FF11 >.<

[Pebe]

This has probably already been said but this thread is too long to read everything :P

Embrava = DD buff.
Basically Embrava is a play of bravery from older FF games. It Is the end all, be all melee DD buff. DDs have no need for refresh. It is pointless to replace regain with refresh, if you thought regain was so broken, why not replace it with another DD buff like attack or double attack. Or, you could have just lowered the cap on regain to 3 a tick. I mean COR gets a 5 tick regain roll, i don't see how it is so broken. Perhaps you thought it took one of cor's niche's, that is the only reason I can see for taking away regain. Also, if you are going to lower the duration by so much, I don't see why it couldn't be kept at its full potency. It really is not that game changing as it seems over a short time span.(see below) Furthermore, if you want Embrava to be useful for mages as well, why not just add faith that is locked under tabula rasa as well? It would give Refresh, Fast Cast and Mabb/Macc and would make far more sense.

In all honesty everything Embrava does can be done by other jobs.
Capped Haste - double march + haste spell
-So instead of bringing 2/3 schs, replace one with a second bard
5 tick regain - Tacticians Roll
-Bring a second cor if you really need this, you never really stacked these anyway, because the main cor usually did fighters/chaos on high end mobs.
Regen - this was the only really unique thing embrava did as embrava + Regen V gives a huge hp recovered over time.

[Luvbunny]

Agree, Embrava just put all those in one neat little package, that is until the upcoming adjustment. Scholar can still give TP via Adloquium spell which can be stacked with Tactician Rolls. Personally the upcoming adjustment is just making it more inconvenient for the alliance to set up optimal buffs. You end up having to swap around party members to get the best buffs.

[Kristal]

Furthermore, if you want Embrava to be useful for mages as well, why not just add faith that is locked under tabula rasa as well? It would give Refresh, Fast Cast and Mabb/Macc and would make far more sense.

Only if RDM gets Embrava and Faith while using Chainspell, kay?