Legion still sucks.

[Sparthos]

/thread

How many more nerfs until this becomes doable by alliances not using Perfect Defense and Embrava to stay alive?

[Elexia]

When they remove Abyssea and people learn how to play the game properly? Who knows, it's just too hard for some people after 2 years of handholding.

[Zerich]

When they remove Abyssea and people learn how to play the game properly? Who knows, it's just too hard for some people after 2 years of handholding.

looking forward to your full clear video mr.1337

[Sparthos]

When they remove Abyssea and people learn how to play the game properly? Who knows, it's just too hard for some people after 2 years of handholding.

"Abyssea was too easy" is a poor excuse given Legion has a laundrylist of flaws that have very little to do with handholding and everything to do with bad decisionmaking.

[Cahlum]

Legions main flaw is the drops are absolutely crap i'm in a group 18 man static we do legion but the drops are just abysmal.

All the stuff that drops in provenance should drop in legion and vice versa. SE cannot stick a bunch of rehashed nms in the horototo ruin, add a bunch of crap drops then expect everyone to do it. Not to mention the 360 k entry fee.

[Luvbunny]

Another dead contents - let's hope they are not abandoning this and actually willing to make fun, accessible and enjoyable. As it is now is one of those why bother to do. Still learn absolutely nothing after creating blockbuster content that is Abyssea - even void watch is mildly successful after tweak.

[Mahoro]

Legions main flaw is the drops are absolutely crap i'm in a group 18 man static we do legion but the drops are just abysmal.

All the stuff that drops in provenance should drop in legion and vice versa. SE cannot stick a bunch of rehashed nms in the horototo ruin, add a bunch of crap drops then expect everyone to do it. Not to mention the 360 k entry fee.

Some of the lower-wave items are indeed stinky ;; Looks like they backloaded all the good stuff in the final waves and final chamber.

[Anapingofness]

When they remove Abyssea and people learn how to play the game properly? Who knows, it's just too hard for some people after 2 years of handholding.

I never get tired of people saying Abyssea = hand holding. Nor will I understand the anti-Abyssea crowd.

I will never understand that backwards logic, no matter how hard I try.

Abyssea does not equal hand holding. What Abyssea did was make the game fun and accessible for the majority of the players. It removed the epic time sink the game had become and enabled everyone to work in smaller groups. Smaller groups are easier to manage and people can get things done faster.

18 man alliances are cool in theory, but horrible in application. It always takes forever to get people together and then controlling 18 people is a pain like you wouldn't believe. You really have to take a militaristic approach to those sort of events in certain cases.

Quite frankly, I pay to play this game not wait for 18 people to gather, or camp out in DA waiting for Faffy/Niddhog to spawn- the list is endless and by now we've all heard it.
Most importantly, I pay to have fun.

If anything, SE should be exploring what worked with Abyssea and implementing it throughout newer content as well as older content.

[Luvbunny]

Totally agree with your point of view!! Awesome observation btw on how amazing Abyssea content is. For me it is hands down the best content for FFXI and a fitting swan song, until they realize how shitty FF14 at launch, and now they have to do a lot of backpedalling and creating content that just feels like a drag with super low drop rate and you need to do 30-40 mnts shout just to get it started.

[saevel]

Some of the lower-wave items are indeed stinky ;; Looks like they backloaded all the good stuff in the final waves and final chamber.

It was done this way to delay people from farming them. Think AV / PW back at 75, except instead of making a single ridiculously hard nigh invincible NM, they make a series of ridiculously hard NM's with a nigh impossible time limit. The fact that people are even discussing having one SMN per NM to get a clear is enough to prove the previous point. Legion is a carrot for the EGLS's who want "something" to accomplish. They can keep throwing themselves against the brick wall until a future time when SE decides to allow you to win.

[Camiie]

When they remove Abyssea and people learn how to play the game properly?

Maybe you could produce a guide on what constitutes proper play?


Who knows, it's just too hard for some people after 2 years of handholding.

Maybe it's just overtuned content and even those who play "properly" are having trouble with it.

[Zumi]

FFXI is not hard at all, if you think it requires much skill then you obviously haven't played many other games. But still I have to see any Legion shouts for groups forming. Seems people in FFXI don't like doing it. I wanted to try it out but that's impossible when nobody even wants to make group for it.

[Return1]

While I don't like people blaming abyssea for people not being able to do the impossible event called legion, you're full of shit if you think for one second abyssea wasn't full of hand holding.

We went from epic battles that required teamwork, knowledge, and a plan, to "Throw DD+WHM at it".

Massive HP boosts. Infinite MP. 2hr spam. Superpowers. Infinite RR Zombie Assault.

That's the epitome of handholding and dumbing shit down.


Abyssea seems like a bigger success than it actually was. The people who liked it stayed and are very vocal about it, while the people who left in mass exodus have no voice. Far more people left because of the abyssea styled content than people who stayed. There's a reason SE considers Abyssea a failure: It hit them in the pocketbook. Abyssea changed some things for the better, but it messed up horribly far more than it helped.

Did right:
Ease of travel
Loot pools
Removed discrimination in EXP
NM and ??? respawns

Did wrong:
Proc systems
Superpowers making gear less important (The purpose of the game is story and gear, Abyssea lacked much of one and devalued the other)
EXP TOO FAST/EASY
Removed social justice
Removed any sense of teamwork/accomplishment (Not one thing in abyssea CAN'T be beaten easily with MNK+WHM)
Excessive temps
Increased job discrimination in everything else
Devalued low level gear and gil
Promotes something for nothing mentality to an extreme level


Let's just be honest here.

[Alhanelem]

When they remove Abyssea and people learn how to play the game properly? Who knows, it's just too hard for some people after 2 years of handholding.
Abyssea has absolutely zero to do with people sucking. Sucky people are going to suck, abyssea or no abyssea. It's not like once you hit level 99 and you stop EXPing, that you're unable to learn anything. Such people would be like that anyway.


We went from epic battles that required teamwork, knowledge, and a plan, to "Throw DD+WHM at it"."hand holding' and 'easy" aren't the same thing. Holding ones hand is an act of guidance. Abyssea isn't easy because anyone or anything is guiding you through it. Abyssea has almost no structure to it whatsoever, there is no 'hand" holding you and telling you what to do next. The difficulty level is generally pretty low, but that's not what hand holding is. hand holding is directly guiding and teaching the player and assuming they wouldn't be able to figure it out on their own. It would be the game telling you something like "Congratulations on beating <NM>. Now go here and beat this one!"


Devalued low level gear and gilThis isn't a bad thing. Low level gear shouldn't be valuable. The only problem is possibly higher losses while leveling up a new craft.

[Spiritreaver]

When they remove Abyssea and people learn how to play the game properly? Who knows, it's just too hard for some people after 2 years of handholding.


While I don't like people blaming abyssea for people not being able to do the impossible event called legion, you're full of shit if you think for one second abyssea wasn't full of hand holding.

We went from epic battles that required teamwork, knowledge, and a plan, to "Throw DD+WHM at it".

Massive HP boosts. Infinite MP. 2hr spam. Superpowers. Infinite RR Zombie Assault.

That's the epitome of handholding and dumbing shit down.


Abyssea seems like a bigger success than it actually was. The people who liked it stayed and are very vocal about it, while the people who left in mass exodus have no voice. Far more people left because of the abyssea styled content than people who stayed. There's a reason SE considers Abyssea a failure: It hit them in the pocketbook. Abyssea changed some things for the better, but it messed up horribly far more than it helped.

Did right:
Ease of travel
Loot pools
Removed discrimination in EXP
NM and ??? respawns

Did wrong:
Proc systems
Superpowers making gear less important (The purpose of the game is story and gear, Abyssea lacked much of one and devalued the other)
EXP TOO FAST/EASY
Removed social justice
Removed any sense of teamwork/accomplishment (Not one thing in abyssea CAN'T be beaten easily with MNK+WHM)
Excessive temps
Increased job discrimination in everything else
Devalued low level gear and gil
Promotes something for nothing mentality to an extreme level


Let's just be honest here.


First off, not picking at you two solely, but more at the whole "Abyssea was too easy" crowd.

Have you guys ever thought about not using all the things that made Abyssea too easy in your opinion? You know? No Atmas, no cruore buffs, and no keys for chests. No using fluxes. No using temp items, especially brews.

Well?

And please, let's not use the old "well it'd be silly to not use that stuff since its readily available" answer.

[Camiie]

While I don't like people blaming abyssea for people not being able to do the impossible event called legion, you're full of shit if you think for one second abyssea wasn't full of hand holding.

We went from epic battles that required teamwork, knowledge, and a plan, to "Throw DD+WHM at it".

Oh please, the old battles weren't any more complex, and in many cases were less so than Abyssea NMs. The difference was you needed more people.

[Kaisha]

Only real problem I have with Legion is that once you fall, you're done. There's no time for recovery, and good luck going a full 5 minutes without one of the wandering NMs still left up not aggroing your whole ally.

[Return1]

And please, let's not use the old "well it'd be silly to not use that stuff since its readily available" answer.

But it's true. Good content should be challenging by design, not because you're horribly, horribly gimping yourself. I find amateur boxing fun, but I have no challenges here. However, I don't cut my arm off so these losers stand a chance, I seek out more challenging opponents. Holding back because I have no competition isn't fun. Fighting competition that's worth my time is. This is the reason Abyssea was a massive failure. People felt the same boredom I'm describing and they left.

And now Alhanelem, semantics doesn't really change the point. It was easy to the point of being insulting, and there was more handholding in the sense you're using it in, they made a lot more guidance for abyssea in game than any other event. It flat out says "kill this guy" "get that and bring it here" "this is how this works in more words than you need".


This isn't a bad thing. Low level gear shouldn't be valuable. The only problem is possibly higher losses while leveling up a new craft.

ITT: Marginalizing the games currency and eliminating the importance of a large section of the economy isn't a bad thing.

That's one of the dumbest things I've ever read on this forum, and I've read suggestions for DRK abilities.

Believe it or not you can wear gear before the 90's.

[Return1]

Oh please, the old battles weren't any more complex, and in many cases were less so than Abyssea NMs. The difference was you needed more people.

They were more complex because concepts like distance, TP-moves, timing, two-hours, etc actually mattered. Abyssea nms showed a new level of creativity and complexity, but it didn't matter because you could just curbstomp their pathetic asses.

I want nms outside of these stupid super-powered, temp-fueled zerg-fests like abyssea and VW. Imagine level 99 content that functions like sky or sea, or even better yet, limbus (Please don't let them screw up new limbus...) and has battles with wide ranging strategies and individual gimmicks like many abyssean NMs. They've already shown they can have interesting battles, but they ruined it by making players far more powerful than monsters can hope to handle.

All I want is abyssea -with- competition.

[DaBackpack]

You also need to realize that we are at level 99 now and Abyssea first came out with the 80 cap. Things were harder back when the content was relevant. Sure, atma made it easier, but you can't compare 80-90 content to 99 content as far as difficulty goes at level 99.
Abyssea WAS sort of easy all the way through, but the difficulty was different when it was actually relevant.

Anyway, I agree wholeheartedly that Legion needs changes. For one, I literally lol'd when I saw the 'points' gear when I did Legion the first time. The difficulty is another thing altogether.

[Alhanelem]

Marginalizing the games currency and eliminating the importance of a large section of the economy isn't a bad thing.Since when was low level gear a large section of the economy? It's been years since anyone's given a damn about low level gear.

Low levels go by fast. Especially with the removal of level caps on nearly all content in the game, there's no reason to keep low level gear. Gear that you're only going to use for a short time shouldn't be costly.

[Return1]

Low level gear mattered before abyssea. By low level I mean all the levels leading up to endgame to make that clearer.

Before abyssea people wouldn't let you join their parties in full af and come leech, they expected half-assed gear and decent effort.

STR/DEX/AGI/ACC/RACC rings of all levels were desired, Hauby, SH, Sipahi, Kingdom/Republic/Federation gear, Eisen/Kampf, Seer's gear (especially +1), amemet mantles, colored capes and cotahidre, devotee's, austere, raven, refresh cloaks, nobles, blessed, barone, dusk, black, tarasque, arhats, hachiman, assorted weapons, and other general sub 75 gear, was bought and sold at decent prices up until abyssea took off. That's not even half of it or even NM dropped gear.

Before abyssea that was a gigantic part of the economy,you probably just don't want to remember.

[Insaniac]

GJ shitting up a thread about Legion being terrible with nonsense about abyssea. Legion is stupid and it has nothing to do with abyssea. There's 50 other threads to argue about abyssea in and everythingyou are saying has been said 1000000 times already.

[Sparthos]

Low level gear mattered before abyssea. By low level I mean all the levels leading up to endgame to make that clearer.

Before abyssea people wouldn't let you join their parties in full af and come leech, they expected half-assed gear and decent effort.

STR/DEX/AGI/ACC/RACC rings of all levels were desired, Hauby, SH, Sipahi, Kingdom/Republic/Federation gear, Eisen/Kampf, Seer's gear (especially +1), amemet mantles, colored capes and cotahidre, devotee's, austere, raven, refresh cloaks, nobles, blessed, barone, dusk, black, tarasque, arhats, hachiman, assorted weapons, and other general sub 75 gear, was bought and sold at decent prices up until abyssea took off. That's not even half of it or even NM dropped gear.

Before abyssea that was a gigantic part of the economy,you probably just don't want to remember.

All that mattered before Abyssea were SMNburns, Moblin Maze Mongers set to 55 or 75, Colibri in ERon(S), Colibri in Wajoam Woodies, Colibri in Bhaflau Thickets and Colibri @Nyzul where dicks collided. The so called economy you laud was already well on the slide with level sync leaving only a fraction of gear useful to most players.

Take your Abyssea shit out this of thread because with or without the wonderful world of Razed Ruinga, Legion is pretty terrible across the board.

You're tasked to gather up 18 people, fight multiple NMs that spam their most powerful attacks out of the gate with no time extensions while receiving little to no incentive to throw yourself against the wall that is the event.

Is the gear good? Sure, a few pieces are collectable and have some value but nothing is 'wow' enough to deal with an alliance event where one ill-timed Fulmination means you've just wasted everyones time.

What is the incentive for strangers to team up? There is none. FFXI isn't the clique-fantasy it used to be and much of endgame now centers on pick-up groups yet the developers are creating content like its 2009. Why? So the handful of linkshells that can bother to cater 18-36man events can have fun? Is that a good use of dev resources? No.

Why is everything centered on abusing Embrava and Perfect Defense?

I know these abilities are powerful but seriously? Players ask for old school battles (largely turtlefests to make RDMs and PLDs feel good) and instead what we're given is an event where you can't inhale the content before monsters are launching off AOEs that oneshot everyone.

So lets sum up this joke of an event and end on a constructive note:

-If you're going to require 18 people then make the rewards worth it. Heavy Metal, Currency, Rare synthesis materials amongst other valuable loot or no one will care. This event has been dead since day1.

-This idea that hardmode = massive AOE dmg everywhere isnt challenge, it just winds up being brava, alex and zerrrrg till you run out of steam and wildcard it back. Abyssea had more finesse for crying out loud.

If Legions HNMs even rare dropped items of value like say...

Wyrm dropping a Honey Wine or Sweet Tea (because wyrms love it and players love wyrms)
Zilant dropping VNM materials (currently asked for in new 100+ synths and a nod back to Yilbegan)
Harpeia dropping items related to previous harpy battles (another shot at obtaining Anhur Robe, Ephemeron, Athos' Tights)
Dweorg dropping pops related to the ZNM system (he is a pandy warden clone afterall)

people would at the least be interested in giving it a try but who cares about that? Lets just make content that fails to fail.

In summary, a video of Legion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7wBN-U2KXI

[Alhanelem]

Low level gear mattered before abyssea. By low level I mean all the levels leading up to endgame to make that clearer.Low level gear stopped mattering when the level restrictions were removed. You bought something, you wore it for a few hours, you NPC'd it or sold it back. Nobody has kept or invested in low level gear in years. leaping boots? <insert low level NM drop>? What do I need those for?

All that aside.... my word, that's probably one of sparthos' best posts ever. Too much effort required (Not just for the battle itself, for for too little reward,

It was fun on the test server during the event, because we had a big pool of players to form a group with and we deliberately spent time hammering out a strategy. But stuff like that doesn't just fall into place on the live game. You have to go out and recruit people for it, and when everyone hears how hard it is and how much stuff it drops, they're just like, "screw that." If it's going to be that hard, then it needs to have fittingly good rewards.

[Monchat]

Low level gear mattered before abyssea. By low level I mean all the levels leading up to endgame to make that clearer.

Before abyssea people wouldn't let you join their parties in full af and come leech, they expected half-assed gear and decent effort.

STR/DEX/AGI/ACC/RACC rings of all levels were desired, Hauby, SH, Sipahi, Kingdom/Republic/Federation gear, Eisen/Kampf, Seer's gear (especially +1), amemet mantles, colored capes and cotahidre, devotee's, austere, raven, refresh cloaks, nobles, blessed, barone, dusk, black, tarasque, arhats, hachiman, assorted weapons, and other general sub 75 gear, was bought and sold at decent prices up until abyssea took off. That's not even half of it or even NM dropped gear.

Before abyssea that was a gigantic part of the economy,you probably just don't want to remember.

something's weong with your reasonning. It is not abyssea that changed what you are talking about, it's LEVEL SYNCH. I'm sorry, level synch came what, 3 years before abyssea? A few month after they introduced level synch I was getting sam to level 75. Doing it the old school way, buying all the relevant gear right before getting the level (snipes rings, O.kotes, SH...). Oh look, everyone and their mother level synched to 20 in qufim until level 55, then level synched at birds @55 until 75, and then merit pt on birds at 75, I could never use any of them properly. Once Ireached 60 i stoped caring and leveled with crap 55 cap gear all the way to 75, and most people did.

Abyssea didn't change anything people have been doing that forever. Once upon a time exping on crab and whatever level you were, was the shit (remember cape terrigan parties...?) Then Eaht Urghan came and people exped on colibris 55+. Then WOtG came and it was colibris 30+. Now it's sandsweeper 30+, but nothing really changed.

[hiko]

Take your Abyssea shit out this of thread because with or without the wonderful world of Razed Ruinga, Legion is pretty terrible across the board.

You're tasked to gather up 18 people, fight multiple NMs that spam their most powerful attacks out of the gate with no time extensions while receiving little to no incentive to throw yourself against the wall that is the event.



What is the incentive for strangers to team up? There is none. FFXI isn't the clique-fantasy it used to be and much of endgame now centers on pick-up groups yet the developers are creating content like its 2009. Why? So the handful of linkshells that can bother to cater 18-36man events can have fun? Is that a good use of dev resources? No.



and that 100% because of abyssea. Legion is a failure because Abyssea destroyed need of LS.

[Insaniac]

Holy crap... Who cares? That has nothing to do with how stupid legion is. The content time line could have jumped straight from VNMs to Voidwatch and Legion would still be stupid. Even in the LS only content world of yesteryear, legion would still be stupid. The content and rewards are poorly designed independent of any outside factor. It's more content where if you aren't invincible you just die. People wanted content that required a tank and mage party. Not Voidwatch without temps.

[detlef]

and that 100% because of abyssea. Legion is a failure because Abyssea destroyed need of LS.I don't think a lot of LS out there would have survived through 2011 without Abyssea. If there were no Abyssea, what would people have done in its place?

No matter what you think about Abyssea, there's no way Legion could be successful to the extent SE would hope in 2012.

[Return1]

The thread may be about legion, but you've said all that can be said about legion as it stands. The mobs they want killed aren't consistent with the time they've given to kill them. it's turned into who can wave the most PD/Embrava zergs at the chamber. Just make the event much longer and the problem's really solved. Everything said after that's either going to be a rehash parroted endlessly or stupid.

ITT: Because people say it, it must be true!

Level sync didn't ruin low level gear, and while popular, it was not the only way to exp outside of soloing. SMN burn wasn't as big as people like to remember either. Since I did a lot of them, I can tell you it was freaking impossible to do them at any large scale because there were so few camps actually done and the gathering process/respawn/party size limits made it impossible to do it on a scale large enough to significantly cut into actual exp parties. Also, there were far more camps than those listed, and those camps were actually pretty spread out through 1-75.

Listing a few popular ones:
12-16 The dunes on goblins and crabs was popular for syncing.
20-25 Crab Burn
25-30 Mandy burns
35-45 Colibri/Bugs [S]
55-62 RRT Bats About the same levels, less hp, and same piercing weak status as a certain squishy pink bird w/o Flurry.
55-62 Lesser Colibri The original "colibri onry"

It's a decent spread of level ranges. And there were actually more. People would sync to colibri/birds/giant bats mostly as they were all squishy, piercing weak, and low hp. Triple bats were considered not as popular because of aoe attack down and jet stream. Citadel and KRT were popular. Beetles in Altepa were done too. Crawlers were done if you had dispel. Same for Crabs. Goblins were done because they could be squishy and suicides made for fast kills. The colibri camps were just first choice, but there was only enough birds to support 2 decent-good parties at any level range. While some people may have refused to party outside of those camps, the majority would move to the next best thing.

Also a lot of gear was good for long stretches of time, like said leaping boots. Level sync lowered the standard a bit, that's true. However, Abyssea removed any standard at all. You can exp in abyssea while naked and afk and come back to a gil profit from cruor and npc fodder.


I don't think a lot of LS out there would have survived through 2011 without Abyssea. If there were no Abyssea, what would people have done in its place?

No matter what you think about Abyssea, there's no way Legion could be successful to the extent SE would hope in 2012.

Abyssea gutted far more lses than it kept together.

Legion could be very successful if SE would just raise the time limit to 1hr+. If SE made the battles time limits 2hrs long, the lack of fear of timing out would see Legion progress beyond mere zerg fest. Battles should be about if you can kill the monster, not if you can kill it before being magically whisked away for no real reason whatsoever.

[Camiie]

Abyssea gutted far more lses than it kept together.

I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I think he's saying that without Abyssea people would have simply got sick of the same old grind and quit much sooner.


Legion could be very successful if SE would just raise the time limit to 1hr+. If SE made the battles time limits 2hrs long, the lack of fear of timing out would see Legion progress beyond mere zerg fest. Battles should be about if you can kill the monster, not if you can kill it before being magically whisked away for no real reason whatsoever.


That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. If only SE had real instancing in place they wouldn't have to stick time limits on everything. I assume that's part of the reason there's a limit. The other/main reason is obviously to stifle progress and gear acquisition.

[Mahoro]

You're tasked to gather up 18 people, fight multiple NMs that spam their most powerful attacks out of the gate with no time extensions while receiving little to no incentive to throw yourself against the wall that is the event.

Is the gear good? Sure, a few pieces are collectable and have some value but nothing is 'wow' enough to deal with an alliance event where one ill-timed Fulmination means you've just wasted everyones time.

What is the incentive for strangers to team up? There is none. FFXI isn't the clique-fantasy it used to be and much of endgame now centers on pick-up groups yet the developers are creating content like its 2009. Why? So the handful of linkshells that can bother to cater 18-36man events can have fun? Is that a good use of dev resources? No.

Why is everything centered on abusing Embrava and Perfect Defense?

I know these abilities are powerful but seriously? Players ask for old school battles (largely turtlefests to make RDMs and PLDs feel good) and instead what we're given is an event where you can't inhale the content before monsters are launching off AOEs that oneshot everyone.

So lets sum up this joke of an event and end on a constructive note:

-If you're going to require 18 people then make the rewards worth it. Heavy Metal, Currency, Rare synthesis materials amongst other valuable loot or no one will care. This event has been dead since day1.

-This idea that hardmode = massive AOE dmg everywhere isnt challenge, it just winds up being brava, alex and zerrrrg till you run out of steam and wildcard it back. Abyssea had more finesse for crying out loud.

If Legions HNMs even rare dropped items of value like say...

Wyrm dropping a Honey Wine or Sweet Tea (because wyrms love it and players love wyrms)
Zilant dropping VNM materials (currently asked for in new 100+ synths and a nod back to Yilbegan)
Harpeia dropping items related to previous harpy battles (another shot at obtaining Anhur Robe, Ephemeron, Athos' Tights)
Dweorg dropping pops related to the ZNM system (he is a pandy warden clone afterall)

people would at the least be interested in giving it a try but who cares about that? Lets just make content that fails to fail.

In summary, a video of Legion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7wBN-U2KXI

I agree with most of your points about the problems with Legion. The effort:reward ratio is one of the biggest problems to me, and I would love if they put in the rewards you suggested (mm Anhur Robe!). Someone on another forum counted up every single current Legion drop that can be classified as useful or great, and came up with only ~20%. Which I guess is in line with events like WoE and VW, and if these drops were in those events people would eventually go after 'em to round out their jobs. Except they put these particular drops behind what is hands-down THE hardest event in the game, and which requires THE most boneheaded of strategies (PD/Embrava zerg). Their dev notes of "oh you must change strats and adapt based on what happens" is simply not borne out by reality when you have an incredibly restrictive time limit for 7+ HNM.

