Possible upgrades to older hard-to-obtain gear?

[Tennotsukai]

I know you guys are thinking about upgrading RME, but there are other pieces of equipment I would also like to see an upgrade to. Gear from NNI, SalvageV2, LimbusV2, etc. I just think since many of us worked so hard on this gear to see much of it obsolete from delve/coalition gear that an upgrade of lvl 100+ to most of it would be pretty savvy. Thank you.

[Ravenmore]

Seeing how the gear treadmill is where they are heading in the game I doubt they will bother and at some point ilvl will leave even the NNI gear behind.

[Daemon]

Seeing how the gear treadmill is where they are heading in the game I doubt they will bother and at some point ilvl will leave even the NNI gear behind.

You mean like this?

Copied from http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/117476-Vana-fest-TV-2013-%28aka-that-secret-JP-video%29
Skirmish gear example augments - stuff is item level 113.

Remember, the old Skirmish augmentation process was random within a pool, and we already know there are 3 tiers of new augment stones, so these are probably just mid to high-range sample results, not necessarily the best (or worst) possible results, and not necessarily the only possible augments (although PDT is obviously guaranteed on everything).

Otronif Mask
Base: DEF:84 HP+24 STR+16 DEX+16 VIT+18 AGI+18 INT+17 MND+17 CHR+17 Evasion+26 Magic Evasion+34 "Magic Def. Bonus"+2 "Store TP"+5 Haste+7%
Augs: Accuracy+5 Physical Damage Taken-4%

Otronif Harness
Base: DEF:106 HP+40 STR+20 DEX+21 VIT+18 AGI+21 INT+20 MND+20 CHR+20 Accuracy+10 Evasion+35 Magic Evasion+43 "Magic Def. Bonus"+3 Haste+4% "Counter"+3
Augs: Attack+6 Physical Damage Taken -3%

Otronif Gloves
Base: DEF:74 HP+22 STR+8 DEX+27 VIT+22 AGI+5 INT+8 MND+22 CHR+13 Accuracy+8 Evasion+15 Magic Evasion+21 "Store TP"+7 "Magic Def. Bonus"+2 Haste+4%
Augs: Double Attack +1 Physical Damage Taken -3%

Otronif Brais
Base: DEF:92 HP+32 STR+25 VIT+11 AGI+17 INT+25 MND+14 CHR+8 Attack+10 Evasion+22 Magic Evasion+52 "Magic Def. Bonus"+2 "Store TP"+6 Haste+6%
Augs: Attack+10 Physical Damage Taken-4%

Otronif Boots
DEF:59 HP+20 STR+11 DEX+12 VIT+9 AGI+27 MND+10 CHR+23 Attack+5 Evasion+47 Magic Evasion+52 "Store TP"+7 "Magic Def. Bonus"+2 Haste+4%
Augs: Physical Damage Taken-4% Critical Hit Rate+1%



Cizin Helm
Base: DEF:94 HP+28 MP+21 STR+21 DEX+16 VIT+21 AGI+16 INT+15 MND+15 CHR+15 Evasion+22 Magic Evasion+26 "Magic Def. Bonus"+1 Enhances "Fast Cast" effect Enmity+5 Haste+7%
Augs: Accuracy+7 Physical Damage Taken-3%

Cizin Mail
Base: DEF:118 HP+43 MP+31 STR+25 DEX+17 VIT+25 AGI+17 INT+17 MND+17 CHR+17 Accuracy+10 Evasion+28 Magic Evasion+39 "Magic Def. Bonus"+3 Haste+3%
Augs: Double Attack+2 Physical Damage Taken-3%

Cizin Mufflers
Base: DEF:84 HP+20 STR+8 DEX+23 VIT+26 INT+7 MND+20 CHR+15 Attack+8 Evasion+15 Magic Evasion+21 "Store TP"+5 Enmity+3 Haste+3%
Augs: Double Attack+1 Physical Damage Taken-3%

Cizin Breeches
Base: DEF:103 HP+35 STR+28 VIT+17 AGI+13 INT+20 MND+10 CHR+8 Attack+10 Evasion+15 Magic Evasion+52 "Magic Def. Bonus"+2 "Double Attack"+2% Haste+5%
Augs: Attack+9 Physical Damage Taken-4%

Cizin Greaves
Base: DEF:69 HP+12 STR+13 DEX+10 VIT+14 AGI+23 MND+8 CHR+21 Accuracy+8 Evasion+33 Magic Evasion+52 Haste+4% "Magic Def. Bonus"+1 Jump: "Double Attack"+3%
Augs: Double Attack+1 Physical Damage Taken-4%



