Lack of Incentive for old Add-ons

[cengeal]

If you think the sum value of an add-on is what new gear it can bring to the table, then I think you're missing the whole point. It's like watching porn for the plot.

The story is what tied everything together neatly for me. It takes you through a variety of locations, some of which you might not normally visit these days, through some interesting battles. Some things are about the journey, not the destination. The ultimate reward for Treasures of Aht Urghan was a novelty crown and an Assault ring, yet I still thoroughly enjoyed playing through the missions and taking down Alexander.

I wonder what you might think of FFXIV, where all gear except the newest is considered utterly irrelevant and old content is completely glossed over.

I like the crafting system in XIV. That's about it.

[cengeal]

I still use Anwig Salade and Desultor Tassets as slot-in situational pieces on my PUP. I still wear Mirke Wardecors as /lockstyle body for stylishness.

The add-on mission storyline plots and NPCs / villains are awesome.

The final mission fights were thrilling at 75, it was a lot of fun and challenging too.

In any case, those three mini-expansions are part of the rich tapestry of Vana'diel now, they are part of the world we know.

New players can still experience those missions, enjoy the cutscenes, and they always have the option of fighting the last bosses in level 99.0 gear without ilvl, if they want to experience some challenge thrills. Its easy, you just unequip the ilvl stuff and equip some lvl 99.0 gear, and the content is no longer a pushover, infact it is ferocious.

So I'm really happy those three add-ons still exist, and people can go play them when they want to. There's thousands of new ilvl gear pieces you can use, so there's really no need for more. The three add-ons offer some really awesome Cut-Scenes, unforgettable NPC characters, and some nice slot-in macro pieces and /lockstyle fashion pieces.

I really admire your love for this game's story lines Stompa. Unfortunately, I don't share it completely. I loved CoP, RoZ, and SoA. I think WoTG would be better if you could skip all the stupid sub quests. ToAU was good, but I wouldn't say I loved it. The Abyssea storyline was interesting, and short and to the point. I loved how RoV intertwined everything. But man, I really hate everything about these add-ons.

[Kjara]

A Crystalline Prophecy is by far the content for which I hold the worst grudge yet to this day. I had to level up a whole new job (WHM) to 75 because no one would accept my DRG for the boss fight. Worst Jobish content ever.

[Kensagaku]

Welcome to most of FFXI's history, where we've long had issues of "lolJob" going on. Back in the day, PUP, BST and BLU were considered "lol" jobs and wouldn't get party invites, forcing you to level solo, because parties were RDM BRD PLD AllTheSAM, and maybe a THF. Events excluded BLMs when it became a melee zergfest, and PLDs went heavily by the wayside about then because you could just have your DDs hold hate by smashing face rapidly. BRDs are quickly becoming a dying breed now because GEO is just too strong, with the exception of a few fights. Most melee now aren't brought along because of current content (but there are other threads for that particular rant). This game has always had a history of either players or content blocking out different jobs because they're not optimal; it's not that you can't win, in most cases, it's that the price of it is too high and most people don't want to deal with it.

In your case, with ACP, the crystal's charmga move heavily encouraged pet jobs and ranged jobs, making melee seem inefficient and thus not wanted. I'm just remembering spamming Cannonball on BLU, myself, and not being allowed in melee for that reason. It wasn't a particularly bad example of its type, just part of the norm, really.

[OmnysValefor]

... This game has always had a history of either players or content blocking out different jobs because they're not optimal; it's not that you can't win, in most cases, it's that the price of it is too high and most people don't want to deal with it. ...

While it's technically nearly always players as most people seem to blame the players, I believe it's more on the content than the players. However, like you said, there are [plenty] of other threads on the topic.

Anyway, yeah, when you're using a pop that cost hours of time or millions of gil, you want to bring the winning strategy. There's no time to fool around with a strategy that has a discouraging (literally, losing sucks) success rate. Take Neak for instance. Aside from his 2000 eva, he also can chainspell meteor. It's so much better to have mages on that fight so that you're not trying to supply sufficient acc to melee and vex/attune or fend/wilt.

[Helldemon]

It also doesn't help that you can't have melee/mage/ranged DD in the same party due to having separate buffs for each type. Instead of an acc buff that gives melee acc, ranged acc and magic acc, Atk buff that gives ratk/atk/mab etc etc

[OmnysValefor]

Even despising the the imbalance of jobs right now, I don't think MAB + Physical Attack (likewise for Accuracy) should be rolled into the same buff. However I do think melee and ranged should be the same buff.. and Flurry is pretty silly in itself.

[Helldemon]

Any particular reason for not wanting that?

[OmnysValefor]

It seems so generic, too easy, "Here's your make-stronger and more-accurate buff everyone."

In all fictional universes, magic is different from physical attacks. It has different properties, different strengths and different weaknesses.

[Helldemon]

Ya, but it's impossible to have the differing types in the same party on anything hard as it's too time consuming on the buffer which keeps them from being able to cure/na and in cor's case, DD. Also, cor can't even overwrite old buffs, can they?