I am actually getting really sick of their time limits on events lately where their balance justification is "oh well, the drop rates are better, but we just designed it so you will hardly ever reach the final mob". It's not even like Legion drop rates are as good as Nyzul. They are better than VW but sufficiently behind Nyzul. And for the amount of effort required for Legion, by all rights the Nyzul drops should be in Legion and vice versa.

I disagree, however, that the devs shouldn't have devoted resources to this event. People complained about individual loot pools in Voidwatch and people asked for this sort of content, and they catered to this demand. While I won't get into the Abyssea/LS debate, I will say there are a significant number of LS's left in both NA and Japan (moreso in Japan if you ever hang out in Provenance for an extended period of time) to justify at least the IDEA of the content. However, I WILL agree that if they wanted to increase its popularity to PUGs, they should add individual chests at the end in addition to the pooled loot (i.e., to make it like Prov Watcher).

[Sparthos]

and that 100% because of abyssea. Legion is a failure because Abyssea destroyed need of LS.

LS' were already on the skids due to lack of content pre-Abyssea. Endgame forums like ZAM and BG were dead because the only thing SE could manage to release were Evoliths (fail), VNMs (fail) and Fomor HNMs (fail). You say Abyssea destroyed LS' and I'll say that poorly received content had already boiled FFXI down to a handful of events that most people were never going to do. Casuals had already been given the middle finger where you either logged in to do merits, level a new class, do something PUG friendly like Nyzul or BCNMs or you were forced to log out because the newest content was all rubbish no one would dare try to PUG.

Sandworm, Ixion, Salvage along with meriting until your face went numb. Which was your favorite? I was quite fond of putting my flag up for hours with no progress myself or doing Campaign battles because EXP dictated you need specific setups and guess what? No one had X job throughout X level span. Fun times.

Legion is garbage tier content that makes the design of Yilbegan blush from it's sheer lack of focus, rewards or purpose for existing. Legion is like the developers equivalent of a kid typing a paper full of disjointed crap just to have something to hand in on Monday morning.

[Sparthos]

I agree with most of your points about the problems with Legion. The effort:reward ratio is one of the biggest problems to me, and I would love if they put in the rewards you suggested (mm Anhur Robe!). Someone on another forum counted up every single current Legion drop that can be classified as useful or great, and came up with only ~20%. Which I guess is in line with events like WoE and VW, and if these drops were in those events people would eventually go after 'em to round out their jobs. Except they put these particular drops behind what is hands-down THE hardest event in the game, and which requires THE most boneheaded of strategies (PD/Embrava zerg). Their dev notes of "oh you must change strats and adapt based on what happens" is simply not borne out by reality when you have an incredibly restrictive time limit for 7+ HNM.

Legion should have been one HNM at a time with either randomizers in play or special mechanics that gave each HNM it's own flavor and thus appropriate strategy. Something like:

Lofty Zilant - Randomizer: Your foe has increased attack power.
Lofty Harpeia - Randomizer: Your foe is suffering from a defense penalty.
Lofty Adamantoise - Randomizer: You are benefiting from a substantial HP boost.
Lofty Elasmoth - Randomizer: You are suffering from a powerful plague. (-2mp/tp tic)

Such a setup keeps the focus on one mob at a time which relieves the feeling that if one thing goes wrong you're going to hit the floor along with 17 other people within the span of 30seconds of a tank dying. You keep the SE fetish of 'random things!' along with the potential for an easier or harder time depending on where the dice happen to fall.

Mechanics like the Behemoth using Meteor only when he's Flame Armored require some level of strategy and border on fair if you happen to catch the pattern before it's taken out on your alliance. Things like the Zilant only using Abyssic Buster if he manages to have a Varanus up (the gyre lookalikes) or Khimaira attempting to Fulmination after a cued Dreadstorm or Mist would be fair and cut down the amount of "haha, you lose" cards an HNM could pull.


I am actually getting really sick of their time limits on events lately where their balance justification is "oh well, the drop rates are better, but we just designed it so you will hardly ever reach the final mob". It's not even like Legion drop rates are as good as Nyzul. They are better than VW but sufficiently behind Nyzul. And for the amount of effort required for Legion, by all rights the Nyzul drops should be in Legion and vice versa.

45mins-1hour would have been fair if it was one HNM at a time because you'd have alliances focusing on the one target at hand and under favorable conditions getting a sample of many different HNMs before timing out. The whole point of Legion was "slay as many foes as you can in X time" yet what we got was "slay 7 foes or you aren't getting the clear credit". Why?

The points and loot off individual mobs should have been enough to keep the event 'fun' while giving people something to do with their time. Like I posted before, seeing some rare items like:
-Honey Wine drop off a Wyrm.
-Red Pondweed drop off a Ferromantoise.
-Ethereal Squama off Zilant.
-Vinegar Pie off Dweorg.
-Heavy Metal Pouches off the Ironclad.

would have been excitement to get people repeating the content while getting points along the way. Things like those new crafting materials that only drop in Voidwatch could have been thrown into point pool along with augment items for new abjuration gear once you managed to clear the 'final' chamber of the event.


I disagree, however, that the devs shouldn't have devoted resources to this event. People complained about individual loot pools in Voidwatch and people asked for this sort of content, and they catered to this demand. While I won't get into the Abyssea/LS debate, I will say there are a significant number of LS's left in both NA and Japan (moreso in Japan if you ever hang out in Provenance for an extended period of time) to justify at least the IDEA of the content. However, I WILL agree that if they wanted to increase its popularity to PUGs, they should add individual chests at the end in addition to the pooled loot (i.e., to make it like Prov Watcher).

The problem is at this phase of FFXI you can't just design events for a handful of players that have an HNMLS capable of doing the content - not after we crossed the bridge into lowman events and mostly PUG affairs. Things like Legion should be doable with a PUG and thus doable by members of a linkshell in a way that both parties stand to benefit just like Voidwatch is right now.

The current Legion is almost completely PUG unfriendly meaning 95% of the base will never touch it and thus my argument of being a waste of dev resources. The few LS that do manage to get 18 together aren't even going to be rewarded for the effort and that makes the entire event a huge waste of SEs time if no one is going to attempt it. The 36man chamber is a joke and should have just been more duplicated chambers for 18man parties to run if congestion is going to be an argument.

Also, a question I've always had regarding to how SE does BCNMs. Couldn't an event like Legion just warp you to one of the many BCNM arenas that see virtually no use? For instance:

-Bearclaw Pinnacle
-The Shrouded Maw
-Navugo Execution Chamber
-Empyreal Paradox
-Mamool Ja Training Grounds
-Talacca Cove
-Monarch Linn
-Full Moon Fountain

are all BCNMs that see little to no traffic. Couldn't the battles simply be held in these regions instead of the Legion battlefield if things filled up? I understand I don't know the specifics but couldn't the code for the monsters be copied into these zones? It isn't like the monsters make special use of the Legion arena or Nyzul where the specific zone is needed for the functionality of the event. All you need for Legion is an arena (most listed above are huge arenas) and the monsters.

The lore explanation? Your memories are being projected to create the magical arena. You'd also axe the commentary that the Legion arena is boring as and looks about as interesting as plaid wallpaper.

[Mahoro]

The 95% figure is mostly speculation to prove a point, and neither you nor I have any serious data on the issue. You would have to count the total population of NA EGLS's, JP EGLS's (of which there are significantly more), and miscellaneous groups like social shells that run "EGLS-lite". With respect to the latter, note that several "social shells" have popped up on Lakshmi which run group events like VW. They start with a core set of people and /shout for any job holes in their group. One of them even locks Prov Watcher drops under the guise of "doing the work" to organize the event, essentially rendering them an EGLS for that one event.

Some or all of the above groups are capable of DOING Legion. Of course, SUCCEEDING is quite another matter because of SE's design choices. But I simply do not believe the original idea of the event was flawed, just the horrible execution. Historically, the devs have always mixed design choices for 100% of the playerbase (Abyssea, missions) with design for a miniscule fraction of the playerbase (Mythics, Arch Dynamis bosses like ADL, etc.). Even if the PUG:LS ratio is 75:25, that still can fall in line with previous allocation of their resources. Of course, I would agree that they need to allocate some more resources to the game to stave off player attrition and interest.

A corollary argument is that just because the majority of the playerbase "crossed the bridge" into lowman and PUG events does not mean they won't ever want to form LS's again....IF, of course, the content demands it and player interest justifies it. I am not foolish enough to assert that Legion will cause ANYONE to form an LS due to SE's shitty design. But post-Abyssea, there HAVE been many new LS's or private groups that pop up to do events like VW. When they revamp Einherjar over the next couple months, it will likely not be PUG-able if it's pooled loot and revised to challenge Lv. 99s. If the revamp of Limbus takes off, well, that was never a PUG-friendly event to begin with so people will have to adapt. Dungeon Crawling might be PUGable or small-static based, who knows? People are just used to doing content a certain way because the content thus far has served it, but that can change based on the popularity of an event.

[detlef]

I don't want to put words in his mouth, but I think he's saying that without Abyssea people would have simply got sick of the same old grind and quit much sooner.
Exactly. One way or another, the old style LS was going to go. The only question was how.

[Sparthos]

The 95% figure is mostly speculation to prove a point, and neither you nor I have any serious data on the issue. You would have to count the total population of NA EGLS's, JP EGLS's (of which there are significantly more), and miscellaneous groups like social shells that run "EGLS-lite". With respect to the latter, note that several "social shells" have popped up on Lakshmi which run group events like VW. They start with a core set of people and /shout for any job holes in their group. One of them even locks Prov Watcher drops under the guise of "doing the work" to organize the event, essentially rendering them an EGLS for that one event.

You're right, none of us have the hard numbers however that doesn't change the fact that this event is all but a failure coming right out of the gate. Failure by my own definition is the event being catered to so few individuals that the effort expended by the developers designing the event goes completely unnoticed by the common player.

Running a search of the Legion zone during any time of the day will more than likely result in a 0 lending evidence to the argument that something is fundamentally wrong with this event, the BG discussion (the most poplular endgame website with a healthy collection of hardcore endgamers) has the accounts of one group that has gotten relatively far in the event while everyone trashes run viability and even if this was merely an NA issue (like WOE) we'd be seeing some of the sellable drops appearing on the AH from JP or EU shells doing this event - we haven't.

FFXI has had flops before and this ranks as a huge one, especially in an era where Voidwatch is the leading content followed by the 2hours/day Dynamis offers. The sheer enormity of this events failure is something I feel we haven't seen since Evoliths.


A corollary argument is that just because the majority of the playerbase "crossed the bridge" into lowman and PUG events does not mean they won't ever want to form LS's again....IF, of course, the content demands it and player interest justifies it. I am not foolish enough to assert that Legion will cause ANYONE to form an LS due to SE's shitty design. But post-Abyssea, there HAVE been many new LS's or private groups that pop up to do events like VW. When they revamp Einherjar over the next couple months, it will likely not be PUG-able if it's pooled loot and revised to challenge Lv. 99s. If the revamp of Limbus takes off, well, that was never a PUG-friendly event to begin with so people will have to adapt. Dungeon Crawling might be PUGable or small-static based, who knows? People are just used to doing content a certain way because the content thus far has served it, but that can change based on the popularity of an event.

The idea of creating large-scale 36man battles at this phase of FFXI (steady decline) is not only foolish but also shows just how out of touch they've gotten from the base. Instead of focusing on the masses with cross-appeal to linkshell activity (better organization, run smoothness, helping friends) we have an event that fails to appeal to anyone while offering 36man access like it's a selling point worth mentioning. The rewards aren't even properly scaled for bringing 36 people to the run which licks of backwards design for the game on the whole.

Newsflash SE, this isn't 2005 Dynamis.

Ideal content at this phase is something that PUG can do with some moderate (emphasis on moderate) level of success and also an event that linkshells can do with greater success due to the boons that a good LS offers. The idea of locking out PUG not only isolates popularity but also leads much of the base to announce XI has nothing worth doing and desub which hurts SE, hurts the linkshell populace and further sends the game into the icy abyss. Many of the old guard endgamers aren't looking for the old school hardcore "you must suffer" events but something thats harder than Abyssea but not so difficult that you must be Embrava'd/Alex'd or you might as well log to POL.

Legion again fails on this front.

[FrankReynolds]

Remember all those people who were like "I want a challenge. I don't care about the drops. I just want a challenge. FFXI is too easy now..."

Thanks guys. Have fun.

[Mahoro]

I agree with Legion being a flop for the reasons you cited, Spart. They went too far out of the realm here as even their target audience has trouble clearing it. But I guess I don't think every event has to be PUG-friendly. Yes, I accept the premise that there should be popular, PUG-friendly events in the game in order for it to survive. But I think if you make a well-designed, well-rewarding event, the playerbase will tackle it regardless of whether it is by LS, PUG, or static group. Legion will never reach the heights Einherjar or Limbus did unless they fix it fast.

[detlef]

Remember all those people who were like "I want a challenge. I don't care about the drops. I just want a challenge. FFXI is too easy now..."

Thanks guys. Have fun.
I never understood that. I like easy things.

[Insaniac]

Remember all those people who were like "I want a challenge. I don't care about the drops. I just want a challenge. FFXI is too easy now..."

Thanks guys. Have fun.
What they should have said was, "Everyone has good gear now and I don't feel special. Please make events that only people who derive too much pride from having better gear in ffxi will do." since that's what they really meant. Maybe SE would have ignored that.

[Return1]

What they should have said was, "Everyone has good gear now and I don't feel special. Please make events that only people who derive too much pride from having better gear in ffxi will do." since that's what they really meant. Maybe SE would have ignored that.

No MMO will make it far if there isn't pride in getting uberleet awesome gear that acts as elevated status. It's one of the major drawing points to MMOs. The trials and tribulations, the stories, the drama, and the legends are what make an MMO good, once you take that away, you've got a dying game. MMOs are mainly interactive soap operas. Once you take the drama out, it's just a lame waste of time.

There's no epic feats in this game anymore. SE is trying to cater to easymode play, and when they try to go back to give actual MMOers a challenge, they don't know how to do it, so they just slap an unrealistic time limit on the event. This is a really shitty practice too.

No one's cleared Neo-Nyzul without third party apps, because of randomness and a retarded time limit. No one will clear Legion without PD/Embrava rotations and 2hr zergs, because of the retarded time limit.

[Aldersyde]

There's no epic feats in this game anymore. SE is trying to cater to easymode play, and when they try to go back to give actual MMOers a challenge, they don't know how to do it, so they just slap an unrealistic time limit on the event. This is a really shitty practice too.

No one's cleared Neo-Nyzul without third party apps, because of randomness and a retarded time limit. No one will clear Legion without PD/Embrava rotations and 2hr zergs, because of the retarded time limit.

You know, this kinda reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Lisa goes to military school because she finds she isn't being challenged at Springfield Elementary. When she finds out has to do the hand-over-hand climb over the Eliminator, she tells Bart that it's too hard. Bart replies that he thought she wanted a challenge and she says, "Duh, a challenge I could do!"

You complaining about easy mode and then whining about what you consider an "unfair" challenge (which is what you're basically doing) is just lolworthy.

I think the only real problem with legion is that there's little incentive to actually do it. I'm inclined to say throw some OMGuberLEETJesusAllahBuddha loot in and keep the difficulty just as it is and just let people throw themselves at it again and again. Maybe then I wouldn't have to put up with with people constantly sneering that this game is easysauce.

[Return1]

They didn't ask her to climb the eliminator in 30 seconds with 500lbs strapped to her waist. There's a difference between a challenge and impossible. It's impossible to clear Neo-Nyzul without third party tools and outside communication. To my knowledge no one has fully cleared any Legion run. Not because the mobs are hard, but because there's an unrealistic time limit.

There's a difference, and that's why your statement makes you look like a jackass, jackass.

[Rezeak]

If legion was what it should of been it would of worked imo

and by that all the gear (good stuff too) was buy able by points then everyone would enter and it would cater to both the elitliest and casual gamers. (WIN OR LOSE you'd get closer to your Personal goal and iy could be as difficult as SE wanted it to be).

The clears could add KI that reduce cost or give access to higher scoring teirs.

[Insaniac]

No MMO will make it far if there isn't pride in getting uberleet awesome gear that acts as elevated status. You're maybe half right. People need something to aspire too but most players will never reach the elite level and they know it so by your logic they would all just quit. Most people just play to achieve their personal goals. The problem comes in when these goals become unrealistic and beyond what a casual to moderately hardcore player is willing to put themselves through. See legion, neo-nyzul, level 110 crafting, stage 2 relic weapons, getting that perfect augment on your adaberk, paying 40 mil for new -1 abj gear, ect. If people want these tasks to exist just so they can feel better about themselves then they need zoloft a lot more than they need "Challenging" ffxi content.

[Mahoro]

Don't really see how by his logic they would quit. Just because there are existing elite levels that Player X knows he cannot get to (e.g., idiotic things like stage 2 relic weapons), does not mean automatically mean that he will quit because of that knowledge. Nor would it prevent Player X from trying to elevate his status up to that point. Hell, I know players who think they are hot shit, elevated status, etc. just because they bought 5 Umbral Marrows from a bazaar in PJ...

[Sparthos]

No MMO will make it far if there isn't pride in getting uberleet awesome gear that acts as elevated status. It's one of the major drawing points to MMOs. The trials and tribulations, the stories, the drama, and the legends are what make an MMO good, once you take that away, you've got a dying game. MMOs are mainly interactive soap operas. Once you take the drama out, it's just a lame waste of time.

And all SE had to do was reward amazing pieces of gear at the highest point values that'd keep the hardcores grinding for the next 3-4 months while the casual/less hardcore individuals shot for realistic rewards that would be set to moderately high or low point values to make Legion something everyone could do.

You want pride? Obtain all 5 pieces of the Badass set of Badassery from the top Legion points or snag yourself some glowing weapons from the top tier point drops or risk it all in the crap droprates off mobs.

This idea that things must be either stupid 'brew-easy' or 'Brava all the things!' is a false argument because things can have sliding difficulty levels or cater to different types of people. The main argument to levy against SE at this point is just not giving a shit about what gets put out so long as they have something to show come update time. You'd think in an even just recycling old HNMs you'd get some gear themed from those former HNMs or just better versions of what the old HNMs used to drop like:

-From the makers of OAT2-3x Ridill - an OAT2-6x RidillX!
-Ixion dropped 12% Movement shoes, Ixion mk. II drops 18% movement shoes.
-Alicorn drops a light aura spear since it's signature attack is... a giant light spear.
-Vampyr drops a weapon that steals HP/MP/TP.

Weapons that aren't only good but also say to others "yo, you beat Cerberus II and here is your awesome badass flaming Algol variant!" It's the little things like this that'd grab your old endgamer wanting the "new Ridillz" right up the line to people joining runs just cause because the event is fun.

Of course though SE can't be arsed to make anything appealing so you end up with garbage like Triplus Subligar. Hold the phone, we're gonna send 36 people into a zone for gear with:

DEF:40 Accuracy-20 Attack-10 "Subtle Blow"+10"Triple Attack"+5%

or

Damage taken +2% Enemy critical hit rate -5%

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d102/ama989010ama/565_lupin-and-gang-laughing.gif

[Return1]

You're maybe half right. People need something to aspire too but most players will never reach the elite level and they know it so by your logic they would all just quit. Most people just play to achieve their personal goals. The problem comes in when these goals become unrealistic and beyond what a casual to moderately hardcore player is willing to put themselves through. See legion, neo-nyzul, level 110 crafting, stage 2 relic weapons, getting that perfect augment on your adaberk, paying 40 mil for new -1 abj gear, ect. If people want these tasks to exist just so they can feel better about themselves then they need zoloft a lot more than they need "Challenging" ffxi content.

That's the thing about personal goals. You get to pick your own goals. There should be different levels of commitment and different levels of achievement. I think there should be epic challenges for those that want to pursue them, why shouldn't there be? Because not everyone can do them, players who find them interesting shouldn't be allowed to have goals that cater to them? Just because some people perceive it as too hard, like an old school relic, doesn't mean it's out of their reach either.

There's also a huge gap between options you listed:

Legion: Currently retarded zerg fest that requires no strategy but PD/Embrava rotations. To my knowledge no one can make a full clear, but people have cleared first waves.

Neo-Nyzul: Not one single person has even whiffed floor 100 without their group using third party tools, dat modding lamps to show order, and out of game communication like skype/ts/vent.

110 Crafting: This is actually reasonably doable and it's a reasonable personal goal you can achieve all by yourself.

Afterglow weapons: These are just ridiculous time sinks and need some adjustments. The mythic one is actually pretty reasonable because of the changes to the zeni system and the fact PW was designed as 75 content. The ADL trial is stupid because he can just decide you're going to die, and it requires other people waste their runs to help you out, unless they're mercing them for you. Empyrean wouldn't be so bad if they increased drop rates by a hefty margin for plates/cinder/dross.

And sparth idk why you're coming off so aggressive when I really agree with you on almost everything.

There needs to be a sliding scale of difficulty. There needs to be a wider range of events for different play styles as well, like there was at 75.

There needs to be a refocus on enemy design as well. The focus of battles and rewards from said battles should be decided by if you can defeat these monsters, not if you can do these tasks with an arbitrary time limit that severely cripples all your options for strategies, demands specific jobs, and forces you to shun less desirable jobs because they don't fit with the ONLY viable strategy.

Not everything is SE's fault either though. Players need to have a paradigm shift as well. Players really have a sense of entitlement today compared to say, 2006. They are entitled to certain things, but they take it way too far these days, thinking that just because they pay for the right to play the game, everything should be theirs regardless of how well they actually play the game. They don't pick a personal goal anymore, they just assume they should have everything.

Players should first pick a role that fits their style of play. Back in the day there were several type of clearly defined players, but these days it's blurred. Are you a social player, just in it for meeting new people? An explorer? A Roleplayer (I know, lolrpfags in and mmoRPG)? Are you a crafter? Do you garden/HELM? Farmer? Endgame player? Leader? A WAR? A MNK? A WHM? A <insertjobhere>? What are you? What is your in game CAREER?

Well, the game shifted towards everyone playing various roles, killed a lot of old roles, merged some together, and changed the playerbase. Many quit and left. Now SE admits they changed to much and unbalanced the game, and they say they want to rebalance it. Now we got people who don't fall into clearly defined roles and everyone thinks they're more important and shouldn't have to pick a role. They need to try and meet SE half way, but SE needs to start be getting their heads out their asses and releasing content they doesn't suck (mostly due to artificial difficulty like time limits and RNG).

[Sparthos]

Just thought I'd point out at no point was I intending to be aggressive.

Also should point out that 'careers' in this job are finished given the sub75 market is gone, HELM items are practically worthless, crafts to 110 need more gil than a relic and you can't farm the craft items yourself (on some crafts) which is a huge issue. This is a game in its decline phase and things like exploration just don't cut it when most of the base has at the least had some experience with FFXI in the past.

FFXI right now is a game of 'pick your event' and with the choices SE is offering, a failure like Legion severely restricts what people can do and thus harms the long term viability of the game.

Abyssea - Empyrean Weaps/Armor
Dynamis
Walk of Echoes
Magian Trials
Voidwatch
Voidwatch - Provenence Watcher
EXP
Neo-Nyzul
Legion

These are the major choices and two of them present issues for a huge portion of the base.

[Camiie]

That's the thing about personal goals. You get to pick your own goals. There should be different levels of commitment and different levels of achievement. I think there should be epic challenges for those that want to pursue them, why shouldn't there be? Because not everyone can do them, players who find them interesting shouldn't be allowed to have goals that cater to them? Just because some people perceive it as too hard, like an old school relic, doesn't mean it's out of their reach either.

My problem right now is that I don't see much of anything as obtainable, nothing I want anyway, other than maybe Magian trials. I've pretty much gotten what I want out of Abyssea. I can't seem to get anywhere in VW, as I'm well behind the curve and can't seem to find enough people to backtrack and help me get the clears and temps I need. I don't really want or need a relic for the jobs I have. I'm just totally at a loss right now except for the Magian trials which aren't exactly an enjoyable experience. That's my experience in my little corner of the FFXI universe. YMMV and all that.


There's also a huge gap between options you listed:

Legion: Currently retarded zerg fest that requires no strategy but PD/Embrava rotations. To my knowledge no one can make a full clear, but people have cleared first waves.

Neo-Nyzul: Not one single person has even whiffed floor 100 without their group using third party tools, dat modding lamps to show order, and out of game communication like skype/ts/vent.

110 Crafting: This is actually reasonably doable and it's a reasonable personal goal you can achieve all by yourself.

Afterglow weapons: These are just ridiculous time sinks and need some adjustments. The mythic one is actually pretty reasonable because of the changes to the zeni system and the fact PW was designed as 75 content. The ADL trial is stupid because he can just decide you're going to die, and it requires other people waste their runs to help you out, unless they're mercing them for you. Empyrean wouldn't be so bad if they increased drop rates by a hefty margin for plates/cinder/dross.


Good analysis of current events. Except for crafting which I find horrendously boring and painful, none of these are accessible for someone like me, and so for anyone like me all this work SE has put in is wasted. The community as I see it in general just doesn't want these sorts of things. Also, and most importantly, it isn't structured in way to do these sorts of events anymore. A small minority are willing and able to perhaps, but it seems as though that's all that's being catered to right now. Where do the rest of us come in? Are we supposed to realign our lives to fit SE's vision of Vana'diel? Shouldn't it be more like the other way around?


There needs to be a sliding scale of difficulty. There needs to be a wider range of events for different play styles as well, like there was at 75.

They at least need to ripoff WoW and have Normal and Heroic difficulties for every event and give us casual "dungeons" to go alongside the hardcore "raids" they seem to be fond of.



Not everything is SE's fault either though. Players need to have a paradigm shift as well. Players really have a sense of entitlement today compared to say, 2006. They are entitled to certain things, but they take it way too far these days, thinking that just because they pay for the right to play the game, everything should be theirs regardless of how well they actually play the game. They don't pick a personal goal anymore, they just assume they should have everything.

Most players aren't like that. They have no problem having to earn their keep, it's just I think many of us are running out of things we feel we can realistically earn.


Players should first pick a role that fits their style of play. Back in the day there were several type of clearly defined players, but these days it's blurred. Are you a social player, just in it for meeting new people? An explorer? A Roleplayer (I know, lolrpfags in and mmoRPG)? Are you a crafter? Do you garden/HELM? Farmer? Endgame player? Leader? A WAR? A MNK? A WHM? A <insertjobhere>? What are you? What is your in game CAREER?

That's true, although my experience pre-Abyssea didn't really involve being allowed to choose what role I wanted to play. In my heart I was and am a MNK and BST. Guess how far I would have gotten in endgame with those roles? I wouldn't even have made it through the application process. Now, though things are better in that regard, except for the ever piss poor job balance (or lack thereof).


Well, the game shifted towards everyone playing various roles, killed a lot of old roles, merged some together, and changed the playerbase. Many quit and left. Now SE admits they changed to much and unbalanced the game, and they say they want to rebalance it.

It's never been balanced. Ever. And people have been quitting the whole time the game has existed for one reason or another.



Now we got people who don't fall into clearly defined roles and everyone thinks they're more important and shouldn't have to pick a role.

I chose DD! That's mah role. Now what?


They need to try and meet SE half way, but SE needs to start be getting their heads out their asses and releasing content they doesn't suck (mostly due to artificial difficulty like time limits and RNG).

I agree with you on the SE part, but I think we players have compromised more than enough. It's SE's turn and it will be for some time to come.

[Return1]

Thank you for clearing that up sparth.

While most helm items are worthless, for harvesting at least, there's a pretty decent market for 100-110 items like Walnuts, Date, Dragon Fruits, and Reishi Mushrooms. AH history on Dates and Walnuts are crap but they bazaar way more in Windurst Waters, and you can probably get more since no one else is supplying them, at least not on my server. Is it profitable? It can be. It's just not the most profitable. Some people do enjoy it though.

People may find crafting horribly boring, but I knew/know people whose only real activity in this game is crafting or farming for crafting. Whatever floats their boat. If you got a craft to 100, I'm pretty sure you can get it to 110 with little to no trouble, at your own pace.


It's never been balanced. Ever. And people have been quitting the whole time the game has existed for one reason or another.

There was balance enough to have many roles and an economy that wasn't 100% for the top levels. There was life before maxed levels. And people quit all the time for various reasons, but there hasn't been any other period in the game where so many quit in such a narrow span of time. Abyssea really altered the game on a massive scale that has been bad for it from a larger perspective.

Now if I were to make some suggestions on rebalancing, I'd say add more incentives to CP and IS purchases. The easy to obtain nature of AN and the addition of Voidstones, really got a lot more people doing a dead event like campaign. With some creative uses of CP/IS and the new EXP values for outside zones and books, you could really make it worth people's time to EXP outside and to have participation in parties.

Actually, I have a few ideas that I think are pretty awesome, but since this is getting so far out of the legion subject, I'll just start a new thread.

On Legion:
I truly think that if they simply made the time limit 2 hours, the event would be a real success as is and a boon for linkshell based content. It's a very simple fix. It has some really good rewards amongst the lolworthy trophies, and the difficulty would be perfect if not for the retarded time limit forcing players into a zerg-or-don't-even-bother setup.

And a side not on VW, I think the ticket system will actually be a huge success if they're implementing it how I'm reading it. I'm all for having alternative ways to obtain rare drops for all events as long as they require a title showing you actually participated and the RNG just crapped on you.

[Insaniac]

I'm not saying there should be 0 "difficult" content. Just saying MMOs can exist without god mode battles and super elite gear that only a few people have. They can certainly exist without content that is unbeatable by 99% of the player base but we seem to agree about legion being terrible so I'll leave it at that.

[Luvbunny]

Let it be a reminder for you guys, if SE cannot even created a good solid 6 person group activities via Neo Nyzul, don't hold your breath about them fixing Legion. That is a disaster in the making. There is no challenge, all they been making is hamster wheel of death for us to run over and over. At the very least they are making effort on Voidwatch, and Walk of Echoes. As for Neo Nyzul, Legion and the upcoming Neo Limbus, Neo Salvage.... just ignore these, give it a year when they finally get to it and actually make it so that you do not need cheat programs or jobs xyz to clear it.

[Jerynh]

Warning, not on the subject of Legion at all.

I didn't mind the idea of the level shift. The overall goal was for everyone to be able to do everything they already did, in smaller groups. Less group management. But everything needed an overhaul if they were going to do that, and for some reason they didn't think about that. Instead of changing current gear, most of which was at least moderately situationally balanced (Even those +15 mind boots from sky still had at least one use, light bolts or something, right?), they decided to add new, only mildly difficult to obtain gear that came in the form of AF3 that rendered almost all previous content useless. Thats why everyone quit.

Take sky. Leave the bosses the same or roughly the same so they are easier. But change their drops to have a 99 requirement (or start with 80, then 85, etc). Change the stats to still be moderately situationally balanced. Change all the current existing drops to match. People will get over all of a sudden a stack of their gear becoming onwearable for a couple levels. They'll buy some cheap crap to level in.

Dynamis. Feel free to change the flow to make it more interesting. Then, instead of additional upgrades through a moogle, continue the relic storyline. Maybe not so many requirements. Not another 10000 piece or anything, maybe offer a new currency piece from ADL that the goblins wont trade for lesser values (to keep them from becoming instant-relics) in order to buy the upgrade and continue the story. The moogle stuff is super lame, lets be honest. "I know you spent 2 years in a netherworld working to obtain this end-all weapon... But go kill a few spiders. I got a better one in my backpack you can have when you're done."

Salvage. Add a 4th piece to each upgrade. Add new and interesting ways to obtain this last piece. Done. Break everyones 75 "finals", send them all 3 pieces and the materials to the delivery box. Thats just database space. It'd work fine.

Continue mythic quest line for final upgrades. Done.

Just ranting. I hate magian trials. So lame.

[saevel]

Instead of changing current gear, most of which was at least moderately situationally balanced (Even those +15 mind boots from sky still had at least one use, light bolts or something, right?), they decided to add new, only mildly difficult to obtain gear that came in the form of AF3 that rendered almost all previous content useless. Thats why everyone quit.

Umm no, just ... no. Not even close.

People quit because the develop team stopped caring after their A team got sent to FFXIV which left FFXI with a skeleton crew and an absolutely HORRIBLE guy calling the shots. During Abyssea era there was an actual increase in subscriptions, people came back and started playing again because the game moved forward, newer gear, newer things to do, more shinys and so forth. There were actual upgrades, not stuff that was inferior to the gear you got in 2005. People want better gear, they want better content, they want more stuff not sidegrades. Look at legion, prime example of a failed event. Entirety too hard for the crap it drops, crap gear that is sidegrade / downgrade from what we got in abyssea. Magian's is fine for upgrading gear and for providing a baseline set of gear that everyone can obtain without needing to give oral ministrations to a LS leader.

[Return1]

During Abyssea era there was an actual increase in subscriptions

That's actually a false. A shit ton of people quit because of the server mergers and 99cap announcement. Then handful rage quit over the gayness of abyssea (I only get to play 30minutes once per day WTF I QUIT!!1!). Subs picked up after Abyssea started to be understood, but after that, people have steadily left BECAUSE of abyssea.

Obsoleted years of hard work for many. Killed most big linkshells. Removed most of the teamwork and group dynamics people liked. Dumbed down playing. Could be blown through in a week or two and leave you with nothing to do. No worthwhile alternatives.

SE said they considered Abyssea a flop because it unbalanced things. Translation: People are jumping shit left and right because we pretty much obsoleted all endgame but one thing, and now people have nothing to do.

Now we get shit like Voidwatch, which is meant to take up more time than any other event ever, with the lowest drop rates the game has ever seen in an attempt to keep the addicted busy.

What's really sad is that Legion and Neo-Nyzul would have been great boons to this game if not for the stupid time limits on them.

[Neisan_Quetz]

People have been steadily leaving throughout the years before and after abyssea was released, this is nothing new nor is it exclusive to Abyssea.

Why is this conversation still going on again?

[SpankWustler]

So, what method of magical divination are people on both side of this pointless argument using to objectively determine the total number of people who left, exactly when they left, and why they left?

Honest question. I'll be out and about for a week, and I'm trying to determine if I should pack stuff for inclement weather or not. I just can't get a definitive reading from slaughtering these goats that I might gaze upon their blood splatter and entrails, and worse yet, I'm running out of places to store disemboweled goat corpses and buckets of mildly mystic goat blood.

Back to the topic on topic, I agree that Legion (and Neo-Nyzul Isle) are ridiculous with the current time limits. Legion briefly seemed fixed by the HP reduction adjustment, but after one or two groups announcing they had cleared it, I haven't heard much. More waves apparently just keep appearing after a "clear", so I doubt even the few groups who clear the Legion bosses at present would be unhappy with a longer time limit.

On one hand, most end-game content since at least Treasures of Aht Urhgan stuff has started out fairly unrewarding for one reason or another but improved with time. I assume they're fiddling with Legion somehow as I'm typing this, but...

On the other hand, their adjustments to Voidwatch have been akin to propping up a corpse with two sticks and announcing to a six-year-old child that "Grandpa is all better!" They barely even acknowledge the reason it's unrewarding, a reason which has nothing to do with the difficulty of the monsters. Also, Uncle Bertrand, I knew that old people don't smell that bad even when I was six.

I'm not sure how pessimistic to feel. Someone help me feel the correct amount of pessimism.

[Sparthos]

I don't see what Abyssea itself has to do with the change of attitude that occurred during the time that Abyssea was the centerpiece content of this game. We can wage verbal war over what Abyssea did to XI but there was a distinct change in company attitude that led to speedy fixes, player-centered problem resolution and steady improvements that ceased once Heroes concluded and we got to Voidwatch.

At one point I started to say to myself "wow this is overkill on the issue fixes" and that may have been true or false but what mattered is that SE was doing something and doing it quickly.

If that same behavior were displayed with Legion or Voidwatch, this thread wouldn't exist and people would be enjoying the content rather than picking it apart or ignoring it.

[Luvbunny]

Abyssea is the crack that keeps on giving, made the game super fun to solo, trio, small groups or dual box. Gives you tons of stuffs to do. Great resources of gill. Overall grade A+++ in terms of crack addictiveness, accessibility, and fun. Big LS dead right and left? Good riddance!!! Never really like big end game LS of yesteryears where only small handful of members get special treatment, and if you don't like to brown nosing, you get zero. I like what abyssea did, you can log in, go play, absolutely ZERO waiting on stuffs you want to do. Unless you want to do post abyssea content, in which case wait for shouts, and pray your jobs is XYZ or sorry, party is full, or go back level xyz jobs and not some LOLs jobs.

People complained that abyssea breed lazy players.... I am sorry, don't blame the content, blame the people, lazy players are just that, lazy people who never take the time or effort to try learning the intricacy of their jobs - no matter how fast or slow they get their level. They exist in 2003 and they still exist now.

[Return1]

I've never said Abyssea is the reason people are bad at the game. I'm just saying it helps facilitate it. Why?

It removes a lot of the danger and learning you had before.

It's extremely beneficial to leech or accept gimps into your group. With the way groups for exp are set up you'll benefit more by adding that gimp to your group than by competing with them. Also, you can leech millions of gil a day in Abyssea EXP groups. Just show up and get into a giant alliance as a low level job with empty space in your inventory. Each cruor is just over 2.6 gil each, and you can AH or NPC the crap load of drops you'll wake up to.

By making it beneficial for players to team up with competition and adding superpowers that matter far more than your gear ever did, Abyssea has helped gimps become far more prevalent since people no longer boot them from parties en masse and they aren't hindered as much by their own crappiness.


Big LS dead right and left? Good riddance!!! Never really like big end game LS of yesteryears where only small handful of members get special treatment, and if you don't like to brown nosing, you get zero.

Spoken like a person that either had a crappy ls or couldn't get into a decent one. Just curious as to your gear, as from what I've seen in your posts around this forum, you seem to hate people having a little something I like to call "Reasonable standards".

[Luvbunny]

I don't hate reasonable standards, I do not care about elitism however, it is a game, you play for fun. Again, blame the player mentality. As for danger and learning, old xp party is pretty much doing the same. You don't really learn much via abyssea alliance or normal xp party of the old yesteryear. Their main goals is to get xp as fast as possible in the most efficient ways. SE helped us with abyssea and pretty much removed that one hamster wheel. You learn a lot more about your jobs by doing a low man NMs contents, since you really have to understand your job well to survive and need to work together as a group. There is a huge difference with well run small groups vs a group with a bunch of clueless people. Big LS are dead because the game has changed, you no longer need them for the majority of the contents. I am happy where the game is going, it is not perfect, there are a few issues, but overall hopefully going to the right direction. The ability to log and play with minimal waiting is the best thing that ever happened to this game. And the various options to do things are amazing now. Old school play style never really go away to be honest, but the majority of players pretty much shun it and go with the new school, but there are others who still want the good old days. Well, they are still here, just find others who have similar needs. OPTIONS, FREEDOM, LOG and PLAY :) no more waiting.

[Mahoro]

Abyssea is the crack that keeps on giving, made the game super fun to solo, trio, small groups or dual box. Gives you tons of stuffs to do. Great resources of gill. Overall grade A+++ in terms of crack addictiveness, accessibility, and fun. Big LS dead right and left? Good riddance!!! Never really like big end game LS of yesteryears where only small handful of members get special treatment, and if you don't like to brown nosing, you get zero. \

Grossly exaggerated, and actually dangerously discriminatory in its rationale: "LS A had shitty rules that people could bypass through brown-nosing or sexual favors. Therefore, all LSs have shitty rules that people can bypass through brown-nosing or sexual favors." Strange to see this argument echoed in 2012.

That being said, I agree that Abyssea was a great injection of gameplay for FFXI, but after awhile even that great event gets boring and people want to move on to different things. There have been times during Abyssea activities that I literally have found my eyes fluttering down to close out of boredom since the content is so toothlessly easy now.

[Luvbunny]

Not all LSs are bad, but in general they always have their own little groups of people who are higher in the food chain than everyone else. No waiting apply mostly to abyssea contents, all the post abyssea ones require some sort of waiting unless you have a LS that do weekly void watch where they only add 6-8 people as needed etc.. And yeah once you get tired with Abyssea, there are those other options of new activities, with very low drop rates on gears, designed to keep you spinning the wheel over and over. Voidwatch is not as bad though and they are improving it with each updates, more so than Neo Nyzul and Legion.

[Mahoro]

Fair enough. See, it's only when people talk in absolutes that makes me cringe. I mostly agree with your last post though. Although even in my LS, while there are a few more popular or skillful players with the shell, the points system is blind to it and treats everyone equally.

[Luvbunny]

I think the game now has more options than before. There are enough contents for small or large Ls to do. A tons of stuffs for hardcore or casual players to consume. Tons of magian trials to do. Just so many contents, while not all are great, at the very least they still update and improve some of them with each updates. At the end of the day, people need to stop blaming too much on the game, yeah it can add to the cause, but most of the problems are caused by the player base. Big LS die because people get tired of waiting, or members jump LS when they don't see their needs being met, it's people problem. If you happen to be in one where such problems don't exist, then congratulations, since those LS still do exist, though not that many anymore.

[MarkovChain]

Some of the lower-wave items are indeed stinky ;; Looks like they backloaded all the good stuff in the final waves and final chamber.

Still dreaming on legion gear not sucking I see.

@ sparthos

It's funny, I've said that legion sucked the day it was released ( was known to suck the day it was released on the test server), I've also said that its drops where garbage one week after release by deduction. It's ok it's going to be Nyzul III. I'm surprised noone mentions how Nyzul is an entire pile of crap too, maybe cos the drop arent awful ; you never see anyone do Nyzul, I swear I see more people doing assault. Gathering 6 persons to win the lottery and hope you roll 9 10 times in a row, hoping those people aren't too bad and that the NM drops what you want and that you don't get outlotted .. Oh wait I think I know why nobody wants to do it !

Ok now look at legion, it's the same crap but you need 3x more, you need to outlot 3x more people, for a gear 3xworse, and this time you need specific jobs like an army of SMN (also called it one week after release :D) .. and you have to pay for it lol !




-If you're going to require 18 people then make the rewards worth it. Heavy Metal, Currency, Rare synthesis materials amongst other valuable loot or no one will care. This event has been dead since day1.


Lol, atcually it was dead by the time the first person entered it on the test server and insta died, then it died a little more when they "organized" a couple of runs on the test server.

[MarkovChain]

Of course though SE can't be arsed to make anything appealing so you end up with garbage like Triplus Subligar. Hold the phone, we're gonna send 36 people into a zone for gear with:

DEF:40 Accuracy-20 Attack-10 "Subtle Blow"+10"Triple Attack"+5%

or

Damage taken +2% Enemy critical hit rate -5%


Sorry for being late to the thread, but this confirms my initial thought that legion is so cheaply designed that they made it in an afternoon. One more stuff that people will forget just like

- VNM
- Walk of echoes (anyone remember? lol)
- The evolith system
- Nyzul II
- and now legion

I'm probably forgetting some

edit : ok anyone remember the NM system from the Past Beastmen HQs ? The pixies fight from several past zones where you have 5 chances per day at augmenting a weapon that a best equals the best AH gear ? Hey guyz let's put a gob outside of Jeuno that randomly gives you crap with 99.99% chance ?

[Monchat]

as far as battle content goes, add:

-fomor NMs ( than spawn in [S] dungeons) but I guess that's linked to evolith
-FoV and ASA/MKD/etc augments (so random..)
-Sea NMs that they always refused to touch
- GoV (didnt see a lot of complaints here, but the only time I tried it you had to kill mobs with 15mn repop timer for hours). GoV is good for one thing: speed power-levelling a job 1~30 in 2hours.

The things they did "ok" after abyssea was: dynamis, fafnir/dadamantoise/behemoth, ZNM (the zeni update), sky augments, VW.

[MarkovChain]

I think the only thing they did right is dynamis, but even dynamis is unbalance, like only 4 zones get used pretty much or the proc system that sucks. But as far as fun/reward/ratio goes it wins hands done ([planable]relic for everyone or money for everyone even solo)

[Mahoro]

Still dreaming on legion gear not sucking I see.



Still misinterpreting what people say and talking in absolutes I see.

[saevel]

Grossly exaggerated, and actually dangerously discriminatory in its rationale: "LS A had shitty rules that people could bypass through brown-nosing or sexual favors. Therefore, all LSs have shitty rules that people can bypass through brown-nosing or sexual favors." Strange to see this argument echoed in 2012.

That being said, I agree that Abyssea was a great injection of gameplay for FFXI, but after awhile even that great event gets boring and people want to move on to different things. There have been times during Abyssea activities that I literally have found my eyes fluttering down to close out of boredom since the content is so toothlessly easy now.

Honestly people give abyssea the "easy mode" but do they really know what their saying? We out leveled Abyssea so fast that we never actually played it at it's designed difficulty. Visions was for level 80 players, Scars for 85 and hero's for 90. Abyssite of Discernment did not exist for the first two expansions which made "procing" vastly more difficult. 200K brews didn't exist until after you beat Shinryu which is supposed to be one of the "final" boss's. Apadamek is a PITA at level 99, at 90 he was one hell of an annoying NM, so annoying that you just brewed him rather then deal with his BS. We still brew him at 99 so we don't have to deal with his aoe moves. So yeah abyssea is "easy" now for the same reasons AV because "easy" once they raised the level cap. If someone wants "challenge' then go and fight Apadamek with a group of 6 and no Atma / Crour / Brews buffs and tell us about how "easy mode" it was.

Mahoro I know there are a few good EGLS's out there, but the vast majority of them exist for the purpose of enriching and gearing their leaders and leaders friends. If your not inside the "in crowd" then your not getting priority on any gear and will be last in line for everything. Once the leader and his friends have acquired everything they want, suddenly they'll have the desire for a "break" or whatever and the shell will dissolve.

[Mahoro]

And I understand those LS existed, but I would venture to say they were never the "vast" majority (which by the way you underlined it, you likely mean 75% or more). And the ones that have actually survived to 2012 have survived in great part because they are not like that, or if some are, they are in the vast minority now.

Re Abyssea: I completely agree. I actually preferred it at level 80 cap. In fact, my favorite was Visions, before the RR/Minikin dozefests began (speaking from a WHM lv. 90 perspective btw). I am not sure we can say with certainty whether Abyssea's "designed difficulty" was lv 80 cap, or whether they always intended to introduce the overpowered Atma and Abyssites. You are assuming content that was introduced in installments was also designed in installments. I do know it is possible not to design an event as "challenging" as Legion or as arbitrary as Neo-Nyzul, yet not as neutered as Abyssea became at lv. 90.

I am aware I could render any event as challenging as I want it by level syncing or going without buffs. However, that does not ultimately serve as an excuse for designing it as such. As for not doing Abyssea with atma, I already do. It's essentially called Voidwatch. Where the atmacite aren't nearly as good as the atma, yet I have most of the temps from Abyssea.

[Return1]

I think the only thing they did right is dynamis, but even dynamis is unbalance, like only 4 zones get used pretty much or the proc system that sucks. But as far as fun/reward/ratio goes it wins hands done ([planable]relic for everyone or money for everyone even solo)

I'd say Limbus was their best event. Tiered progression, some nice upgrades for almost everyone, coins that could be split up and used to purchased some strong gear, and Homam was awesome (Nashira had some good pieces but the comparison isn't even close).

I really hope they don't mess up New Limbus.


As for old EGLSs being bad. Most of them got big because they were good and got people stuff. Most people who claim their EGLS experience was crap is simply because they probably chose very wrong. One of those "we accept anyone stupid enough to join" shells instead of a shell with a proper list of requirements.

[Sparthos]

Dynamis balanced?

Yes, the event is far superior to the old style dungeon crawl in terms of individual rewards but in terms of things to do outside farm currency? The NMs are all over the place in difficulty. You have alot of Arch NMs that were useless from day 1, Arch DL and Diabolos' both involve zerging for your life (terror and deathspam lol), anything outside JA procs are a waste of time, EXP trials for augmented gear totally shit on certain jobs and the arch boss rewards are about deep as a kiddie pool.

Issues of congestion in COP zones have been met with no changes leaving cities completely desolate outside the odd flag run. Relics have gotten easier but the new content in Dynamis is largely trash.

[Sparthos]

Also, Abyssea with a few things scaled back would be exactly the challenge everyone desires but believes could only exist without Abyssea. The devs are fools for simply throwing away an idea that worked simply because it got out of hand towards the tail end of the expansion.

Limit things to one Atma, drop the cruor buff potency, leave brews at 2m cruor per use, keep the ??? pop NMs, maintain the key item and treasure system, require more items for the magian trial rewards, randomize procs and you'd have an event that completely blows anything away we've got since Heroes.

[Zerich]

I'm not sure how pessimistic to feel. Someone help me feel the correct amount of pessimism.

you could always be a career DRK asking for escape.

[CrAZYVIC]

This event is only for the more High elite player base.

For success in legion you need something only 5% of the player base have.

Not is enough have good gear
Not is enough play Well your job.
Not is enough have knowedge.

This 3 things are only a part of what is necesary. For success in legion you need 18 or 36 players EXCELING in their jobs.

Elite players show they are the kings "Playing". When i mean playing. Not in a forum shuting mouths, not in jueno standing with Shiny gear, not playing "Pretty". I repeat you need show you EXCEL your job.

DDS have years parsing their events and doing MASSIVE damage in every event they play. You need speed, timing and brain for excel using DD job. Not everyone can be a Elite DD.

Healers with bionic fast fingers and give a total calm when you know x person is your healer.

Dedicated Tanks give calm the entire ally.


Probably with the Legion nerf then this event will become more accesible for majority the player base.

[Zerich]

This event is only for the more High elite player base.

For success in legion you need something only 5% of the player base have.

Not is enough have good gear
Not is enough play Well your job.
Not is enough have knowedge.

This 3 things are only a part of what is necesary. For success in legion you need 18 or 36 players EXCELING in their jobs.

Elite players show they are the kings "Playing". When i mean playing. Not in a forum shuting mouths, not in jueno standing with Shiny gear, not playing "Pretty". I repeat you need show you EXCEL your job.

DDS have years parsing their events and doing MASSIVE damage in every event they play. You need speed, timing and brain for excel using DD job. Not everyone can be a Elite DD.

Healers with bionic fast fingers and give a total calm when you know x person is your healer.

Dedicated Tanks give calm the entire ally.


Probably with the Legion nerf then this event will become more accesible for majority the player base.

what the? i can't.

[saevel]

And I understand those LS existed, but I would venture to say they were never the "vast" majority (which by the way you underlined it, you likely mean 75% or more). And the ones that have actually survived to 2012 have survived in great part because they are not like that, or if some are, they are in the vast minority now.

Re Abyssea: I completely agree. I actually preferred it at level 80 cap. In fact, my favorite was Visions, before the RR/Minikin dozefests began (speaking from a WHM lv. 90 perspective btw). I am not sure we can say with certainty whether Abyssea's "designed difficulty" was lv 80 cap, or whether they always intended to introduce the overpowered Atma and Abyssites. You are assuming content that was introduced in installments was also designed in installments. I do know it is possible not to design an event as "challenging" as Legion or as arbitrary as Neo-Nyzul, yet not as neutered as Abyssea became at lv. 90.

I am aware I could render any event as challenging as I want it by level syncing or going without buffs. However, that does not ultimately serve as an excuse for designing it as such. As for not doing Abyssea with atma, I already do. It's essentially called Voidwatch. Where the atmacite aren't nearly as good as the atma, yet I have most of the temps from Abyssea.

We've both been around a long time, I can remember EGLS's back in 04. During that time I've participated in many LS's doing many events throughout the RNG then later SAM craze. Most where completely and utter sh!t, only shell I felt was really solid (back then) was LoO and even that started to favor a select minority near the end. Most shells formed, got their leaders gear and later fell apart only to be reformed again. DKP systems were abused, LS banks were abused, and "job priority's" got abused, ultimately there is no fair setup that can't be abused, it's entirely in the LS leaders hands to run things fairly. The good solid shells survived the abyssea crash that destroyed most HNM shells, that's the only reason there appears to be good shells, because all the bad ones fell apart.

I do feel that each Abyssea expansion was designed for it's difficulty level upon release. They released them so close to each other that we ended up being level 90's doing level 80~85 content, and then later level 95's doing level 80~90 content. Three atma's and infinite-RR Apoc combined with RR / MM stupidity is what caused everything to appear "easy mode". And even now, try to take a team of 99's and fight some of those hero's NM's, their crazy hard without abusing broken atma / brews. Abyssea is only "easy mode" if people want it to be, basically it had built in adjustable difficulty / "challenge". Which goes to show people never wanted "challenge" they wanted exclusivity, they wanted content just hard enough for them to beat it, but too hard for players they deemed their "lessors" to beat it. Thus they could acquire shinys that others couldn't and show them off.

[Luvbunny]

Abyssea is only "easy mode" if people want it to be, basically it had built in adjustable difficulty / "challenge". Which goes to show people never wanted "challenge" they wanted exclusivity, they wanted content just hard enough for them to beat it, but too hard for players they deemed their "lessors" to beat it. Thus they could acquire shinys that others couldn't and show them off.

You nailed it, square :) Enjoyed reading your observation.

[Return1]

They're crazy hard when you intentionally gimp yourself!

Dumbest argument EVER.

[Camiie]

As for Abyssea breaking up LSes... All it did was show just how fake most of the "deep bonds and friendships" built through sky, sea, dynamis, HNM, etc. really were. There was no reason for any LS to break up over Abyssea. SE shouldn't have to force us to need each other for us to help one another. Unfortunately, LS leaders and rank-and-file members saw that they didn't need each other anymore so they split.

It's funny though. The hardcore, Abyssea-is-too-easy crowd couldn't get their Empyreans done fast enough. They didn't have time to waste on anyone outside their cliques. There was no reason that "extra" folks couldn't come along. There was no reason everyone in the old-school EGLS couldn't be decked out in +2s and Empyreans and whatever other gear they needed. SE gave us that potential, and we blew it. Why? Selfishness and narcissism.

Think of how much more smoothly VW, Neo-Nyzul, and Legion would go if LSes had had the sense to stick together through Abyssea and get everyone geared up. Sure the newer events would still need adjustments, but there wouldn't be as many undergeared and unprepared folks out there and you wouldn't be having to shout for every single fight.

Hindsight is 20/20 but we partially set ourselves up for the mess we're in now.

[SpankWustler]

This event is only for the more High elite player base.

For success in legion you need something only 5% of the player base have.

Not is enough have good gear
Not is enough play Well your job.
Not is enough have knowedge.

This 3 things are only a part of what is necesary. For success in legion you need 18 or 36 players EXCELING in their jobs.

Elite players show they are the kings "Playing". When i mean playing. Not in a forum shuting mouths, not in jueno standing with Shiny gear, not playing "Pretty". I repeat you need show you EXCEL your job.

DDS have years parsing their events and doing MASSIVE damage in every event they play. You need speed, timing and brain for excel using DD job. Not everyone can be a Elite DD.

Healers with bionic fast fingers and give a total calm when you know x person is your healer.

Dedicated Tanks give calm the entire ally.


Probably with the Legion nerf then this event will become more accesible for majority the player base.

I think this post is the result of someone actually forming a telepathic link with the Development Bros and transcribing their inhuman thought process. Not because the general idea, as far as I can tell, is "Legion isn't that bad". Because the phrasing makes little-to-no sense and revels in vagueness.

Although, I do agree that knowing how to use spreadsheet programs such as Excel can help fine-tune one's performance in Final Fantasy XI.

[Mahoro]

We've both been around a long time, I can remember EGLS's back in 04. During that time I've participated in many LS's doing many events throughout the RNG then later SAM craze. Most where completely and utter sh!t, only shell I felt was really solid (back then) was LoO and even that started to favor a select minority near the end. Most shells formed, got their leaders gear and later fell apart only to be reformed again. DKP systems were abused, LS banks were abused, and "job priority's" got abused, ultimately there is no fair setup that can't be abused, it's entirely in the LS leaders hands to run things fairly. The good solid shells survived the abyssea crash that destroyed most HNM shells, that's the only reason there appears to be good shells, because all the bad ones fell apart.

I am not denying that there were shells that did all you say. I am suggesting that it did not happen in the frequency with which you originally suggested (i.e., the vast majority). I have generally found there to be an antithesis to the "rose-colored glasses" phenomenon which I call, for lack of a better term, "shit-stained glasses". It happens when people form an opinion that masses various negative anecdotes they experienced or heard about in the past into a collective view that becomes "the way it was," which is then selectively reinforced such that any positive anecdotes are not properly registered or acknowledged because they don't fit that view. I just want to be careful about acknowledging the flipside view. You are correct in that we've both been around a long time, and I remember the EGLS's I've been in since '03-'04 as well. I had many experiences with solid shells, and for every LoO there was a Rusty Buckets or Anduril, etc. Obviously, it would be foolhardy of me to say systems and banks were never abused, but it doesn't sound right to me that they were the "vast majority" (which by the way you underlined is a loaded term I take to mean at least 65%).


I do feel that each Abyssea expansion was designed for it's difficulty level upon release. They released them so close to each other that we ended up being level 90's doing level 80~85 content, and then later level 95's doing level 80~90 content. Three atma's and infinite-RR Apoc combined with RR / MM stupidity is what caused everything to appear "easy mode". And even now, try to take a team of 99's and fight some of those hero's NM's, their crazy hard without abusing broken atma / brews. Abyssea is only "easy mode" if people want it to be, basically it had built in adjustable difficulty / "challenge". Which goes to show people never wanted "challenge" they wanted exclusivity, they wanted content just hard enough for them to beat it, but too hard for players they deemed their "lessors" to beat it. Thus they could acquire shinys that others couldn't and show them off.

It is the very fact that they were released so close together that I don't believe they were designed in installments. It feels "off" to me to conjecture that in the 3 month period between Visions and Scars, the dev team said "oh hey we should give them a 2nd and a 3rd atma!" I think SE had a decent idea of the "vision" of Abyssea. I also find it doubtful that they didn't forecast the effects of the level cap as they had put it on a set schedule when Abyssea was first announced. But in the absence of evidence to the contrary, I guess we can't really say for certain.

While technically accurate, it is a bit misleading to say that Abyssea is only "easy mode" if people want it to be. It is "easy mode" because the players take advantage of the design choices SE made, and that condition does not change for everyone else if a subset of players consent to willingly refuse RR/Minikin/infinite RR atma, cruor buffs, and 200k brews. Think what would happen if, instead of punching in the Konami code for Contra, the benefits of the Konami code were built into the infrastructure of the game itself. Critics and players alike would pan it for being too easy. Assuming that everyone equates challenge with exclusivity is a dangerous assumption to make, because it is perfectly consistent to crave accomplishments worthy of the name without wanting those very same accomplishments to be inaccessible to other people.


There was no reason for any LS to break up over Abyssea.

Couldn't agree with this more. There were lots of techniques shell leaders could have used to keep things together. Ultimately, I agree with Saevel in that you can have an ironclad system, but it is up to the strength of the leaders to sustain it as some have in 2012.

[Sparthos]

As for Abyssea breaking up LSes... All it did was show just how fake most of the "deep bonds and friendships" built through sky, sea, dynamis, HNM, etc. really were. There was no reason for any LS to break up over Abyssea. SE shouldn't have to force us to need each other for us to help one another. Unfortunately, LS leaders and rank-and-file members saw that they didn't need each other anymore so they split.

It's funny though. The hardcore, Abyssea-is-too-easy crowd couldn't get their Empyreans done fast enough. They didn't have time to waste on anyone outside their cliques. There was no reason that "extra" folks couldn't come along. There was no reason everyone in the old-school EGLS couldn't be decked out in +2s and Empyreans and whatever other gear they needed. SE gave us that potential, and we blew it. Why? Selfishness and narcissism.

Think of how much more smoothly VW, Neo-Nyzul, and Legion would go if LSes had had the sense to stick together through Abyssea and get everyone geared up. Sure the newer events would still need adjustments, but there wouldn't be as many undergeared and unprepared folks out there and you wouldn't be having to shout for every single fight.

Hindsight is 20/20 but we partially set ourselves up for the mess we're in now.

I admire your idealism but as someone who was a member of nearly every endgame LS on my server and acted as a leader for some time, LS' were held together largely in this fashion:

Leadership - driven by goals, gear or personal interest.

Sackholders - the people in LS who share similar interests as leadership or have proven competency at handling LS members.

Members: Tier 1 - these individuals play their jobs well but aren't leadership material. It may be their elitist attitude, their tendency to parsewhore, the abrasive manner in which they deal with others or perhaps they're just a bit too nice or can't put their foot down like a sackholder should - ideally. These individuals are your A team, the people who memorize TP moves by heart, the mathletes, your groups best players and the individuals you want at events if you can.

Members: Tier 2 - Your 'average' players. These individuals are competent members of an LS and largely take a largely laissez faire approach to being in a group. Perhaps they just don't have the time to partake in being too involved with an event, they are playing while doing something else (like work) or perhaps XI is just a hobby and being the best comes second to having fun. When sackholders and T1s get upset about a wipe or screwups these individuals just shrug it off and move on to the next issue and for the most part you can count on these individuals doing what is expected of them up to a point.

Members: Tier 3 - Your substandard LS members. These individuals are largely either kept around because they fill a hole in the LS, were formerly average players or have personalities that make them conducive to keep around. These are people who clearly had no idea what they were doing or had to be told 50x to do X action but were at events because they make for interesting conversation, are morale boosters, seem like cool peeps on Vent or LS leadership just couldn't pull the trigger on them for personal reasons.

Cannon fodder/Scrubs - The worst of the worst. These are largely substandard individuals, excessive whiners, dramawhores or server rejects who did unsavory things to get ahead. These people were largely brought into shells because of gear (omg relics), excessive gilbuying (bankrollin' LS relics), bad LS recruiting (she's a Mithra!) or access to 3rd party tools that would benefit the LS in the long run. While these individuals could be skilled players usually they were too volatile as individuals to ever be considered LS members for long or planned to jump ship once they got that coveted piece they joined for.

XI was held together by a need to join large groups to get anything (worth doing) done and yes, when the option arose to break into smaller pieces many people took that option. Why? It's not simply because of selfishness and narcissism as you point but out but because LS' often became weighed down by incompetent individuals or just plain unlikable people you kept around just because you had to (you needed the numbers). I've been booted from LS' for not agreeing with leadership and have booted people who were only around to start trouble or work within their cliques and that was fine - for pre-2010 content.

Why keep such people around? Many LS simply downsized or lost huge blocks of members during the '09 void or during Abyssea as drops became simpler to obtain in smaller groups. Who said anything about 'deep bonds' anyway? If your LS lost leadership and became largely bloated with T3/scrub members you likely folded. If your LS kept leadership and had some good players around it might morph into a closed LS that helped only itself or chose to press on, replacing members. Or maybe your LS just became a social because leadership folded and no sackholder wanted to ascend to a leadership role.

Most LS' were creatures of necessity and friendships largely boiled down to either respect, smalltalk or mutual interest within a chatroom environment. Only in rare cases did such things as true friendships (beyond the bonds of FFXI), romantic interests or true hatred form from being in EGLS' and I've been privy to observing all 3 scenarios. To assert that these things were the norm is putting some spin on the reality of it.

Your point about smoothness also only applies to VW where yes, EGLS' can bang out more runs with a group that largely knows eachother but guess what? LS can't do much about the shitty rates, the inability to gift loot or DKP drops. You could do the same runs with a PUG and that undercut the need for an LS altogether.

Neo Nyzul? It's Embravas and 3rd party tools or enjoy Floor 80 at a low rate. Floor 100 pieces at a snail's pace. No LS is going to save you here unless you decide to use the aforementioned tools.

Legion? Perfect Defense, Embrava or again enjoy your losses. The loot is bad, the LS incentive thin and the fun factor low (throw as many WS into it!!!). It could be an ideal 2012 LS event but unless it gets a facelift it'll be up there with Yilbegan and Pankration forever.

[Mahoro]

That's a very insightful post Spart, and I can't say I disagree with your classifications and tiers LOL.

As for what keeps such people around nowadays, this is a sample EGLS Event List 2012:

(i) Voidwatch (with a healthy focus on Prov Watcher due to pooled loot, as well as other upper-tier VWNMs that people have 50/50 or lower rates of success with in PUGs, and "unpopular" lower tier VWNMs by request for which people have trouble marshalling PUGs);
(ii) Arch Dynamis Bosses (ADL and other zones by request like Dyna Jeuno);
(iii) Einherjar (only once a week, although when it gets revamped in a couple months for level 99 perhaps more);
(iv) Walk of Echoes (clearing a flux with strangers successfully in NA time is getting rarer and rarer);
(v) Legion (although the event is still horribly unbaranced); and
(vi) Mixed Potluck of older events by request (Pandy Warden, AV, Kirin, etc.).

Benefits:
a) More runs of each event;
b) more efficiency/organization/success;
c) access to things rarely shouted for that never get off the ground even when done so due to private popped nature;
d) events start 2-4 times faster than PUGs take to gather (especially for less popular content) and the sum of time one spends waiting or /shouting in PJ adds up quite a bit;
e) pooled loot on Prov Watcher sorted via DKP rules instead of freelot (scroll priority to those who use, WHM and BLM don't cry hot tearz of shame when DRG outlots them to sell);
f) more potential for multiple ADLs done with less potential for screwups per run versus static group of 7-8+ people who have to get ~40 Marrows and only kill 1-2 per run with 50/50 success rate pending access to more SMN/COR;
g) sucessful WoE runs which is a rarity with strangers in NA time these days for the admittedly only ~15% useful things it drops;
h) successful Legion runs when it is finally balanced in 2013 (lol) for the admittedly only ~20% useful things it drops;
i) convincing friends to kill your popped Dynamis Arch Boss can be nigh-impossible when it seems every Tom, Dick, and Shantotto views Dynamis as lost gil opportunity cost;
j) access to pool of players with accountability as you play with them all the time for statics for Nyzul/Limbus;
k) flipside argument asserted by many people these days is "start your own static" for most of the non-PUG stuff above but the ephemeral temperament of many players these days sometimes prevents accountability, responsibility, or ability to commit;
l) flipside argument is all of the above can technically be shouted for but can be a solitary pursuit and depending on event one's goals may never be realized.

[FrankReynolds]

Hmmm... If they could just find another reward to give people for beating stuff in "God Mode" besides gear, they would solve a lot of problems. Gimps would still be able to get good gear, and "Elites" would be able to show off their shiny new rank / glowy effect / whatever other B.S. SE can come up with as a reward. For example, they could have made gear attained without the use of atmas come in a different (more attractive) color. Or allowed people to pick the color. They could have done the same thing with empyrian weapons etc.

Lots of other online games use special ranks, or gear that is only becomes available after long term play to give players goals to reach and shiny stuff to show off without actually giving them an advantage over other players.

[Sparthos]

Hmmm... If they could just find another reward to give people for beating stuff in "God Mode" besides gear, they would solve a lot of problems. Gimps would still be able to get good gear, and "Elites" would be able to show off their shiny new rank / glowy effect / whatever other B.S. SE can come up with as a reward. For example, they could have made gear attained without the use of atmas come in a different (more attractive) color. Or allowed people to pick the color. They could have done the same thing with empyrian weapons etc.

Lots of other online games use special ranks, or gear that is only becomes available after long term play to give players goals to reach and shiny stuff to show off without actually giving them an advantage over other players.

A point system in Legion with good rewards would have satisfied this.

[SpankWustler]

To be more concise than my winding and schizophrenic post earlier, the main problem I see with Legion is that people receive Voidwatch-style rewards after putting in a Neo-Nyzul Isle level of effort.

Legion is a very challenging event yet has very few items that could qualify as "best-in-slot" for anything ever. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Wrathwing Nails because of the large amount of Store TP on them.

Some of the drops are ridiculously bad, to the point it can be questioned why the item exists at all, which is another parallel to Voidwatch rewards.

[Mahoro]

100% in agreement with your entire post Spank. Someone on another forum came up with this list which I tweaked a little:

Meteor
Arise
Khepri head abjuration
Iaso head abjuration
Misc. head/feet abjurations pending augments
Duplus Grip
Striga Crown
A'as Circlet
Fulad-Zereh
Ayao's Gages
Maniacus Sash
Chuparrosa Mantle
Asklepian Ring
Veneficium Ring
Esper Earring
Magavan Slops
Miodio Gloves
Mustela Brais
Ngen Seraweels
Wrathwing Nails
Wurrukatte Boots
Trophy for HQ crafted gear augments

Some of those are best-in-slot for certain jobs, others are sidegrades or one-action-macro pieces, some are realistically unattainable until 2013 when crafting is fixed. If these drops were in another event like WoE, people would go after 'em eventually, but I am completely in agreement when you say they put Voidwatch-style rewards in an event requiring a Neo-Nyzul level of challenge.

[Return1]

Bonds of Friendship in a functioning EGLS? C'mon. C'moooooooooon! "Friendship" was also a breeding ground for favoritism and factions, dangerous things for any LS. EGLSs ran on respect or the idea of Mutual benefit.

I think sparthos really nailed it with his breakdown.

Abyssea rewarded small groups more than large groups, and the ability to get gear so fast undermined the idea of waiting in line for a queue in larger shells.

WoE/VW removed entirely the ability for LSes to govern/gift their own loot, which is the main purpose of an EGLS.

You can hardly blame people for doing the smart thing at the time, especially after the next event to come down the pipe dug EGLS's coffin up and put extra nails in it.

The changes to Dynamis also encourage lowman/solo play, and Dynamis once once a big part of endgame. The change was like defecating on the grave. Yes it was better for people chasing after their own, but the system to do it with is godawful.

Now EGLSs would be the ones to benefit most from Legion, but they're dead and gone for the most part, and with good reason too.


Also, can we all agree that the unrealistic "challenge" is simply the retarded time limits?

[Mahoro]

Oh, I do. It's the unrealistic time limits that force one to resort to PD/Embrava zergs.

Re: your other comments. Abyssea rewarded smaller groups only after the introduction of RR/minikin/RR atma. And even then, it rewarded smaller groups per NM. Some shells broke up into mini-groups within each zone (or multiple zones), or concentrated on the top-tier bosses like Pantokrator/Apademak/caturae/Ironclads etc. that people couldn't realistically duo for a long time. By the time they could, the shell adapted and moved on to other events people couldn't lowman. While this was going on, people would work on side goals outside of event time, thereby shortening any "loot queue" inside of event time. Through techniques like these, EGLS's evolved and survived by supplementing members' goals, not impeding them. Regarding WoE/VW, another technique by which shells survived was to pool non-ra/ex equipment for bidding/buying amongst the members (rewarding the person who pooled it with DKP or gil of course) so that items stayed in-house and people capped out faster. I am reminded of the phrase "Adapt or Die" when discussing these issues.

[Insaniac]

I for some reason decided to remake your list with links. So people who are usually lazy like me can just clicky and discuss.

Duplus Grip (www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Duplus_Grip)
Striga Crown (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Striga_Crown)
A'as Circlet (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/A'as_Circlet)
Fulad-Zereh (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Fulad-Zereh)
Ayao's Gages (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Ayao's_Gages)
Maniacus Sash (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Maniacus_Sash)
Chuparrosa Mantle (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Chuparrosa_Mantle)
Asklepian Ring (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Asklepian_Ring)
Veneficium Ring (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Veneficium_Ring)
Esper Earring (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Esper_Earring)
Magavan Slops (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Magavan_Slops)
Miodio Gloves (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Miodio_Gloves)
Mustela Brais (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Mustela_Brais)
Ngen Seraweels (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Ngen_Seraweels)
Wrathwing Nails (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Wrathwing_Nails)
Wurrukatte Boots (http://www.bg-wiki.com/bg/Wurrukatte_Boots)

I honestly don't think I would use anything but the DA grip and the BP damage+ items even if I could buy them off the ah for 10k. Now if you could get them easily a lot of people without access to best in slot pieces would use them but this stuff is harder to get than the best in slot pieces.

[SpankWustler]

I forgot all about Legion's sad and disturbing relationship with 110 Crafting until Mahoro mentioned it. The best thing anyone can say about Legion rewards is probably, "Because of how the Legion augment system is designed, the heavy presence of stuff currently unrealistic to craft in High-Quality means the rewards will be seen as better next year!"

Of course, anyone who said that would probably also say, "That homeless guy is really just free! Free from the weight of society! Free from bathing! Free from sobriety! Free from his leg that had to be amputated due to frost bite!"


Also, can we all agree that the unrealistic "challenge" is simply the retarded time limits?

Increasing the time limit for Legion would be really nice. More time would increase the reward for both groups that do well enough at present and groups that do not. The latter could do well enough to get the titles, maybe, and the former could just mow down more monsters than they already do for more drops and more points per entry and entry fee.

This would also enable a much larger number of people from both of those groups to regularly purchase the point-obtained equipment sets and sell them on the auction house. Those equipment sets gain a lot more appeal when considered as things that are just bought and later sold when the bestest of thingies are obtained, or when considered as "stuff I spend useless points on and sell for money to buy better stuff".

What do I expect the Development Bros will do in lieu of just increasing the time limit? Something so weird that I can't even guess what it will be.

[Mahoro]

@Insaniak I only really gear BRD, WHM, and SMN, and I would use the BP+ damage pieces too. Also Iaso Mitra for WHM (abjurations aren't on your links), only when crafting is fixed and the HQs go for 5 mill in 2013 (which incidentally is when I expect Legion to be more popular lol). Arise I got from Prov Watcher but it would be interesting to see if the scrolls drop at a higher rate here.

Anyway, on a related note (since we are slowly getting back on topic), a group tried the final chamber:


Final chamber is straight up retarded with 18; the Voidwrought model IG has the most random hate ever and just trashes people locked in every single time effectively ending that run for the most part. Most we got killed was 1 mob after the IG, which you basically have no choice but to fight first because it's gonna come for your alli regardless of who aggros him.
Uptala dropped Kagotsurube if anyone cares.

Oh also, apparently you can drop the Uptala to 1% and it won't die until it successfully casts Kaustra; at that point all damage just does 0 and you have to wait until it decides to fall over.

Really, SE? These mob mechanics in a 30 minute chamber? >< Increase that time limit! :)

[Insaniac]

I also forgot about the ABJs that might end up being amazing with augments but since -1s are 40-100mil or just nonexistent due to a severe lack of crafting mat supply that I can't imagine will ever be fixed and the augment items have yet to be obtained by anyone afaik there's not much point discussing them.

[Return1]

Re: your other comments. Abyssea rewarded smaller groups only after the introduction of RR/minikin/RR atma.

VV, Stormbird, and various nuke atmas were available at the start and at the time were insane. Cruor Buffs themselves and a myriad of Temp items enabled anyone to take out most things at 80cap. With Scars came RR and MM, cementing "easymode" forever into abyssea.


Some shells broke up into mini-groups within each zone (or multiple zones), or concentrated on the top-tier bosses like Pantokrator/Apademak/caturae/Ironclads etc. that people couldn't realistically duo for a long time. By the time they could, the shell adapted and moved on to other events people couldn't lowman.

Most things could actually be duoed at the level cap for their respective expansions. And nothing, but maybe Rani, couldn't be killed by a PT of less than 6.

And what praytell were these "other events" that couldn't be lowmanned?


Through techniques like these, they evolved and survived by supplementing members' goals, not impeding them. Regarding WoE/VW, another technique by which shells survived was to pool non-ra/ex equipment for bidding/buying amongst the members (rewarding the person who pooled it with DKP or gil of course) so that items stayed in-house and people capped out faster. I am reminded of the phrase "Adapt or Die" when discussing these issues.

Personal goals are achieved faster and faster the less people you have to lug along with you. EGLSs were held together by the idea of personal advancement. Abyssea made it easier for people to lowman personal advancement, and thus having more than ~5-6 people with you will ALWAYS slow you down more than help you.

Also, no offense, but that pooling system for VW/WoE is completely fucking stupid. Either you pay them more for the items than the AH would, and hemorrhage LS gil, you pay them the same as the AH would, reducing your LS to a ghetto AH, or you pay them less than the AH, in which case your ls is hurting its own members.

If it's adapt or die, that ls needs to be sent to slaughter.

[Camiie]

What do I expect the Development Bros will do in lieu of just increasing the time limit? Something so weird that I can't even guess what it will be.

Super Development Bros: We could increase the time limit, but we would have to adjust the reward ratio downward to maintain BALANCE!!

We would also have to monitor congestion, because no matter how many or few players we have per World we're constantly skirting the red line between "Everything's Hunky Dory!" and "SERVERPOCALYPSE! One improper adjustment and the World servers (and PS2's everywhere) could gain sentience and merge into the Japanese version of Skynet. Just imagine how insane OUR Terminator army would be! No one has more crazy ideas about robots than we do!

So, we must tread carefully in regards to any adjustments to Legion unless you want to be slaughtered by busty android maids and skyscraper-sized mecha that look suspiciously like a stuntman wearing a plastic/rubber suit.

[Return1]

I don't actually mind high gil prices, seeing as we're rapidly heading to inflation one again. gil is so easy to create it's kinda a joke.

[Mahoro]

VV, Stormbird, and various nuke atmas were available at the start and at the time were insane. Cruor Buffs themselves and a myriad of Temp items enabled anyone to take out most things at 80cap. With Scars came RR and MM, cementing "easymode" forever into abyssea.

"Most" things, yes. Not all. Not talking about Gnawtooth Gary.


Most things could actually be duoed at the level cap for their respective expansions. And nothing, but maybe Rani, couldn't be killed by a PT of less than 6.

"Most things", again perhaps in theory, not in practice. As you are mentioning "duoing", I assume not all procs are covered as well and efficiency sacrificed. Let's also not forget the rep that solo NIN/DNC got taking 30 minutes to kill stuff back in the day.


And what praytell were these "other events" that couldn't be lowmanned?

As a starting point, the others I listed last page? Should also be remembered that Heroes came out in December 2010. Few months later, Voidwatch began and if you recall, it most assuredly did not have a robust PUG community at the beginning.


Personal goals are achieved faster and faster the less people you have to lug along with you. EGLSs were held together by the idea of personal advancement. Abyssea made it easier for people to lowman personal advancement, and thus having more than ~5-6 people with you will ALWAYS slow you down more than help you.

And that's exactly why people supplemented personal goals with LS events, reducing the loot queue for all. Having more than 5-6 people eventually slowed you down more than helped you in Abyssea, but by then the shell moved on. Burning your bridges till you only end up with 5-6 people to do stuff with slows you down more overall than helps you.


Also, no offense, but that pooling system for VW/WoE is completely fucking stupid. Either you pay them more for the items than the AH would, and hemorrhage LS gil, you pay them the same as the AH would, reducing your LS to a ghetto AH, or you pay them less than the AH, in which case your ls is hurting its own members.

If it's adapt or die, that ls needs to be sent to slaughter.

Nobody complained when they capped out on stuff faster than they would hanging at the coattails of JPs at 4AM-6AM NA time. I appreciate the bon mot, but if anything needs to be sent to slaughter, it's limited perspectives.

[Return1]

"Most" things, yes. Not all. Not talking about Gnawtooth Gary.

Name an NM that couldn't be beaten in Visions at level cap with WHM + Tank and Stormbird+VV or HP+30% atma, liberal Temps, and Cruor buffs. I think Glavoid?


"Most things", again perhaps in theory, not in practice. As you are mentioning "duoing", I assume not all procs are covered as well.


We weren't talking about procs, we were talking difficulty. If we were, a trio of WHM, WAR, and NIN could do all red procs with select pieces of gear (and now WHM THF WAR can do the same). If you were after Blue, MNK+WHM and wait for the right time. Yellow? Drop a DD and add a BLM (It was mathed out that adding a Blue who needed drops would cost you more time than just not procing occassionally). The only reason to do abyssea besides EXP after a week or so was to get EMP items, and procing did nothing for the fights themselves.


And that's exactly why people supplemented personal goals with LS events, reducing the loot queue for all. Having more than 5-6 people slows you down more than helps you in Abyssea. Burning your bridges till you only end up with 5-6 people to do stuff with slows you down more overall than helps you.


What?

There's not any event outside of Legion where you need a group of more than 5-6. Period. Having 5-6 is ideal in today's game.


Nobody complained when they capped out on stuff faster than they would hanging at the coattails of JPs at 4AM-6AM NA time.

Praytell, what useful non-R/EX items did they cap out on?

Particularly, tell us how they capped out faster on these non-R/EX items with an LS event than they could have by simply farming and buying, and using their stones for R/EX equipment that they wanted specifically instead of wasting them on your events.

[Return1]

Also, VW didn't have a robust PUG community at the very start because no one knew how the events worked, people didn't want to waste the precious few stones they had at the start, and most of the gear sucked or at best was situational, with a couple being good.

PUGs started after a little while, and before jeuno tier. Which is when drops became significantly better.

WoEs has always been pretty trash ande always PUG.

[Mahoro]

We are getting back offtopic, but in the interest of ending this side jaunt, in answer to your questions:

1) if you are truly talking pre-Minikin, pre-broken-healer-atma Visions play, WHM + Tank for the following mobs would be either foolhardy or would waste more stones for r/ex equipment than "wasting them [on] events" as you cite such concern: Eccentric Eve, Bloodeye Vileberry, Briareus, Hadhayosh, Glavoid, Iratham, Usurper, Turul, Carabosse, Cuelebre, Chloris if unlucky doom.

2) We were talking difficulty first, but your subsequent comments were so interlaced with efficiency arguments that I felt obligated to slip it in.

3) We are debating a semantic point. There are plenty of things where one needs more than 5-6 "bodies" to round out events (and in the case of ADL, if you are doing it with 5-6 you are likely not counting mules). My point was that if you only knew 5-6 people in the game, and have to form or join /shouts for stuff like Voidwatch, you either are spending a lot of time idling in PJ or otherwise waiting for those 5-6 people to all log on simultaneously. I'd like to point out that I do PUGs for various things outside of events too, but unlike you, I wouldn't castigate a group of people who get together for events a few times a week to achieve those goals they can't easily achieve in PUGs.

4) Not taking the bait and listing each and every single useful WoE drop in response to an obviously rhetorical question, but since only about ~20% of the event's drops are useful (as with Voidwatch), it didn't take long as we weren't dealing with VW loot design, and those minority few who were making Coin weapons were glad for the runs.

5) You are assuming a healthy market on VW/WoE items and forgetting that when the event was first released, there wasn't as robust a market as there is today, and moreover some fluxes/mobs were just not done out of hand. The statement "WoE was always PUG" is also somewhat shortsighted in the context of patches that have since turned it into the Tokyo Playground where the AH is flooded with items the JP's sell.

EDIT: 6) Your last post does not refute my original point that VW was a non-lowman event released soon after the end of Heroes (and I could argue the bodies off Celaeno/Ironclad/Hahava provided at least some incentive). By the time the PUG community began to flourish, things were figured out, and drops were better, you'd have to be incredibly lucky on drop rate not to supplement PUG runs with LS runs if you had access to one.

[Sparthos]

Name an NM that couldn't be beaten in Visions at level cap with WHM + Tank and Stormbird+VV or HP+30% atma, liberal Temps, and Cruor buffs. I think Glavoid?

All of the Emp NMs @80 weren't that easy and without Razed Ruins to boost your hit/crit rates, you likely would most likely need at least a party to win. Glavoid was the toughest NM in Visions but most of the top tier NMs weren't being duoed outside extremely skilled players and even then it took forever and required timestacking which also wasn't that easy to do in small groups during the time given our understanding of lights at the time and average killspeed.

It was Scars where time became trivial given the light assists from Bastion, Ephemerals that made getting lights faster, Empyrean WS unlocks and the unholy combo of MinikinRuins.



We weren't talking about procs, we were talking difficulty. If we were, a trio of WHM, WAR, and NIN could do all red procs with select pieces of gear (and now WHM THF WAR can do the same). If you were after Blue, MNK+WHM and wait for the right time. Yellow? Drop a DD and add a BLM (It was mathed out that adding a Blue who needed drops would cost you more time than just not procing occassionally). The only reason to do abyssea besides EXP after a week or so was to get EMP items, and procing did nothing for the fights themselves.

You're completely eliminating the fact that Vision was pretty tough for most people @80 with or without understanding of procs. Things like Fistule and Carabosse actually hurt, certain JA and weaponskills weren't available and Razed Ruins was off the table.

[SpankWustler]

Oh also, apparently you can drop the Uptala to 1% and it won't die until it successfully casts Kaustra; at that point all damage just does 0 and you have to wait until it decides to fall over.

This is a really cool mechanic. Not exactly balanced when dealing with two other horrible monsters and a tight time limit, but it is nice that it's something beyond "I am below 25% HP and I am using that horrible AoE a lot now. A lot a lot so much so much forever! I hope you like AoE's. I like AoE's."

Instead, it's more like:

"Dost thou wish Kaustra to be cast upon thee?"
Stun!
"But thou must!"
Stun!
"But thou must!"
Shock Squall!
"But thou must!"
"But thou must!"
"But thou must!"

[Luvbunny]

EDIT: 6) Your last post does not refute my original point that VW was a non-lowman event released soon after the end of Heroes (and I could argue the bodies off Celaeno/Ironclad/Hahava provided at least some incentive). By the time the PUG community began to flourish, things were figured out, and drops were better, you'd have to be incredibly lucky on drop rate not to supplement PUG runs with LS runs if you had access to one.

He also has total amnesia about Voidwatch when it was first came out. The original cities one was a bit of a challenge for random PUG, we were at level 90, and everyone was still trying to figure it out. I remembered it was not a very easy one albeit doable. Then SE made lots of tweak on the events and lowered the difficulty considerably, now all the cities and jeunos are super easy to do and done in matter of minutes per run. Still you need more than 5-6 people unless you get ones who are filled with temp items and decked head to toe with elite gears.

[Return1]

1) if you are truly talking pre-Minikin, pre-any-useful-healer-atma Visions play, WHM + Tank for the following mobs would be either foolhardy or would waste more stones for r/ex equipment than "wasting them [on] events" as you cite such concern: Eccentric Eve, Bloodeye Vileberry, Briareus, Hadhayosh, Glavoid, Iratham, Usurper, Turul, Cuelebre, Chloris if unlucky doom.

Some of those really shouldn't have been listed. Cuelebre for example has always been a joke. The only ones to present real problems are Glavoid and Death users, and death users could be stunned with a competent Mage or DNC. PDT, MDT, Evasion, or stun can make all but glavoid very possible at 80.

Also, no one cares about abyssea stones. I was talking about VW stones.


2) We were talking difficulty first, but your comments were so interlaced with efficiency arguments that I felt obligated to slip it in.

I get that. Doesn't change the fact a small group could always do it all and be farm more efficient. At any level cap.


3) We are debating a semantic point. There are plenty of things where one needs more than 5-6 "bodies" to round out events (and in the case of ADL, if you are doing it with 5-6 you are likely not counting mules). My point was that if you only knew 5-6 people in the game, and have to form or join /shouts for stuff like Voidwatch, you either are spending a lot of time idling in PJ or otherwise waiting for those 5-6 people to all log on simultaneously.

ADL is a very recent addition to shit people actually do, and only a select few do it. ADL does require a group, and for any kind of efficiency, more than 6. That said, one monster in all the evvents out, isn't really justification for a whole EGLS.

Or you can organize/do PUGs instead of waiting on others times to line up with yours for shit you don't need them on. VW kills EGLSs because you can't gift/govern, and people have their own goals. There's no benefit to them using stones or wasting time at your events when they could just pick and choose the events that benefit them. An ls offers 0 advantages over a PUG for VW/WoE, and several disadvantages.


5) You are assuming a healthy market on WoE items and forgetting that when the event was first released, there wasn't as robust a market as there is today, and moreover some fluxes were just not done out of hand.

Or that most of the rewards are dogshit and easily replaced. If the item was good enough, you had better odds finding one for sale and farming the gil for it than actually finding one from the event. Also it was heavy on PUGs from the start and you couldn't gift/govern because people could just enter and take your gear and then it went to personal reward as well.


6) Your last post does not refute my original point that VW was a non-lowman event released soon after the end of Heroes. By the time the PUG community flourished, things were figured out, and drops were better, you'd have to be incredibly lucky on drop rate not to supplement PUG runs with LS runs if you had access to one.

It was a non (mainstream) PUG event for about a month. PUGs did do it after about the first week, but it wasn't very large until it had been mapped out. You didn't cap everyone out on their drops with just a months worth of stones, especially considering those kills sucked in comparison because you didn't know how to boost lights.

The drops from the only wave not to have an immediate large PUG response, was the wave with the hands down worst drops, and it was only a temporary use for an LS. The event itself did far more harm than help for an LS.

Your whole argument is an ls could just twist people's arms to do an unknown event when it first comes out. That's the only advantage was early on you could provide knowledge on the subject.

The 1 stone per day initial limit had more to do with PUGs not being big on VW when it first began, than the event not being lowman friendly. And the bigest reason the lowest levels weren't lowman friendly is because of the stupid lights/proc system.

[Return1]

Just want to point out my friend, my wife (and her mule), and I could kill all tier1s as PLD, BRD, BLU, WHM, Tier 2s we killed as SMNs and BRD, we picked up a couple SMNs for Lorb and Ogbun, and that even worked on one tier 3 (Tonberry).

[Mahoro]

1) You say some of those Visions NMs shouldn't be listed, but don't assert you could duo all of them as WHM + tank @ 80. For the reasons I cited as well as the others Sparthosx and Luvbunny subsequently cited, I'm calling shenanigans and I'm done addressing the issue so I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. Even if true, any individual anecdotes of a WHM + tank spending hours whittling those mobs down does nothing to serve your larger argument.

2) Organizing PUGs sucks up no less time idling in PJ. That is in fact what I meant by idling, /shouting endlessly or waiting endlessly for people to gather. I do it myself for certain mobs I do outside of events. Pressing /yell for the thirtieth time in order to get that event mobilized is neither glamorous, efficient, or a justification for not doing things with a more permanent large group.

3) Never said one monster is the justification for EGLS. I made an exhaustive list of events and benefits about two pages ago. Not all of them are the exclusive province of EGLS's, nor did I ever claim they were.

4) VW doesn't "kill" EGLS's when it comes to fights like upper-tier NM's and Prov Watcher inasmuch as PUG success rate can be spotty for mobs like Kalasu/Morta/Bismarck/Ig-Alima/Fjalar/Ildebrann/Aello (the latter two before cap raise obviously); you can gift/govern in PW instead of having people fight over freelot drops; and people in EGLS are getting point benefits attending mobs they don't necessarily need anything from that they turn around and spend on stuff they do need (e.g., Umbral Marrow).

5) Re: WoE: Nobody lost a drop from leeches entering and lotting on gear, as the shell would just cast lots until they outlotted any leechers. Gift/govern was covered already. Your statement about most of the rewards being "dogshit" does nothing to advance the argument since I freely admitted that only 20% of the drops were useful. I freely admit only 20% of the drops in Voidwatch and Legion are useful too. What's the difference? In any event, we didn't live in WoE. People capped their shit and we moved on, relegating it to a more occasional thing. Not everything could be bought on the AH to the extent it is today, and the zone lay dead more often than not during NA primetime. If you want an example, for almost eight months people on Lakshmi didn't touch the Turtle flux and its drops went unsold on the AH. Your mileage may, of course, vary.

6) Re: VW: Don't need capped lights for some of the more common drops. Yes, capped out people on non-ra/ex VW drops first month since by your own admission most were shit anyway and the demand was easily met. The event didn't do far worse than harm for a LS once everyone was able to pop and farm T4 cities, so I'm not sure where you are going with that. If you want to talk about more harm, I could raise the fact that most people in PUGs couldn't be arsed with getting their temp item KIs in the beginning. Your statement about 1 stone per day being the driving reason why PUGs didn't adopt the event early is misleading at best, and inaccurate at worst, for the reasons Luvbunny stated. Moreover, before 2012 when people started capping their Voidwatch gear needs, there remained no compelling reason to /toss a linkpearl when LS runs supplemented PUG runs for those rarest of rare drops.

7) My "whole argument" is a response to your argument, nothing more. YOU are the one trying to argue from past circumstantial evidence that for the last 2-3 years EGLS weren't needed. I already provided my affirmative argument a couple pages ago for what EGLS's do in 2012. Now you have me arguing for their benefit in 2010-2011, which is wasting both our time and subjecting the people in this thread to armchair recollection. I don't like repeating myself nor answering to strawman points. In the end, some people have different playstyles and don't feel the need to "lowman all teh thingz" or spend hours standing around on ceremony. Some people like to log on during a preset time, run with the same group of people, accomplish shit, and then log off.

Anything else or shall we get back to the topic of this thread?

[Return1]

I think your listed methods are slow, stupid, and sloppy. I can't take someone that lists Ildebrann as hard at any cap serious. We will agree to disagree.


This thread could have ended on topic a while ago by just saying make Legion a 2 hour time limit event.

[Mahoro]

Not hard for us, hard for PUGs (which can be slow, stupid and sloppy eh? I listed one method btw). Note I commented on spotty success rate of PUGs. Agreed on time limit. Carry on.

[Zerich]

holy derailments batman!

[Luvbunny]

They definitely should do it like dynamis, 60 minutes limit with 5 time extensions up to 120 mnts when you killed certain mob or NMs. And they need to lower the difficulty by a great deal. We know that the drop rates is going to be crappy and the points are going to be dismal, which makes this another hamster grind wheel of death that will quickly be forgotten, they should at least try to adjust and revamp it. The developers so far show very minimal efforts on Legion and Neo Nyzul. Please work harder and show some love the way you did on Walk of Echoes and Voidwatch.

[scaevola]

No MMO will make it far if there isn't pride in getting uberleet awesome gear that acts as elevated status. It's one of the major drawing points to MMOs. The trials and tribulations, the stories, the drama, and the legends are what make an MMO good, once you take that away, you've got a dying game. MMOs are mainly interactive soap operas. Once you take the drama out, it's just a lame waste of time.

pretty sure wow was doing just fine until last year when they started making the game hard

[Luvbunny]

Sad thing is, the developer will not do anything to Legion or Neo Nyzul or all the new upcoming contents (neo limbus, neo einhenjar....). Their respond to Neo Nyzul kind of proved this. They will not budge or change or do anything or listen to player feedback. We are at the wrong forum of the wrong game. Just pray that Yoshi get to helm both game and reboot FFXI with the same great vision and attitude that he has and disband this current team on FFXI.... Living in total void and echo chamber is what this current team does, they don't care about no one but themselves. We are nothing but cows that are milked for our monthly subscriptions.

[Okipuit]

Hey everyone,

Looking at the current situation in-game for Legion we understand that it is difficult to gather participants and the content itself is quite challenging.

Regarding the rewards, we feel it is a bit early to judge whether they are sufficient or not for this content. As progress is made in Legion more and more equipment will be accessible for exchange through Legion points and there are also a wide variety of special new weapons that are only obtainable within Legion. Not to mention that the drop rates for Arise and Meteor are higher than the Provenance Watcher battle.

We will continue to monitor the situation, but we would ultimately like to see players progress through this content a bit by forming good strategies before we do anything with the reward system.

[Insaniac]

Embrava + Perfect Defense + Zerg with a sprinkling of Chainspell stun is not a strategy and that's the only thing that anyone has found that works. You can't have any other viable strats when you need to kill something with instant KO AoEs and 100k hp in less than 3 minutes.

[Fusionx]

Looking at the current situation in-game for Legion we understand that it is difficult to gather participants

Said this as soon as Legion was announced. The days of having content with a large number of people is over. It was foolish to make anything new that relies on large numbers.

[Luvbunny]

So basically they are trying to buy time, will not do anything till content is completely abandoned. I mean who in their right mind creating content that is shun by the majority of the players. As developers, your goal is to create contents that are embraced by all of your current subscribers regardless of their skills or gears. Oh right, we are talking about a different group here... I forgot that the good one is migrated to FF14.

[MarkovChain]

startegies ? Lol it's perfect defense. Can the devs answer us as to wether they are expecting us to clear this with perfect defense ?



Also yes the problem the devs are aknowleging only now have been pointed out right when it was first released on the test server, so we lost 6 months ? The lack of reward were mentionned one weak after release.

[Cowardlybabooon]

Tell us what drops so that you we have an incentive. I triple dog dare you.

[Alhanelem]

Embrava + Perfect Defense + Zerg with a sprinkling of Chainspell stun is not a strategy and that's the only thing that anyone has found that works. You can't have any other viable strats when you need to kill something with instant KO AoEs and 100k hp in less than 3 minutes.

Now, I'm totally with you on Legion being unnecessarily difficult, but during the test event, our group never got hit by anything so strong it was essentially instant KO (We did the 3kings battle with a mostly random group and reached the 2nd wave).

[Zirael]

[..] Not to mention that the drop rates for Arise and Meteor are higher than the Provenance Watcher battle.
This is not correct.
Provenance: You shout for 17 other people (or gather together with your linkshell) and go kill dragon. Arise/Meteor drops (or not)
Legion: You shout for 17 (or 35, hahaha) other people (or gather together with your linkshell) and go fight Legion monsters. You wipe; if you are good, you wipe at or just after second wave.
Rinse and repat.

Guess who's going to see Arise/Meteor in their lot pool sooner/more often.

[Sparthos]

Now, I'm totally with you on Legion being unnecessarily difficult, but during the test event, our group never got hit by anything so strong it was essentially instant KO (We did the 3kings battle with a mostly random group and reached the 2nd wave).

How long did you take to reach the second wave? Timing is the problem with Legion and when you have 6 more mobs to go and take 15-20mins to clear 3HNMs the only strategy really is to mindlessly rush in damage frantically trying to beat the clock. You have no time to absorb the content or explore turtling HNMs because you will time out, lose your gil and waste everyones time.

Mired Mantis among others (like Iron Giant and Harpeia) can oneshot you and melee rounds from Legion mobs are no joke. With little recourse other than pressing forth the event caters itself to a fast-paced climate few jobs can survive in. Lets face it, FFXI is not a fast paced MMO and many of the jobs were built around slow-paced gameplay.

I know the community reps are just telling us what the devs think but I'm not buying the strategy argument when you have 9 mobs to clear in 30mins. You barely have enough time to formulate a strategy nevermind execute one with the time given.

[Byrth]

Looking at the current situation in-game for Legion we understand that it is difficult to gather participants and the content itself is quite challenging.

Actually, the impression I have is that the content itself isn't very difficult. You need the right jobs using the right abilities/weapons at the right times, and other than that there is very little "difficulty" involved in that your win/loss ratio won't really be determined by player skill.


Regarding the rewards, we feel it is a bit early to judge whether they are sufficient or not for this content. As progress is made in Legion more and more equipment will be accessible for exchange through Legion points and there are also a wide variety of special new weapons that are only obtainable within Legion. Not to mention that the drop rates for Arise and Meteor are higher than the Provenance Watcher battle.

I can save you some time. If you were attempting to make an event that's accessible or desired by the majority of the game population, you failed and need to introduce better rewards. Very few people that are not currently in large LSs want to return to them just so they can do Legion, considering the rewards are so useless/mediocre. There also appears to be some misunderstanding here, because Arise and Meteor are both fairly mediocre rewards. The Pulse weapons are generally worse than 99 Relic/Mythic/Empyreans. If you were aiming to put some big incentive in the event, you missed it. There are some minor upgrades to situational mage gear and abjurations / abjuration augmentation items.

Speaking of abjurations, I currently have a near-monopoly on Foreboding abjuration hexed items on Lakshmi. I sell something like three per week (synth something like 10), and I have to date sold 0 pieces of Hexed gear that use Legion Abjurations. That is how popular the event is. I'm about to become tier 1 on Hexed Nails (quite possibly the first person across servers) and I'm not even sure I should make them. I'm almost entirely certain that I should not be bothering to skill Alchemy, but I'm bored and don't want another special weapon.

[Halbert]

It's starting to smell like an AV excuse/hint in here.

[Septimus]

Hey everyone,

Looking at the current situation in-game for Legion we understand that it is difficult to gather participants and the content itself is quite challenging.

Regarding the rewards, we feel it is a bit early to judge whether they are sufficient or not for this content. As progress is made in Legion more and more equipment will be accessible for exchange through Legion points and there are also a wide variety of special new weapons that are only obtainable within Legion. Not to mention that the drop rates for Arise and Meteor are higher than the Provenance Watcher battle.

We will continue to monitor the situation, but we would ultimately like to see players progress through this content a bit by forming good strategies before we do anything with the reward system.

The truth of the matter is that FFXI does not have nearly as many people as it used to. Having large-scale events is no longer feasible this late in the game's life. Not to mention that going from personal pools that make content pick-up friendly to one shared loot pool for 18-36 people does not make it very appealing to people trying to build groups.

As for the drops, did we miss any (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Legion_Rewards)? Even this list (which is everything from the March update for which was not otherwise accounted), a few pieces are nice, some are situational, and the rest vary between not very good to outright inferior to gear that is widely available. Meteor and Arise having a better drop rate than in Provenance is nice and all, but doubling or tripling a rate that is terribad is still fairly terribad. (By the way, make sure to congratulate the Dev team on making sure to hold up their promise that not every WHM would have Arise, they overshot their expectations.)

The best strategy for this content is for us to just ignore Legion until the Dev team realizes this isn't a CoP-era game anymore and try to move it to something that reflects the current status of the game.

[wish12oz]

As for the drops, did we miss any (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Legion_Rewards)?

I love how the DEVs try to say the drops are good, like we have no idea what the drops are. Does this event secretly drop defending rings and cursed breastplate -1s or something?

[Sparthos]

I love how the DEVs try to say the drops are good, like we have no idea what the drops are. Does this event secretly drop defending rings and cursed breastplate -1s or something?

If you kill Paramount Botulus he can drop up to 4 Ebodies.

[Xerius]

This may be against popular belief but I'm with the dev's on this one. Legion is still pretty new and not a lot of people are doing it because they aren't seeing immediate results. Do you think the first group to run AV was successful? Absolutely not, even today he can still be quite the challenge. I think more people need to get into it first. I will agree that getting 36 people together to run it is darn near impossible though. Perhaps that could be tweaked a tad or introduce some sort of non-sucky NPC comrades, similar to Besieged.

[Sparthos]

AV in his heyday had good drops worth dedicating resources to in addition to the internet celebrity that came with being in an LS capable of even attempting to take him down. Legion has mediocre drops that the AH rivals, awards nothing for failure (least JOL had Novios) and relies on one strategy to realistically win.

There is no comparison.

[hiko]

Hey everyone,



We will continue to monitor the situation, but we would ultimately like to see players progress through this content a bit by forming good strategies before we do anything with the reward system.

unless their is some gimmik to get TE, weaken next wave, .. (by killing in a specific order, Ying-yang style, using related 2h after some move...) embrava/PD zerg is the best strategi people can use to kill tho most monster before time out

[Vortex]

Hey everyone,

Looking at the current situation in-game for Legion we understand that it is difficult to gather participants and the content itself is quite challenging.

Regarding the rewards, we feel it is a bit early to judge whether they are sufficient or not for this content. As progress is made in Legion more and more equipment will be accessible for exchange through Legion points and there are also a wide variety of special new weapons that are only obtainable within Legion. Not to mention that the drop rates for Arise and Meteor are higher than the Provenance Watcher battle.

We will continue to monitor the situation, but we would ultimately like to see players progress through this content a bit by forming good strategies before we do anything with the reward system.

Let's be honest here, there is no "working" stratagy that dosn't consist of abusing SCH and SMN 2 hour, because that is the ONLY way to even have a chance in legion. and even then they are also limited by time. even if there was a ":normal" way of doing this event, you will most likely time out, because you don't get time to "rest and recover" it's a zerg fest.

are the DEVs expecting everyone to be top notch, flawless players? and what's even more insulting is that most if not all the rewards are lack-luster an entire LS can get arise and Metor from dragon before they see even 1 in legion from an area that is un-winnable because of time limits or severly heavy Aoe Nms.

[Monchat]

The Pulse weapons are generally worse than 99 Relic/Mythic/Empyreans. If you were aiming to put some big incentive in the event, you missed it. There are some minor upgrades to situational mage gear and abjurations / abjuration augmentation items.


This. I honestly have no idea id the DEVs read player feeback but arise is garbage. It's a trophy item that is essentially useless. A 4th raise spell for a whm? useless . Gives player a reraise effect? lol. Even if it gave raise ga to all PC in a 50' range i wouldnt buy it unless it removes weakness and insntant cure everyone.

Meteor isnt garbage but its useless.. because you need 5~6 BLM to use it efficiently.

Arise beeing garbage, nobody wanting 18/36 man events has been repeated here over and over, legion failing has been said since its introduction on test server. Listen to your players.

Edit: and the pulse weapons make me laugh. They were presented several months ago as weapons of awsomeness. A recent test proved the dagger's spacial effect is terribly underwhelming. at 95 cap a basica magian STR killa was on par, and 99 cap it is bad. The first pulse weapon was Sagasinger? did the dev actually thing anyone in their rigth mind would go after it? It has nothing special except pulsing. Also I killed ADL 120 times i believe and only got one with TH2.

[saevel]

Hey everyone,

Looking at the current situation in-game for Legion we understand that it is difficult to gather participants and the content itself is quite challenging.

Regarding the rewards, we feel it is a bit early to judge whether they are sufficient or not for this content. As progress is made in Legion more and more equipment will be accessible for exchange through Legion points and there are also a wide variety of special new weapons that are only obtainable within Legion. Not to mention that the drop rates for Arise and Meteor are higher than the Provenance Watcher battle.

We will continue to monitor the situation, but we would ultimately like to see players progress through this content a bit by forming good strategies before we do anything with the reward system.

Oki,

I understand your just providing us feedback from the developers, we're not here to shoot the messenger.

Whomever is providing you with your information has no idea how to play this game, I would seriously question both their mental capacity and their sanity.

Currently Legion is nothing but nine super buffed NMs that have stupid amounts of HP and incredibly bad drop rates on even worse loot. The only NMs worth doing are the final ones and with only 30m to clear them the only strategy is to use Embrava and Perfect Defense for every NM.

If the developers have designed some other "strategy" element, then it is not working. It is possible a bug in the code is preventing any form of this "strategy" element from manifesting itself and the NMs are instead in full on rampage mode. The developers should re-examine their code to determine if it is actually working as intended, and if so they need to re-evaluate how they expect anyone to be capable of killing nine NMs in 30m without using Embrava and Perfect Defense multiple times.

[Vortex]

This. I honestly have no idea id the DEVs read player feeback but arise is garbage. It's a trophy item that is essentially useless. A 4th raise spell for a whm? useless . Gives player a reraise effect? lol. Even if it gave raise ga to all PC in a 50' range i wouldnt buy it unless it removes weakness and insntant cure everyone.

Yes..a 3 minute weakness +instant reraise on the person reciving it is useless..are you retarded? because no one ever dies, right? seriously, think before staying stupid BS like that.


Meteor isnt garbage but its useless.. because you need 5~6 BLM to use it efficiently.

Watch at least 3-4 blms use it together, it's restrictions to be good are high, but it is far from useless. and it is NONE ELEMENTAL which is the best part about it.

Neither one is garbage just because you don't have or can ever get.

[Neisan_Quetz]

Monchat's logic on Meteor is garbage is because you need multiple blms to cast it, it is only seriously accessible from Prov Watcher, and has a low drop rate, not to mention it will either be LS centric (if you do Prov with an LS) or it's a PUG, so it's either going to be locked by the leader (I have seen this) or FL, in which case the chances of a group of blms actually having and working together to cast Meteor is absurdly low. What's the point of having a spell that requires multiple blms to work, then make it incredibly hard to obtain? You can't seriously believe that makes sense.

Arise isn't worth either its price tag or its rarity.

[Vortex]

Nothing from Prov watch is worth the time and rarity by that logic, saio is about the only real "decent" thing worth getting and even then its a minor upgrade, but it still stands that arise is more useful then meteor.

only stupid people buy either scrolls for double digit milions so it will never be worth the price tag people put on it. the only thing unattractive about arise is the MP cost for outside VW and abyssea.

you won't ever get enough blms to fully utilize meteor because other then overly rich jps most people who get the scroll sell it since gill is to hard to make for them. it would indeed have to be an LS thing.

[Monchat]

Yes..a 3 minute weakness +instant reraise on the person reciving it is useless..are you retarded? because no one ever dies, right? seriously, think before staying stupid BS like that.


I confirm, it is useless. You know, X number of DDs will do much more damage (10x more?) in 10minute than X BLM using meteor. This limites the use of meteor to melee resistant mobs.

[Vortex]

I confirm, it is useless. You know, X number of DDs will do much more damage (10x more?) in 10minute than X BLM using meteor. This limites the use of meteor to melee resistant mobs.

Yes, because DDs never die, or you will never, ever fight physcial resistant mobs or mobs who temporarly are immune to DDs period.

once again, just because you don't play these jobs, dosn't make them "useless" it is your opinion after all, it's a dumb one, but it''s still yours.

it is easy to call something for jobs you don't use useless.

[Camiie]

I'd really like for them to come out and say what sort of player they designed recent events like Legion around. What does SE expect us to have in order to be productive in Legion? Are all DD expected to have 99 R/M/E with Afterglow? Should everyone be sporting level 100 Neo-Nyzul gear? Is it supposed to be doable by a group of players whose gear comes from Abyssea and the AH? Seriously... Tell us what you want from us...

[Vortex]

I'd really like for them to come out and say what sort of player they designed recent events like Legion around. What does SE expect us to have in order to be productive in Legion? Are all DD expected to have 99 R/M/E with Afterglow? Should everyone be sporting level 100 Neo-Nyzul gear? Is it supposed to be doable by a group of players whose gear comes from Abyssea and the AH? Seriously... Tell us what you want from us...

I stated it in a previous post, they seem to expect everyone to be flawless players for legion, which is impossible.

[Benihana]

I stated it in a previous post, they seem to expect everyone to be flawless players for legion, which is impossible.


You really shouldn't argue with pchain or mdkuser.
You're lowering yourself.

Theyre entertainment for message boards, nothing more.

Just point and laugh and enjoy the show lol.

[Alhanelem]

I confirm, it is useless. You know, X number of DDs will do much more damage (10x more?) in 10minute than X BLM using meteor. This limites the use of meteor to melee resistant mobs.
Because BLMs would never do ANYTHING AT ALL between meteor casts.

Do you realize just how strong a 6 man meteor is? It can do massive damage even to NMs. It's totally worth having in the rare and unlikely event you can actually find 6 people who have the spell.

[Sparthos]

Because BLMs would never do ANYTHING AT ALL between meteor casts.

Do you realize just how strong a 6 man meteor is? It can do massive damage even to NMs. It's totally worth having in the rare and unlikely event you can actually find 6 people who have the spell.

I rarely agree with Pchan and co. but in this situation he is actually in the right.

What event at this point warrants a 6man meteor? Further, what event will allow you to take six BLMs without losing crucial procs (or other jobs) in the process? Sure, the sight of a huge damage splooge on an NM is great and all but where would this be practical? Given the rarity of the spell, finding 6 Meteor capable BLMs would be a quest in itself.

Arise is a nifty spell but its a luxury for any group that isnt expecting massive casualties and the entire reraise effect can be replicated through temp items or AHables readily available by most. While I'd love to have it in my WHM arsenal, it's nothing spectacularly gamechanging.

When the two scrolls SE keeps waving around as worth braving the hells of Legion for aren't even head and shoulders above everything else (like Empyrean WS or merit WS were) then we have an issue and that's not even taking into account that those two spells only offer incentive to WHMs and BLMs.

[Mahoro]

Why is this even an issue? Obviously, both Arise and Meteor are luxury items. I could say the same thing about most 99 R/M/E's which have minor stat increases from their 95 counterparts. So really, in the end, what's the point? People want their luxury items.

Does casting Arise change the way I WHM? Of course not. But it's nice to give someone a free RR3. The shortened weakness timer is only truly useful if every WHM you are playing with has it, otherwise you will always be waiting on someone to unweak the full 5 minutes.

Does casting Meteor change the way someone would BLM? Of course not. But it could speed up some older events and some newer events.

If people are are going to outright declare things useless, they might want to focus that lens on some of the stuff they go after that people might deem luxury items.

[Sparthos]

Why is this even an issue? Obviously, both Arise and Meteor are luxury items. I could say the same thing about most 99 R/M/E's which have minor stat increases from their 95 counterparts. So really, in the end, what's the point? People want their luxury items.

Does casting Arise change the way I WHM? Of course not. But it's nice to give someone a free RR3. The shortened weakness timer is only truly useful if every WHM you are playing with has it, otherwise you will always be waiting on someone to unweak the full 5 minutes.

Does casting Meteor change the way someone would BLM? Of course not. But it could speed up some older events and some newer events.

If people are are going to outright declare things useless, they might want to focus that lens on some of the stuff they go after that people might deem luxury items.

Its an issue because SE keeps pointing to those two items as if they are capable of defining the event, even though Provanence Watcher drops them and takes far less trouble to do battle with. If you aren't a WHM or BLM the primary motivator is completely worthless to you yet this is somehow going to drive interest? How?

Dynamis doesn't solely revolve around getting 99 Relic items, Voidwatch doesn't revolve around solely getting HMPs (sadly) and Mythics are tucked away in level 75 content that isnt bothering anyone yet SE thinks two luxury items that already exist on easier content qualifies as proper motivation worthy of revolving content on? Yeah, the base has spoken volumes on what they think of that.

Saying Legion has a higher drop rate is even more amusing given the scrolls likely drop off the final wave in the final wing of Legion against what one could only speculate is a Provanence Watcher clone. Even if the Paramount Avatar isn't the Crystal Dragon, you've still got a Botulus and a Gallu (Ig-Alima) to deal with which could only mean... more Perfect Defense and Embravas than you can shake a stick at.

[Mahoro]

Hey everyone,

Looking at the current situation in-game for Legion we understand that it is difficult to gather participants and the content itself is quite challenging.

Regarding the rewards, we feel it is a bit early to judge whether they are sufficient or not for this content. As progress is made in Legion more and more equipment will be accessible for exchange through Legion points and there are also a wide variety of special new weapons that are only obtainable within Legion. Not to mention that the drop rates for Arise and Meteor are higher than the Provenance Watcher battle.

We will continue to monitor the situation, but we would ultimately like to see players progress through this content a bit by forming good strategies before we do anything with the reward system.

Oki, it is my opinion that Legion rewards are insufficient for the level of challenge posed by the content. Someone summarized it nicely when they said that the devs have essentially put Voidwatch/Walk of Echoes-level rewards into an event requiring Neo-Nyzul amounts of effort. While a small percentage of these drops would be attractive if they came from other venues, currently Legion is too unbalanced because the level of challenge instituted here should result in rewards on par with those of Neo-Nyzul. If the Legion drops are not going to be changed, I would recommend lowering the difficulty to at least something like Walk of Echoes and increasing the time limit.

Regarding "forming good strategies", currently the only viable strategy due to the extreme time limit is PD/Embrava zergs. Even the lower 4 chambers required a group to beat 7 NM's in 30 minutes, which can only realistically be achieved via PD/Embrava zerg. The final chamber appears to have something like 11 NM's that must be beaten in the same time limit, including a Botulus Rex and Ig-Alima clone. This would not be fair in Voidwatch and so it should not be fair here.

While some have argued that events requiring large groups are not viable, the relative success of Voidwatch does not really do much to serve that argument. Reading between the lines, I think people want more incentive to do Legion in PUGs, as the loot system currently only serves LS play. Certain tweaks could make the event more amenable to pickup group play, such as (i) decreasing the difficulty such that not all the monsters require ideal alliance setups for PD/Embrava zergs, (ii) making many more drops purchasable by Legion points, and (iii) putting in additional common items of value like Heavy Metal, Riftxxx items, and Alexandrite.

[Mahoro]

Its an issue because SE keeps pointing to those two items as if they are capable of defining the event, even though Provanence Watcher drops them and takes far less trouble to do battle with. If you aren't a WHM or BLM the primary motivator is completely worthless to you yet this is somehow going to drive interest? How?


I meant why is the utility/non-utility of Arise and Meteor even an issue. Was talking about the people debating the merits of the scrolls themselves.

[Alhanelem]

I rarely agree with Pchan and co. but in this situation he is actually in the right.He's really not in the right. Meteor is good enough to be used. Legion for one, doesn't have procs (thank god), so once you have it, I could see it being used. Buuuut....


Given the rarity of the spell, finding 6 Meteor capable BLMs would be a quest in itself.This is the only problem, and this point is one I agree with. You make a spell that requires multiple players to be useful, then you go and make the spell so rare that finding people who have it in order to use it is so hard it becomes not useable.


those two spells only offer incentive to WHMs and BLMs.I agree with this as well. They could have at least come up with some rare spells for every other job with MP. Holyga or Ultima for PLD maybe? Reflect for RDM?

In short I don't agree with your comments about the spells themselves, they're good spells. I do agree with some of your other points.

[Monchat]

Because BLMs would never do ANYTHING AT ALL between meteor casts.

Do you realize just how strong a 6 man meteor is? It can do massive damage even to NMs. It's totally worth having in the rare and unlikely event you can actually find 6 people who have the spell.

ok they will cast other spell inbetween. You d not know that BLM is a weak DD job? even if they were casting spells non stop they are limited by their MP, unlike DDs. So i correct myself and 6 DDS will do 7x more damage than 6 BLM and not 10x.

[Monchat]

He's really not in the right. Meteor is good enough to be used. Legion for one, doesn't have procs (thank god), so once you have it, I could see it being used. Buuuut....

This is the only problem, and this point is one I agree with. You make a spell that requires multiple players to be useful, then you go and make the spell so rare that finding people who have it in order to use it is so hard it becomes not useable.

I agree with this as well. They could have at least come up with some rare spells for every other job with MP. Holyga or Ultima for PLD maybe? Reflect for RDM?

In short I don't agree with your comments about the spells themselves, they're good spells. I do agree with some of your other points.

i would have beem happy with banish 4/5 and banishga4/5 but they somehow think those spell would be broken.... So intead they give you a useless and unattainable spell for most.

[Byrth]

If you had a group of four good BLMs (which is probably about as many as you'd bring to Legion), it would be worth group-casting Meteor every time Manawell and ES were up. That's every 10 minutes. The related problems are:
1) Finding four good BLMs
2) with Meteor
3) for the only event in the game that tolerates bringing four BLMs.

...And even then, the damage isn't going to be that much better than four individual Thundajas that take no coordination. I love the Meteor mechanic. It looks awesome on the test server. Low drop rate and lack of events that call for it make it somewhat useless, though.

[Insaniac]

In 36 man legion a full meteor party would be pretty neat. CORs could random deal JAs back so you would just have to wait 5 minutes on the resistance to wear instead of 10 minutes unless you are only hitting one mob in which case you can just go again right away on a different target. Doesn't really matter though because 36 person legion is not gonna happen and you need all your extra slots for SMNs in 18 person.

[Tamoa]

1. I'm actually questioning why we can enter Legion with as few as 3 (or was it 6?) people. What's the point in that?

2. Personally I would never join a Legion shout group. Simply because the event is too difficult to risk going with people I don't know - I don't know what they are capable of, how well geared they are etc. Bad players are likely to cost the group the win. So basically, in my opinion Legion isn't pickup friendly at all, unlike voidwatch. Even moreso because we don't have the atmacite/temp items crutch to rely on. And as it is, my ls is struggling to gather 18 people - we do have more than 18 members but we are in all kinds of different timezones (JP, EU, PST, MST and EST), people work/study etc - all this makes it hard to gather 18 members and we usually have to rely on mule characters being brought too.

3. And yes, then there's the rewards. While I - with whm as one of my main jobs - do want Arise, I manage just fine without it. It would definitely be a trophy, nothing else, and I'd never ever buy the scroll for the ridiculous price I see it being bazaared for. Same goes for Meteor. As for the rest of the rewards? Only thing I really want is a Fulad-Zereh, and considering how unpopular and difficult Legion is, I know I will never get one.

[Alhanelem]

1. I'm actually questioning why we can enter Legion with as few as 3 (or was it 6?) people. What's the point in that? If you're pro enough you could kill one or two NMs with a small group to get some legion points or terrible drops.

[MarkovChain]

only stupid people buy either scrolls for double digit milions s.

What? Don't you gimps know that 10 millions of today is one million of yesterday. If I wanted I could buy meteor (25M in bazars..) and arise. Thing is they are worthless. I mean 3 min weakness so what ? When will that be useful ? If at least it was aoe then you could say it's usefull on a wipe, but no. They are worth getting if you find them at the AH or in bazar for 10-20 M but honestly, doing provenance just for them is no worth anyone's time, and after seeing the devs post, they are seriously considering that it worth doing Legion over and over against unkillable mobs for a chance at them. Man... Legion drops are about as garbage as voidwatch, the difference is that VW provide riftcinder/dross/plates which lots of people are needing to get something that is ACTUALLY good, aka the best weapons in the game. If at least VW was the same as einherjar was at 75 : an alternative way to get drops from other events.

Idk ? Let the hnms drop stuff like marrow/scoria/Nyzul gear and maybe we will care to ettempt to perfect defense zerk it ¿

[Alhanelem]

What? Don't you gimps know that 10 millions of today is one million of yesterday.That's wrong, there was a time several years ago before gil sellers got their butts kicked that the economy was more inflated than it is now. Dynamis currencies were up to 30k or more for bronze and kclubs were in the hundreds of millions. Even that wasn't an inflation of 10x what the norm was prior.

[Mindi]

What happened to the 180k gil/entry for a 18 cap fight?

this was really something to make it more interesting to even try out Legion on a 18 cap fight and where it dont hurt to much if you pay for it and can only kill half the mobs...

really not motivation to see devs dont care about makeing Legion more interesting /doable for players.

[Alhanelem]

this was really something to make it more interesting to even try out Legion on a 18 cap fight and where it dont hurt to much if you pay for it and can only kill half the mobs...half the players doesn't mean half the mobs. The enemies are half the HP and you're supposed to be able to kill about the same assuming ability to survive.

[Vortex]

What? Don't you gimps know that 10 millions of today is one million of yesterday. If I wanted I could buy meteor (25M in bazars..) and arise. Thing is they are worthless. I mean 3 min weakness so what ? When will that be useful ? If at least it was aoe then you could say it's usefull on a wipe, but no. They are worth getting if you find them at the AH or in bazar for 10-20 M but honestly, doing provenance just for them is no worth anyone's time, and after seeing the devs post, they are seriously considering that it worth doing Legion over and over against unkillable mobs for a chance at them. Man... Legion drops are about as garbage as voidwatch, the difference is that VW provide riftcinder/dross/plates which lots of people are needing to get something that is ACTUALLY good, aka the best weapons in the game. If at least VW was the same as einherjar was at 75 : an alternative way to get drops from other events.

Idk ? Let the hnms drop stuff like marrow/scoria/Nyzul gear and maybe we will care to ettempt to perfect defense zerk it ¿


/facepalm, /facepalm, i didnt bother responding to you anymore because of your tunnle vision view but jesus,

yes, everything is useless, everywhere, unless its for meele only and has +100 attack, acc 50 str, dex, vit, w/e

you seem to forget that just because you use certain jobs and dislike other jobs, and therefore find things "useless" does not speak for everyone.

if prov is not worth your time to get spells you have no use for, why the hell would you even put that as a comparison, to me, prov is not worth going for at all aside for the spells. it has "nice" gear but nothing worth breaking your neck over, but oh, going by your dumb logic that should what everyone should be thinking.

Your opinion dosn't mean that is what everyone's opinion is, bottom line, neither spell is useless. TO PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY PLAY WHM AND BLM, period. to you? yes. what use do braindead meele users have with spells?

Do not care what you "could" buy it them for, the prices they are now are retarded, as well as anyone who actually waste gill on them. i got both for FREE because i acttualy do the BCs not sit here and whine that they are useless because i can't get them or dont use either mage job.

I don't why i even borther responding to you, posting on a diffrent user name, you have the same low IQ.

[scaevola]

What would Arise or Meteor actually enable you to do better than you can do right now? The three-minute weakness timer on Arise is pointless for wipe recovery unless multiple WHMs have it (and even then, not as fast as everyone using Reraise like they should), and Meteor does not, on paper, look especially useful unless you've got a bunch of BLMs together.....who all have Meteor.

PS you didn't get them for free. It cost you the exact same 20 million as anyone else.

(ITT yet another example of pchan saying pretty uncontroversial things in a really aggressive way, thus baiting others into untenable positions because they don't want to agree with him about anything, ever)

[Vortex]

What would Arise or Meteor actually enable you to do better than you can do right now? The three-minute weakness timer on Arise is pointless for wipe recovery unless multiple WHMs have it (and even then, not as fast as everyone using Reraise like they should), and Meteor does not, on paper, look especially useful unless you've got a bunch of BLMs together.....who all have Meteor.

The same thing any other peice of armor from the BC does for you. in fact, you can play the rest of this game with all your jobs in full AF3 and never get another peice of gear again, the use in those spells depend ont he people who use those jobs. i wont sit here and explain it because it's something you have to actually expreince for you self.


PS you didn't get them for free. It cost you the exact same 20 million as anyone else.

I am assuming this was saracsm, because obviously the dragon requires that i give him 20 mil each time for a scroll


(ITT yet another example of pchan saying pretty uncontroversial things in a really aggressive way, thus baiting others into untenable positions because they don't want to agree with him about anything, ever)

I usually ignore the moron, but sometimes his stupidity gets to me and i have to let him know that. this time he sucked me in, but back to ignoring.

[Mahoro]

Stuff

Jesus H. Christ, is this still going on? She's saying they aren't useless, with which I agree. Are they game-changing? Fuck no. Are they nice to have? Fuck yes. Do you want a use for Arise? Here are two:

Inalienable truth #1: Not everybody remembers to put Reraise up 100% of the time, or has time to do so in a high-intensity AOE situation where they Raise only to wipe again. If this has never happened to you, congratulations. If you deny this has never happened to anyone you know ever, I call shenanigans. Even great players, if you only run with those, have an off day.

Inalienable Truth #2: Not all DD are made equal, as parsewhores are well aware (you know who you are). I tend to hand out Arise to the best DD's in a group when I know the extra 2 minutes can enable them to get back in the fray that much quicker. And nobody has ever said to me "Oh Raise III would have been fine enough" when their weakness drops early and they don't have to waste a Reraise charge.

And it IS possible to get them for free. I don't know how she got them, but you can get them for free via a LS like I did or by a very lucky freelot.

EDIT: You will never see me argue Arise or Meteor are gamechanging or essential for every WHM or BLM to have. They are luxury items, in the same vein as most of those 99 R/M/E's everyone seems to be striving for that cost tens/hundreds of millions of gil for minor stat increases which will likely never be the difference between beating a mob and not beating a mob, and will likely only serve for people to jab each over parses. Are 99 R/M/E's gamechanging? No. Are they nice to have? Sure, ok. Are people now going to disallow the same right to want luxury items to WHM's and BLM's? Illogical.

[Vortex]

Jesus H. Christ, she's saying they aren't useless, with which I agree. Are they game-changing? Fuck no. Are they nice to have? Fuck yes. Do you want a use for Arise? Here are two:

Inalienable truth #1: Not everybody remembers to put Reraise up 100% of the time, or has time to do so in a high-intensity AOE situation where they Raise only to wipe again. If this has never happened to you, congratulations. If you deny this has never happened to anyone you know ever, I call shenanigans.

Inalienable Truth #2: Not all DD are made equal, as parsewhores are well aware (you know who you are). I tend to hand out Arise to the best DD's in a group when I know the extra 2 minutes can enable them to get back in the fray that much quicker. And nobody has ever said to me "Oh Raise III would have been fine enough" when their weakness drops early and they don't have to waste a Reraise charge.

And it IS possible to get them for free. I don't know how she got them, but you can get them for free via a LS or by a very lucky freelot.


hahahah yes, my server has 2 very decidated VW shouters, and the groups allow FL by comment, i got both that way. my shell knows me for my flucating luck and im sure most arent happy with that fact >.> but yes they both came from free lots by comment (had to beat 5+ people on each one)

[Mahoro]

Ah, very nice Vortex, grats :)

[Raksha]

PS you didn't get them for free. It cost you the exact same 20 million as anyone else.



I am assuming this was saracsm, because obviously the dragon requires that i give him 20 mil each time for a scroll



And it IS possible to get them for free. I don't know how she got them, but you can get them for free via a LS like I did or by a very lucky freelot.

He's probably talking about opportunity cost.

You lose 20M by using the scroll instead of selling it etc. etc.

[Camiie]

He's probably talking about opportunity cost.

You lose 20M by using the scroll instead of selling it etc. etc.

That and time is money. You can chase the scroll or go make guaranteed gil.

[Mahoro]

1) Opportunity cost is subjective, 2) I doubt you'd get 20M for either scroll, 3) if Return1 is to be believed, people don't waste anytime idling in Port Jeuno waiting on PUGs (read: they do), 4) I personally wouldn't chase the scroll any more than regular events in my shell, and 5) Vortex got very lucky and is to be congratulated, and at least spent her time doing something more interesting than farming Dynamis.

[scaevola]

He's probably talking about opportunity cost.

You lose 20M by using the scroll instead of selling it etc. etc.

it's a little sad people need that explained, but if FFXI players (other than pchan, hilariously) actually understood opportunity cost the game would probably have to shut down


Camiie sez time is money, friend!

This is the distilled essence of everything pchan posts on these boards, and while it leads to the uncontroversial opinions I take such pleasure in seeing people work themselves in knots trying to debunk, I do think he takes it to an extreme (ADL ALL DAY EVERY DAY) that is somewhat self-defeating in the context of a video game meant to be a pleasant waste of time.

At any rate, we end up back where I started: you pay 20 million (or 10 million, or some other very significant sum) for the privilege of covering for jackasses that forgot to bring Reraise. THAT MIGHT BE WORTH IT TO YOU, but it's an objectively indefensible position.

[Mahoro]

Leading economists disagree.

https://www.google.com/search?source=ig&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_ENUS324&q=opportunity+cost+subjective&oq=opportunity+cost+subjective&aq=f&aqi=g-K2&aql=&gs_l=igoogle.3..0i30l2.226.7919.0.8021.27.17.0.9.9.0.209.1964.8j7j2.17.0...0.0.DUCcp-r9ibk

Yes, time is money. Opportunity cost can be subjective. Only the chooser can determine the most attractive alternative for itself from its special point of view. We each have a different list of things valued in decline from top to bottom due to our different aims of life, philosophy, etc. Even for the same activity or good or service, different individuals take it with different opportunity cost.

EDIT: You edited your prior comment. Doubtless you understood that I wasn't saying there isn't an opportunity cost, just that it differs for people. You can't pass judgment on the list of things from top to bottom someone who uses the scroll has. They just differ from YOUR goals.

EDIT2: Already said it did more than your listed function. Nothing objectively indefensible about it.

[scaevola]

No, leading economists disagree that opportunity cost is always static for each person, which is what they mean when they say "subjective". If you could get somebody to pay 15 million for a scroll of Arise and you know that you could do that the moment you click it to learn the spell, your opportunity cost is 15 million. Subjectivity doesn't apply here because we know exactly what somebody else will pay us for the item in question.

In fact, the subjectivity of opportunity costs is frequently discussed in the context of depreciation of the value of goods, which in this case, dealing with a hot ticket, brand new spell that we can be reasonably assured will only get cheaper and may get dramatically cheaper very quickly if it shows up in other events, makes keeping it while it's worth so much even dumber.

What you are arguing is that sometimes people attach sentimental value to things unrelated to economic costs, which I totally agree with, but betrays a core underlying premise of economics as a whole (and why I believe a lot of economics are on rather shaky ground intellectually, for what it's worth), which is that people behave as rational economic actors. I'm not opposed to discussing economics on this board but if you aren't going to start with that premise, doing so is pretty pointless.

[Mahoro]

Isn't that another way of stating what I said? As I said in my edit above, I wasn't saying there isn't an opportunity cost, just that it differs for people.

If you are using the sell-while-high doctrine, you could also argue that the scroll itself is languishing in bazaars across servers, and then you have to factor in the subjective value of the difference in value to you over using the scroll then and there, and waiting 3, 4, 5 months (?) for the scroll to fall down perhaps a few million in price while you went without the benefit.

Moral of the story: one man's trash is another man's treasure?

[scaevola]

You said the opportunity cost was "subjective"; in this case, it is not, because people spend 20 million gil on this scroll all the time.

Or not, maybe. I concede on reflection that since sales are carried out via Bazaar there's no way for us to track what people are actually buying it for. If it needs to be lower, and, say, 15 million were a more appropriate price, the opportunity cost would be 15 million. Still quite a bit more than the utility of the spell is worth, which I stand by because you've already admitted it's pretty useless.


If you are using the sell-while-high doctrine, you could also argue that the scroll itself is languishing in bazaars across servers, and then you have to factor in the subjective value of the difference in value to you over using the scroll then and there, and waiting 3, 4, 5 months (?) for the scroll to fall down perhaps a few million in price while you went without the benefit.

There's a difference between understanding economics and being good at sales. At any rate, I was just mentioning that in terms of the concept of subjectivity as generally understood HEAVILY favoring getting rid of a scroll of Arise or Meteor as quickly as possible, right now.

[Mahoro]

Yes, as the subjective theory goes, opportunity-cost decisions are the subjective valuations of individuals. It can be seen as "the rejected subjective plan of an individual—one that is never implemented at all." Viewing it from the endpoint of the individual rather than the start point of the buyer. You are assuming the scroll isn't worth more than 20M to the person using it, that the person does not compare the benefits of having the scroll to the value to other people, or that the person has other goals that would take that 20M.

[Mahoro]

If it needs to be lower, and, say, 15 million were a more appropriate price, the opportunity cost would be 15 million. Still quite a bit more than the utility of the spell is worth, which I stand by because you've already admitted it's pretty useless..

I admitted nothing of the sort. I listed two uses. If you want a third, call it "getting a luxury item". Which isn't denied to people spending 80-100M on upgrading weapons to have a couple more stats (and that opportunity cost), so why deny it to WHM's and BLM's?

[scaevola]

No, I am not assuming the scroll isn't worth more than 20 million to the person using it. It clearly is.

What I am assuming is that such a person is a total moron, and one of the cornerstones of economic theory (indeed, again, IMHO one of the weaknesses of classical economics) is that people are not total morons (economists use the term "rational economic actors"), because economists do not have the tools to predict what morons will do.

[scaevola]

I admitted nothing of the sort. I listed two uses.

Please list events where people are not reraising themselves. Oh no, I forgot to bring my reraise earring to voidwatch!

Also, while I understand the idea of giving high DDs a leg up on weakness on paper, I am coming up short with any real practical application for it. Any fight where I can imagine getting one person unweakened two minutes quicker would actually matter involves Embrava, so they're screwed anyway.


If you want a third, call it "getting a luxury item". Which isn't denied to people spending 80-100M on upgrading weapons to have a couple more stats (and that opportunity cost), so why deny it to WHM's and BLM's?

Like I said, if FFXI players actually understood opportunity cost the game would probably have to shut down.

EDIT: I DO believe there is economic value to luxury items and the value of such items in FFXI weirdly parallels the value they have in the real world; having a 95 Empyrean won't help you get to Floor 100 of Nyzul, for instance, but it will open the door to other people who have 95 Empyreans, which WILL help you, for sure. But then we all remembered this was a video game, and if a 95 Ukon gets you the access of a degree from Harvard Business, a TP Bonus Great Katana is a degree from the University of Michigan Med School.

[Mahoro]

No, I am not assuming the scroll isn't worth more than 20 million to the person using it. It clearly is.

What I am assuming is that such a person is a total moron, and one of the cornerstones of economic theory (indeed, again, IMHO one of the weaknesses of classical economics) is that people are not total morons (economists use the term "rational economic actors"), because economists do not have the tools to predict what morons will do.

This is actually fraught with subjectivity as well. The person could value the scroll more than 20M because he/she has no other goals with higher priority with that much cost or that are buyable to begin with. When there is nothing more attractive in the market for that person, he would be an irrational economic actor to hold onto the 20M in lieu of accomplishing the goal. I agree very much with your statement about "one of the weaknesses of classical economics"


Please list events where people are not reraising themselves. Oh no, I forgot to bring my reraise earring to voidwatch!

Any event you've ever been to where people forgot to Reraise themselves, ran out of RR temps due to no procs, or died on an ill-timed AOE upon Reraising. Please list events where this never happened to you or anyone else in your group. I can ask rhetorical questions too!


Also, while I understand the idea of giving high DDs a leg up on weakness on paper, I am coming up short with any real practical application for it. Any fight where I can imagine getting one person unweakened two minutes quicker would actually matter involves Embrava, so they're screwed anyway.

Oooh, here's a good way to get back on topic. Legion! (Shortened timer so person can get back in fray for next HNM/Embrava zerg.) I don't even have to say "inb4 Legion sucks". The thread does it for me!

[Sparthos]

To rerail this thread, the quick fix for Legion would include:

1. Upping the time limit to 60 mins OR giving a time extension on each monster defeated. 30 mins is clearly too short, promotes one strategy and gives very little room for non-zerg jobs.


2. Consider changing the 3 mobs per wave to monsters spawning one right after the other. While I get the point of Legion was to be this place where you're besieged by HNMs, in practice it amounts to stalling the other two while you focus on one target. A simple spawn mechanic of one HNM at a time gives players some breathing room and helps to keep the event orderly and centered on alliance performance rather than if your stallers died holding a mob.

3. Throw in HMPs under the point menus. Seriously, this event would become an instant success if you could simply purchase a bag of plates after 10 or so kills and it goes hand in hand with the repetitive nature of the event. In short, it'd make people want to Legion and that means less work for the devs.

P.S - You can balance this by banning Embrava/Perfect Defense if you see fit. It'd be like trading card games where certain combinations are off-limits for the sake of the overall challenge factor.

[scaevola]

This is actually fraught with subjectivity as well. The person could value the scroll more than 20M because he/she has no other goals with higher priority with that much cost or that are buyable to begin with. When there is nothing more attractive in the market for that person, he would be an irrational economic actor to hold onto the 20M in lieu of accomplishing the goal.

In this case, he's irrational for continuing to play FFXI in the face of such radically diminished marginal utility rather than seeking out a new experience, but that's a whole different discussion.


I agree very much with your statement about "one of the weaknesses of classical economics"

It's still a useful weakness, if only because it allows us to identify some economic behavior as irrational and address it at the policy level, because irrational economic actors are unfortunately really easy to take advantage of (for instance, they buy scrolls of Arise for 20 million gil!) and may need society's protection.* It's not that sentimentality/irrational decisions by informed actors has never occurred to anyone, or that it never gets discussed; it's just rather hard to derive useful economic principles from a class of people so prone to suggestion, nor would I personally be interested in promoting an economic system based on taking advantage of people ill-equipped to pursue their self-interest.

I'm happy to let you go on thinking a 95 Ukon is worth an extra 150 million gil on top of the 90 version if it means you keep buying Heavy Metal Plates out of my bazaar, though.




*this is why everybody says libertarians are monsters and the libertarians themselves don't get why

[Mahoro]

Or he could be irrational for holding onto the money if Arise/Meteor is an easier goal than any other goal. If he had two goals, 1) getting a Mythic and 2) getting Arise, does it not make more sense to immediately satisfy the second goal to realize its benefits and then concentrate on the first, which is a much longer-term goal? Shit's subjective.

And I hope you are talking about the metaphorical "you", because I never said I thought the 95 Ukon was worth it from my subjective point of view. I just defended people's right to deem it worthy for themselves!

Back on topic, Sparth, I love your suggestions, especially #s 1 and 3.

[Sparthos]

Necro but I'm curious if the devs have anything to say about Legion regarding tweaks or adjustments planned for the next update.

[wish12oz]

Legion would be a lot more fun if you didnt have to perfect defense 90% of the mobs in the zone in order to win.

[Camiie]

Legion would be a lot more fun if you didnt have to perfect defense 90% of the mobs in the zone in order to win.

Dev Response: Well, people wanted SMN to be useful and this was the best we could do!

[wish12oz]

Dev Response: Well, people wanted SMN to be useful and this was the best we could do!

I would of just quoted this and typed a "w" but then I wouldnt have 10 letters.

[FrankReynolds]

Dev Response: Well, people wanted SMN to be useful and this was the best we could do!

Sad but true ; ;

[Luvbunny]

This thread need more bumps, apparently the developers are bunkered in their hole again, swearing to ignore everyone's suggestion and plea. Legion is and still SUCKING badly - a total fail of a content, one that is very unpopular, same goes with all those neo - crapfest that they been shoving down our throats. They should look at how amazing abyssea reward system is - and go from there. At the very least Voidwatch is being tweaked, now we can use displacer for some of those annoying NMs. Let's face it, a lot of the times, we just want to end the fight in less than 6-8 mnts so we can check the gold box and repeat again and again. No one cares about challenge and doing each battle for 30 mnts.

[Byrth]

Now that we have figured out some of the tricks, this event isn't quite as bad as it initially seemed (in that we've become more successful with essentially the same strategies).

It still has some pretty fundamental flaws though:
1) It still lacks really useful equipment. When people get excited about this minor of an upgrade (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Fulad-Zereh), you know something is wrong. Meteor is useless until you add an event that we can BLM burn and has a time limit. Arise is much more useful than I initially thought... in Legion.
2) It relies on Perfect Defense or stun-locking monsters to circumvent the broken damage systems. When the only way to avoid damage is to totally negate it, there is something wrong.
3) It relies on heavy buffs, which means Embrava.
4) Hall of Mul relies on either luck and stun locking or Wild Card landing, and for some reason contains more than half of the desirable drops.
5 re:2~4) This relies on 2-hour abilities but is a half hour event. Why should I have to farm Resheph pops because you guys can't design an event properly? Make our 2-hours reset when we exit.

[Theytak]

What I'm honestly most disappointed about is that legion seemed to be the first event that showed promise for breaking the "nothing but zergs" nonsense we've had to deal with forever, but in the end, the best way to do it is still zerging. I'm so sick of zerging. Everything is zerging. Give us an event that can't be zerged, but is reasonably doable through other methods, good lord. It can't be that hard...

[Luvbunny]

Zerg seems to be the way to do it, or kiting the add and what not. What other strategy? Skillchain + Magic Burst? Seems like most used strategy is always damage mitigation, stun the annoying tp moves, enfeeble (LOL), DOT. Looking back at CoP it is always the same deal, kill one mob at a time while a few others kite, zerg it fast and hard with all your two hours, tank it and whittle down the mob's hp and use SC+MB, have each tank and back up tank face each NMs, crowd control while BLMs start casting all the ga spells.

[Mirabelle]

What I'm honestly most disappointed about is that legion seemed to be the first event that showed promise for breaking the "nothing but zergs" nonsense we've had to deal with forever, but in the end, the best way to do it is still zerging. I'm so sick of zerging. Everything is zerging. Give us an event that can't be zerged, but is reasonably doable through other methods, good lord. It can't be that hard...

Exactly all it would require is that the monster be immune to ohysical damage but take damage from SC, MB's. Require certain types of actions to give clues as to which skillchain/MB is favored. Have the mob change their SC weakness at 75%, 50% and 25%. Make it so the mob can be effectively tanked in the meantime. Then have a mob that is immune to WS and requires specific actions or abilities to break that immunity.

To me NM's don't necessarily have to be "high risk of deathga" hard to be entertaining. As long as they keep you on your toes and require shifting strategy.

As long as SE insists on putting mobs in there that can one shot everything right away, they've pushed the populace to a zerg strategy. The only other option is zombie DOT'ing the thing to death which has never been an expeditious way to do anything.

[lllen]

Based on what I have read here and other places I haven't had the inclination to try Legion. Since it came out I have seen one shout in Jeuno for it and they shouted for hours and no one I know knows anyone who has done it, or is even willing to do it. We are not a bunch of new players, we have been around for years (I'm the baby, only playing 6 years), if you can't get the die hards in there something is wrong.

[Mahoro]

Now that we have figured out some of the tricks, this event isn't quite as bad as it initially seemed (in that we've become more successful with essentially the same strategies).

It still has some pretty fundamental flaws though:
1) It still lacks really useful equipment. When people get excited about this minor of an upgrade (http://wiki.bluegartr.com/bg/Fulad-Zereh), you know something is wrong. Meteor is useless until you add an event that we can BLM burn and has a time limit. Arise is much more useful than I initially thought... in Legion.
2) It relies on Perfect Defense or stun-locking monsters to circumvent the broken damage systems. When the only way to avoid damage is to totally negate it, there is something wrong.
3) It relies on heavy buffs, which means Embrava.
4) Hall of Mul relies on either luck and stun locking or Wild Card landing, and for some reason contains more than half of the desirable drops.
5 re:2~4) This relies on 2-hour abilities but is a half hour event. Why should I have to farm Resheph pops because you guys can't design an event properly? Make our 2-hours reset when we exit.

I don't really mind the drops. Many of the useful ones are incrementally useful but that is par for the course for most SE events post-Abyssea, including VW, Neo-Limbus, and WoE back in the day. For better or for worse, we are in minor upgrade/sidegrade territory until Seekers of Adoulin, and Legion is no more egregious an offender here. Sure, it's got its share of minor upgrades like Fulad-Zerah (although we all know people pay multi-millions for minor upgrades and spend days/weeks seeking that perfect Tatter augment), but it's also got some best-in-slot stuff for certain jobs. And now that people have discovered almost 100% of the Honor augments, getting those means a lot more. Pretty much every melee in my LS wants a Corvine Feet abjuration and an Honor now that we know the augment is crit hit dmg +9-10%. I would never suggest people do Legion over pursuit of Neo-Nyzul gear, but it's the place to go when you've got EVERYTHING else and you are looking to do those final min/maxes of your character.

I agree with everything else on your list though, wholeheartedly. I guess for me, I have the most fun at this event than anything else I do in game now, and while I see the event's glaring flaws, I have been able to overlook them because of that.

[Sparthos]

Zerg seems to be the way to do it, or kiting the add and what not. What other strategy? Skillchain + Magic Burst? Seems like most used strategy is always damage mitigation, stun the annoying tp moves, enfeeble (LOL), DOT. Looking back at CoP it is always the same deal, kill one mob at a time while a few others kite, zerg it fast and hard with all your two hours, tank it and whittle down the mob's hp and use SC+MB, have each tank and back up tank face each NMs, crowd control while BLMs start casting all the ga spells.

There were once endurance fights in this game.

CoP Wyrms weren't a zerg.
Dark Ixion / Sandworm's Doomvoid BCNMs weren't zergs.
Ouryu Cometh wasn't a zerg.
KS99 at 75 weren't zergs.
Proto-Ultima/Omega weren't zergs.
Khimaira/Cerberus/Tyger weren't zergs.

There's a pretty big difference between the game during CoP-WOTG and post-WOTG where the former had some zerg battles but there were also standard endurance fights with your DD tanks, support line and mages. Nigh everything since Abysseas conclusion has been a zerg where TP moves incinerate your front-line, attacks ignore shadows, time limits constrain you to a zerg and balance has been thrown in the rubbish to be replaced by Fanatics Drinks and wanna-be Fanatics Drinks (Perfect Defense).

If you missed one Gates of Hades back at 75 Cerberus the odds are if you didn't panic you could recover and the same went for other endgame instances but at 99? One TP move going through effectively means game over, lie down and SE is making sure that you aren't recovering.

[Zhronne]

KS99 at 75 weren't zergs.
Khimaira/Cerberus/Tyger weren't zergs.
Wyrm BC was! And I guess you meant Hydra, not Tyger?

I agree wholeheartedly with everything you said. What matters most to me is a keyword:

V A R I E T Y

I'm all fine with Zerging, I'm not so fine with it's not ONE of the strategies and ONE of the things we do, but the ONLY thing we do.
It gets boring.
But I could say the same about XP pts and many other things.

One single thing, back then we didn't have the powerful buffs we have today, buff jobs were more scarce as was players' jobs options, sometimes you just had to do what you could with the jobs you had available in your group.
Jobs had worse WSs, worse gear options, hard to get haste cap, etc etc
Also no Embrava and... well, we had Perfect Defense, don't remember exactely whe it was added but I seem to recall people underestimated it for a long time?

With the same possibilities and the same "powers" we have nowadays, people would have probably zerged a lot more stuff even at level 75
(we all remember what happened with Kclub and DRKs before the nerf, rite?)
I think it's... I dunno, the nature of players.
The first times you enjoy a hard, challenging and endurance fight.
After a while you don't enjoy it anymore and all you want is the loot that mob drop.
So if you can kill it faster and minimizing the risks, why not doing it? I think this is, overly simplified, what drives people into wanting to Zerg.
But over the last 2 years we zerged SO MUCH that, really, I think we all need a bit of variation now.

[saevel]

Exactly all it would require is that the monster be immune to ohysical damage but take damage from SC, MB's. Require certain types of actions to give clues as to which skillchain/MB is favored. Have the mob change their SC weakness at 75%, 50% and 25%. Make it so the mob can be effectively tanked in the meantime. Then have a mob that is immune to WS and requires specific actions or abilities to break that immunity.


This wouldn't work. Being "immune" to physical damage means 0 damage melee hits and thus no TP to do those WS's which would have most of them do 0 damage and 0 SC damage. Would be better to have your BLM's kite and chain nuke. Mana burn it. Don't try to resurrect SC's, SE screwed them up so badly for implementation that any attempts to implement them would immediately lead to just zerging.

Making endurance fights wouldn't be hard, first thing they would need to do is GTFO with tight time limits. Second is to nerf the sh!t out of every single 90+ NM's offensive power. That is the single biggest reason we zerg, the faster we kill it the less time it has to kill us. Killing something that dangerous slowly would just result in you wiping and dieing as it went around killing everyone.

"Hate" is broken in that damage generates way to much hate. "Tanks" tend to be defensive in nature yet with damage being the single greatest hate source for 300 to 500%, this renders all defensive class's utterly useless at tanking. This rotates around to having a fast fight where damage is turned to maximum (kill it before it kills you), with the tanks unable to tank the damage dealers now become the tank. To give them enough defensive power to not get destroyed we are forced to resort to Fanatics / Perfect Defense spam.

A real good HNM boss fight would be one that had 300,000 to 500,000 HP (or even a million) yet didn't have moves that would instantly ruin the run nor a stupidly tight time limit that you had to race against. That type of fight would turn into a long drawn out affair of whittling its HP down (assuming hate mechanics were fixed) while trying not to strain healers MP supply.

[Luvbunny]

I think it's... I dunno, the nature of players. The first times you enjoy a hard, challenging and endurance fight. After a while you don't enjoy it anymore and all you want is the loot that mob drop. So if you can kill it faster and minimizing the risks, why not doing it? I think this is, overly simplified, what drives people into wanting to Zerg. But over the last 2 years we zerged SO MUCH that, really, I think we all need a bit of variation now.

That statement hit the nails in the coffin, why would anyone wants a long drawn up fight when you can brew/displacer it so that it become a few mnts fight. At the end of the day we all just want to peek at the possibility of loot and could not care less about artificial challenge etc... The first 5-10 times may be ok, after that it's just become a torture.

SE could also create NMs that has alternative damage weakness depending on the state of the mob, which can change from blunt, slashing, piercing depending on the elemental sign (which is random), and also weak to certain SC + MB, and can alternate between taking reduced physical damage or magical damage (ex: Melo melo, Turtle Kindred Seal), or it will be healed with physical in one mode, and magical in another mode. This way people cannot zerg this, and you need a variety of jobs with different weapons, and DOT become important again, so is Paladin as tank, and the group really need to listen and have strategy otherwise the mob will not die. Though as I recall, most people HATE this kind of mob!! HATE it since it takes so much co-ordination that PUG would just heal the NMs to oblivion.

[Mahoro]

I don't mind some mindless zerging here and there as it is fun in WoE, and a great stress reliever. But yes, it really shows lack of variety in battle strategy when every fight in the game starts to require it. And the worst part of Legion is that you either NEED 3 SCH/BLM's Alacrity Stunblocking the mobs, or else 4-6 SMN's doing Perfect Defense. Legion runs simply will NOT be feasible without 3 SCH/BLM or 4-6 SMN. It's an incredibly limiting event.

[Sparthos]

That statement hit the nails in the coffin, why would anyone wants a long drawn up fight when you can brew/displacer it so that it become a few mnts fight. At the end of the day we all just want to peek at the possibility of loot and could not care less about artificial challenge etc... The first 5-10 times may be ok, after that it's just become a torture.

Yet you omit another 'nature' of the players: The insatiable desire for more and more powerful loot.

Build it and they will come.

Challenge coupled with desirable gear worth the effort equals individuals working out strategies and doing whatever it takes to overcome the challenge presented. Note, I said challenge and not luck-based mechanics because the two are very different and are interpreted as such by the base that evaluates it. For reasons otherwise, SE disagrees.


SE could also create NMs that has alternative damage weakness depending on the state of the mob, which can change from blunt, slashing, piercing depending on the elemental sign (which is random), and also weak to certain SC + MB, and can alternate between taking reduced physical damage or magical damage (ex: Melo melo, Turtle Kindred Seal), or it will be healed with physical in one mode, and magical in another mode. This way people cannot zerg this, and you need a variety of jobs with different weapons, and DOT become important again, so is Paladin as tank, and the group really need to listen and have strategy otherwise the mob will not die. Though as I recall, most people HATE this kind of mob!! HATE it since it takes so much co-ordination that PUG would just heal the NMs to oblivion.

We've seen monsters with unique mechanics before however the problems that plague these monsters has always led to their obscurity rather than SE presenting them with rewards worthy of those willing to undertake the challenges.

Take Yilbegan for instance. He was designed with an anti-zerg mentality as he rotated between taking magical or physical damage (trying to ignore this resulted in a huge damage penalty), positioning and timing came into play regarding what TP moves you'd see and when the best time to launch weaponskills were (encouraging paying attention). His super-attack Chaos Blast came with fair warning (he'd start emiting an aura) and for all practical purposes he was one of SEs best designed HNMs of the period.

And then SE refused to give Yilbegan true drops outside some Voidwatch tier logs/ore shit. Bye, bye any incentive to ever ever EVER EVER run Yilbegans outside the microscopic ring drop that could only drop from one of twenty-five possible Yilbegan spawns. It's the most baffling decision I've ever seen from the dev team since Puking Pandy and Evoliths.

Other notable mentions include floor hazards on Lilith Ascedant that were wasted on a mission BCNM and then revived in Provenence Watcher which was designed as a zerg makig the hazards pointless, visible auras on the Shadowreign BCNMs that were never reused (blinged out Za'Dha Adamantking sup) and the 5 Fomor NMs that had hate mechanics of retaliating against whoever happened to last touch the NM.

These are all tools at SEs disposal to use and reuse to their hearts delight in an event such as Legion yet the best thing we get is 'throw your best DD at the mob", "stun/alexander some shit" and "miss a stun and you lose".

[Mahoro]

Man, I had forgotten about those Fomor fights. Those were truly interesting and fun. I remember mobilizing the LS to Eldieme or Garlaige or Crawler's Nest, and we'd have to actually travel through the zones to where they spawned. They respawned often so competition was at a minimum, and had great AI mechanics. Nowadays, it's just warp automatically to your destination, proc, and zerg.

[Sparthos]

I actually enjoyed the Fomor because even though they had issues with being popular due to Evoliths, it was one of a few times that FFXI had humanoid enemies for an alliance to face.

It's hard to believe in a world as vast as Vana'diel that there aren't members of the five races that are malevolent and want you dead. Giant Dragons or Uberturtles are one thing but getting Vorpal Bladed by some Hume chilling out in a corner, nuked by a Galka or being gutted by a dual wielding Mithra is another thing entirely.

[Zhronne]

Uh... personally I always hated Ylbegan, it was one of those particularly frustrating monsters for Melee, unless you were one of the melees taking turns in tanking it (we had SAMs tanking it).
It was really an annoying mob imho >_>
I mean, I get your example Sparthos, I get what you want to say and I agree wholeheartedly, but no more Ylbegans plz ;_;

[Mystaticromance]

Not quite sure what everyone is getting at. I love legion. It's never a guaranteed win, but its really fun to have that element back after so long. Needing to actually employ strategy behind the just zerging that the melee are in charge of. Drops really aren't that bad. You just must not be doing the right Halls. I've seen a handful of Meteor, Arise, a ton of honors, and not to mention all the abjurations that drop during runs. But, to each his own, continue to complain and never do it or actually attempt to make progress. Legion is beatable.

[Theytak]

That statement hit the nails in the coffin, why would anyone wants a long drawn up fight when you can brew/displacer it so that it become a few mnts fight. At the end of the day we all just want to peek at the possibility of loot and could not care less about artificial challenge etc... The first 5-10 times may be ok, after that it's just become a torture.

SE could also create NMs that has alternative damage weakness depending on the state of the mob, which can change from blunt, slashing, piercing depending on the elemental sign (which is random), and also weak to certain SC + MB, and can alternate between taking reduced physical damage or magical damage (ex: Melo melo, Turtle Kindred Seal), or it will be healed with physical in one mode, and magical in another mode. This way people cannot zerg this, and you need a variety of jobs with different weapons, and DOT become important again, so is Paladin as tank, and the group really need to listen and have strategy otherwise the mob will not die. Though as I recall, most people HATE this kind of mob!! HATE it since it takes so much co-ordination that PUG would just heal the NMs to oblivion.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. The stupid "you can pug ANYTHING" state of affairs we have now is a big reason as to why the community feels so... cold. Before, while zerging was viable, doing so required a good bit of coordination and knowing your alliance members, just like everything else. The Endgame LS system we had was a damn good system, no matter how much the whiners say "but everyone was unfair and played favorites, and I never got the gear I wanted" because in my experience, the only people that ever dealt with that shit were the ones who were terrible players, never actually showed up to events to earn their points, or were flat out bullshitting to give someone a bad name. Yea, some LS did play favorites, but the vast bulk of them didn't. It was absolutely outrageous that SE decided that the Endgame system was unfair and that it should die, and even more infuriating that they're still holding this stupid opinion. WoE and VW's drop systems are both functionally horrible, and have been functionally horrible since implementation, and have received nothing but complaints since implementation, but are still touted as "working as intended" and "doing what we think is fair."

SE's attitude about the whole thing just pisses me off.


Uh... personally I always hated Ylbegan, it was one of those particularly frustrating monsters for Melee, unless you were one of the melees taking turns in tanking it (we had SAMs tanking it).
It was really an annoying mob imho >_>
I mean, I get your example Sparthos, I get what you want to say and I agree wholeheartedly, but no more Ylbegans plz ;_;

Honestly, that's the problem. We need monsters that aren't fun for -every- class, but -are- fun for at least some of them. Sure, playing a melee on yilbegan sucks. So what? All you have to do when you play a melee job is fucking engage and hit something, and pay attention as to when to stop hitting, and when to weapon skill. It's not exactly rocket science, nor is it really that engaging after you've finally done a couple zergs with a semi-well geared melee. Everything after that is just "engage and muscle memory to death".

That's the problem. The super-easy melee jobs are far and away the most popular jobs, because they're easy. It's damn near impossible to fuck up when you're playing sam, war, or mnk, and when you do fuck up, every single melee job fucks up in the same way; they're either meleeing when they shouldn't, or wsing at the wrong time. The problem is that SE has taken to designing new monsters with the melee jobs in mind, over the rest of the jobs, because there are just so many melee jobs, you can always guarantee you'll have them.

That doesn't mean they can't design great fights that are absolutely terrible for melee jobs. They've done it many times in the past, and lots of those fights were incredibly challenging, entertaining, or aggravating, but you can never describe them as "The same goddamn fight as every other goddamn fight." Take the final ACP fight. Sure, you could zerg that, but zerging it at 75 cap took a really well geared party of competent players (you can measure melee competence more in knowing how to properly gear themselves than playstyle), and a sizable amount of luck. However, take a couple ranged attackers or a couple smns in, and have a pld who knows how to supertank, and someone to support him, and winning wasn't that hard.

The real problem with the ACP fight was that it was ahead of its time, back when most people didn't have so many jobs available to them, which made the fight obnoxious for its time.

[Byrth]

Not quite sure what everyone is getting at. I love legion. It's never a guaranteed win, but its really fun to have that element back after so long. Needing to actually employ strategy behind the just zerging that the melee are in charge of. Drops really aren't that bad. You just must not be doing the right Halls. I've seen a handful of Meteor, Arise, a ton of honors, and not to mention all the abjurations that drop during runs. But, to each his own, continue to complain and never do it or actually attempt to make progress. Legion is beatable.

I don't think you actually read it. This was two months ago:

Actually, the impression I have is that the content itself isn't very difficult. You need the right jobs using the right abilities/weapons at the right times, and other than that there is very little "difficulty" involved in that your win/loss ratio won't really be determined by player skill.
^ Still applies to Mul where people either rely on their Scholars not resisting or Wild Card. ^

This was Today:

Now that we have figured out some of the tricks, this event isn't quite as bad as it initially seemed (in that we've become more successful with essentially the same strategies).

It's not that the event isn't beatable. It's that there's no substantial variance in the strategy. There are 2.5 different ways to beat every monster in Legion:
1) Buff up the melee, perfect defense, and let them kill it
2) If it's stunnable and not *that* dangerous, buff up the melee and let them kill it while you stun lock it.
2.5) For rare mobs, buff up the melee and let them kill it while you keep them alive.

That's not a strategy; it's an exploitation of game mechanics. All of your damage comes from buffed melees hitting things. All of your defense comes from either Perfect Defense or Stun.
* Is it easy? No. It's a logistical nightmare that requires well-geared players who aren't pants-on-head retarded and must be orchestrated well in order to get the most out of each run.
* Is it super strategic? No. You use fundamentally the same strategy for every NM. The turtles in An are the most variance you get. Maybe it's more strategic than Voidwatch, where you can use literally the same alliance for every single fight, but it's no Salvage. It's not the difference between killing Vrtra and killing Tiamat. It just doesn't take that much strategy. Pick the best way to avoid damage from the monster you're fighting, use it, and kill it.

[saevel]

Another thing missing from FFXI is true dungeon crawls / raids. I'm not talking about the BS known as MMM nor it's apparent successor Meebles. 15 to 30 min is not a dungeon crawl, it's an afternoon picnic. Older limbus was the closest thing FFXI ever had to a true "dungeon delve", you went in and killed murgs and mini boss's while proceeding through the levels. It was lacking in level mechanics and size though, but at least it had diversity.

A true dungeon / raid is a 2hr event and involved you killing 50 ~ 100 monsters, several mini boss's, a powerful dungeon boss all while conserving resources and avoiding traps. It's something you do once or twice per week and has decent loot from the mini boss's and good loot from the mega boss's. At the finale fight (after all dungeons have been cleared) the super mega boss should drop really nice gear after requiring you to go through their own dungeon.

It's the long dungeon part that is important, it emphasizes endurance, resource control, crowd control (a seemingly lost art now), versatility of members, different strategies for the mini boss's / dungeon boss's, and completely ruins zerging. Now doing PD / Embrava zerging on the final dungeon boss would be understandable but you still had to get there and that shouldn't be easy.

Honestly though PD shouldn't exist in the game. There should be no game fight that requires you to be immune to all damage and negative effects or lose. But SE opened that pandora's box and now their having to swim in it.

[Mystaticromance]

I don't think you actually read it. This was two months ago:

^ Still applies to Mul where people either rely on their Scholars not resisting or Wild Card. ^

This was Today:


It's not that the event isn't beatable. It's that there's no substantial variance in the strategy. There are 2.5 different ways to beat every monster in Legion:
1) Buff up the melee, perfect defense, and let them kill it
2) If it's stunnable and not *that* dangerous, buff up the melee and let them kill it while you stun lock it.
2.5) For rare mobs, buff up the melee and let them kill it while you keep them alive.

That's not a strategy; it's an exploitation of game mechanics. All of your damage comes from buffed melees hitting things. All of your defense comes from either Perfect Defense or Stun.
* Is it easy? No. It's a logistical nightmare that requires well-geared players who aren't pants-on-head retarded and must be orchestrated well in order to get the most out of each run.
* Is it super strategic? No. You use fundamentally the same strategy for every NM. The turtles in An are the most variance you get. Maybe it's more strategic than Voidwatch, where you can use literally the same alliance for every single fight, but it's no Salvage. It's not the difference between killing Vrtra and killing Tiamat. It just doesn't take that much strategy. Pick the best way to avoid damage from the monster you're fighting, use it, and kill it.

Nope, not strategy at all. Legion can be whatever you want it to be. Trophy runs are easy and do not require PD if you really don't want to use it. Clears certainly do. Why is that a bad thing? Not necessarily posting this question to you, but others. Should we be able to cruise through everything without needing the aide of abilities like that? That indeed is strategy, and it is unfortunate that people do not realize this. Full clears of chambers require strategy. To say that there is little strategy would be an understatement. The fact that it requires specialized job selection is also not strategy either. How is that an exploitation of game mechanics? Those are the game mechanics! I think some people need to seriously re-examine their scope of exploitation vs. game mechanics. I understand that people have their perspectives on things, but there is a large number of folks on these forums that blow things waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of proportion. This is unfortunate. With that said, enjoy the game guys and gals, because it is only a game. Think about that a bit more.

[Demon6324236]

Nope, not strategy at all. Legion can be whatever you want it to be. Trophy runs are easy and do not require PD if you really don't want to use it. Clears certainly do. Why is that a bad thing? Not necessarily posting this question to you, but others. Should we be able to cruise through everything without needing the aide of abilities like that? That indeed is strategy, and it is unfortunate that people do not realize this. Full clears of chambers require strategy. To say that there is little strategy would be an understatement. The fact that it requires specialized job selection is also not strategy either. How is that an exploitation of game mechanics? Those are the game mechanics! I think some people need to seriously re-examine their scope of exploitation vs. game mechanics. I understand that people have their perspectives on things, but there is a large number of folks on these forums that blow things waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay out of proportion. This is unfortunate. With that said, enjoy the game guys and gals, because it is only a game. Think about that a bit more.

The problem simply is that all events right now use either Atma or Temps, if they are not available, then you use Embrava and/or PD. Its very limited basically, any event you can use atma or temps you should be ok with those alone, when they are not present, you use PD if the battle will take about a minute, or if it lasts 5+ then you change to using Embrava. Depending on kill speed required and how much damage mobs do, you use both, all in all its bad because these are the 4 things that are completely relied on to win.

PD & Embrava are unbalanced in jobs, why? Because they have the best 2-hours in the game, neither the new or old 2-hours of any job come close to them in design. Astral Flow & Tabula Rasa allow access to 2 abilities each, and each are very powerful, useful, and now required abilities. If other jobs had this kind of power, it may not be so bad, but as of right now, it limits things which people do not like. For instance NNI is basically required to have 2 SCH, then 4 DDs. Its the reason why people don't like it, if it were 1 or 2 events with this kind of thing, thats ok, but to make all events need a form of super power is just stupid.

[Luvbunny]

PD & Embrava are unbalanced in jobs, why? Because they have the best 2-hours in the game, neither the new or old 2-hours of any job come close to them in design. Astral Flow & Tabula Rasa allow access to 2 abilities each, and each are very powerful, useful, and now required abilities. If other jobs had this kind of power, it may not be so bad, but as of right now, it limits things which people do not like. For instance NNI is basically required to have 2 SCH, then 4 DDs. Its the reason why people don't like it, if it were 1 or 2 events with this kind of thing, thats ok, but to make all events need a form of super power is just stupid.

LOL, I disagree with unbalanced 2 hours, let's not give them any more bad ideas. I think Embrava + Kaustra is a great example of a 2 hours done right. And that is what SE should strive to do more, creating 2 hours that is great, and meaningful, the ones that can and will turn the tide of battle without the aid of atmas, temp items, etc... The new 2 hours suggestion they have is rather lack lusters, as if whoever designed Embrava was fired and instead they hired complete newbies to come up with the laughable new versions.

[Demon6324236]

LOL, I disagree with unbalanced 2 hours, let's not give them any more bad ideas. I think Embrava + Kaustra is a great example of a 2 hours done right. And that is what SE should strive to do more, creating 2 hours that is great, and meaningful, the ones that can and will turn the tide of battle without the aid of atmas, temp items, etc... The new 2 hours suggestion they have is rather lack lusters, as if whoever designed Embrava was fired and instead they hired complete newbies to come up with the laughable new versions.

That is part of the problem. They need to go 1 way or the other, either make 2-hours a tide turning power that really is worth a 2-hour wait, or make them all worth a 30-minute(if that) wait, like most are now. Very few are currently great, Tabula & Astral are 2 of them, Mighty Strikes isn't bad either, SV as well, Chainspell is great with stun, about all though. In the end alot of 2-hours are bad, or very limited, where as there are some in the group that are amazing. I would love 2-hours to all be amazing, but the problem is, that would need to be all of them, all or nothing because with how it is now, 2 jobs have the most amazing power ever to buff party members or destroy enemys, while no other job has any abilities that come close to matching up to them.

Tired so if that didn't make sense, easier way to say it. I like Embrava & PD, but they need to be fair, either all jobs get great 2 hours, or no jobs get great 2 hours, right now unbalanced is the exact word I would put to if for that reason. It seems the same to me as Emp/Relic for the new jobs, pre-ToAU/WotG jobs have Relics, all current jobs have Mythic/Emp, new jobs have only Mythic, it is unbalanced because only some jobs have access to certain things, while still having access to what everyone else has as well.

[Luvbunny]

They seems like have no vision on how the new 2 hours should function, pretty much lack luster ideas on most of them, especially the one for beastmaster. But yeah I agree that all 2 hours should be revisited and revamped, they did it with Dragoon and Scholar, they should be able to do it with all other jobs.

[Demon6324236]

They seems like have no vision on how the new 2 hours should function, pretty much lack luster ideas on most of them, especially the one for beastmaster. But yeah I agree that all 2 hours should be revisited and revamped, they did it with Dragoon and Scholar, they should be able to do it with all other jobs.

Well they didnt so much revamp SCH, as they added on to it. DRG was an old 2-hour which time was cut down to 1/6th of what it once was while leaving a new one in its place. Where as SCH & SMN were just added on to with more powers, but that being said they are the only jobs which got such treatment, and thats where things come from that make them awesome.

[SpankWustler]

Tired so if that didn't make sense, easier way to say it. I like Embrava & PD, but they need to be fair, either all jobs get great 2 hours, or no jobs get great 2 hours, right now unbalanced is the exact word I would put to if for that reason. It seems the same to me as Emp/Relic for the new jobs, pre-ToAU/WotG jobs have Relics, all current jobs have Mythic/Emp, new jobs have only Mythic, it is unbalanced because only some jobs have access to certain things, while still having access to what everyone else has as well.

I choose to be optimistic that the merits for two-hour abilities coming later this year will even things out a bit. This isn't hard to envision, since the only thing needed is potent merits for base abilities and no merits for Embrava/Kaustra/Alexander/Odin because they're technically not base two-hour abilities.

This would also affect Legion a bit, because it's hard enough that all of the least awful two-hour abilities are needed there.

Of course, the reality of those merits will be something that makes no sense at all and has no effect on how people clear Legion (or anything else) and makes no sense at all; and I'll be madder than a honey badger with agonizing bone cancer because I chose to be optimistic.

Bone cancer that metastasizes and inflicts boner cancer.

[Afania]

Another thing missing from FFXI is true dungeon crawls / raids. I'm not talking about the BS known as MMM nor it's apparent successor Meebles. 15 to 30 min is not a dungeon crawl, it's an afternoon picnic. Older limbus was the closest thing FFXI ever had to a true "dungeon delve", you went in and killed murgs and mini boss's while proceeding through the levels. It was lacking in level mechanics and size though, but at least it had diversity.

A true dungeon / raid is a 2hr event and involved you killing 50 ~ 100 monsters, several mini boss's, a powerful dungeon boss all while conserving resources and avoiding traps. It's something you do once or twice per week and has decent loot from the mini boss's and good loot from the mega boss's. At the finale fight (after all dungeons have been cleared) the super mega boss should drop really nice gear after requiring you to go through their own dungeon.

It's the long dungeon part that is important, it emphasizes endurance, resource control, crowd control (a seemingly lost art now), versatility of members, different strategies for the mini boss's / dungeon boss's, and completely ruins zerging. Now doing PD / Embrava zerging on the final dungeon boss would be understandable but you still had to get there and that shouldn't be easy.

Honestly though PD shouldn't exist in the game. There should be no game fight that requires you to be immune to all damage and negative effects or lose. But SE opened that pandora's box and now their having to swim in it.

Why does raid/dungeon crawl has to be 2hr long? Including gathering time it's something taking 3hr with no rest in between, which is a bit too long(and bad for health) isn't it? Almost as long as old dyna(which is being hated by players who doesn't want to play 3~4hr in one sitting) Note that old limbus doesn't take 2hr to do, nor instance raid in FF14(at least before I quit 14)

I'd say 30 min~1hr long raid/event is just fine, anything longer is more of a pain in the ass.

[Sparthos]

30 mins is clearly too short for something advertising itself as a raid because of the pace FFXI was designed with.

100 mins like Salvage is probably nearest to the ideal as it gives you plenty of time to do whatever tasks are required without becoming overbearing and mindnumbing as Dynamis was. Save points like Nyzul are also a great way to divide up the challenge while giving the player a chance to tap out and take a break until the next time they're up to play.