Gendewitha Caubeen
Base: DEF:79 HP+24 MP+29 STR+16 DEX+16 VIT+16 AGI+16 INT+20 MND+20 CHR+20 Evasion+24 Magic Evasion+60 "Magic Def. Bonus"+3 "Cure Potency"+10% Enmity-8 Haste+5%
Augs: Physical Damage Taken-3% Song casting time-3%

Gendewitha Bliaut
Base: DEF:103 HP+37 MP+53 STR+19 DEX+19 VIT+19 AGI+19 INT+25 MND+25 CHR+25 Evasion+28 Magic Evasion+65 "Magic Def. Bonus"+4 "Cure" potency +8 Adds "Refresh" effect
Augs: Physical Damage Taken-4% Cure spellcasting time-3%

Gendewitha Gages
Base: DEF:69 HP+23 MP+21 STR+5 DEX+22 VIT+20 AGI+4 INT+15 MND+26 CHR+15 Acc.+15 Mag. Acc.+15 Eva.+15 Mag. Eva.+30 "Magic Def. Bonus"+2 Enhances "Fast Cast" effect
Augs: Physical Damage Taken-3% Song Recast Delay-2

Gendewitha Spats
Base: DEF:89 HP+29 MP+26 STR+20 VIT+10 AGI+14 INT+27 MND+19 CHR+15 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+8 Evasion+18 Magic Evasion+86 "Magic Def. Bonus"+4 Song casting time -5% Haste+4%
Augs: Physical Damage Taken-4% Song casting time-3%

Gendewitha Galoshes
Base: DEF:54 HP+22 MP+26 STR+8 DEX+9 VIT+8 AGI+26 INT+14 MND+15 CHR+27 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+8 Evasion+37 Magic Evasion+86 "Magic Def. Bonus"+3 Enhances "Cursna" effect Haste+3%
Augs: Physical Damage Taken-4% Cure Potency+5%




Hagondes Hat
Base: DEF:78 HP+24 MP+29 STR+15 DEX+15 VIT+15 AGI+15 INT+19 MND+19 CHR+19 Evasion+24 Magic Evasion+60 "Magic Def. Bonus"+3 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+13 Haste+5%
Augs: Physical Damage Taken-4% Pet: Magic Attack Bonus+21

Hagondes Coat
Base: DEF:102 HP+37 MP+53 STR+17 DEX+17 VIT+17 AGI+17 INT+28 MND+23 CHR+23 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+10 Evasion +28 Magic Evasion+65 "Magic Def. Bonus"+4 Haste+3% Adds "Refresh" effect
Augs: Magic Accuracy+25 Physical Damage Taken-3%

Hagondes Cuffs
Base: DEF:68 HP+23 MP+21 STR+5 DEX+22 VIT+20 AGI+4 INT+15 MND+26 CHR+15 Magic Accuracy+20 Evasion+15 Magic Evasion+30 Enmity-8 "Magic Def. Bonus"+2 Haste+3%
Augs: Physical Damage Taken-3% Pet: Attack+14 Ranged Attack+14

Hagondes Pants
Base: DEF:88 HP+29 MP+26 STR+20 VIT+10 AGI+14 INT+27 MND+19 CHR+15 "Magic Atk. Bonus"+25 Magic Damage+10 Evasion+18 Magic Evasion+86 "Magic Def. Bonus"+4 Haste+4%
Augs: Physical Damage Taken-4% Enmity-5

Hagondes Sabots
Base: DEF:53 HP+19 MP+23 STR+8 DEX+9 VIT+8 AGI+26 INT+14 MND+15 CHR+27 Evasion+37 Magic Evasion+86 "Magic Def. Bonus"+3 Haste+3% Avatar: "Magic Atk. Bonus"+25
Augs: Fast Cast+2 Physical Damage Taken-3%




Iuitl Headgear
Base: DEF:82 HP+24 MP+21 STR+17 DEX+20 VIT+17 AGI+20 INT+17 MND+17 CHR+18 Evasion+30 Magic Evasion+43 "Magic Def. Bonus"+1 "Triple Attack"+2% Haste+7%
Augs: Accuracy+4 Physical Damage Taken-2%

Iuitl Vest
Base: DEF:108 HP+40 MP+39 STR+19 DEX+23 VIT+19 AGI+22 INT+18 MND+18 CHR+18 Accuracy+10 Ranged Accuracy+10 Evasion+33 Magic Evasion+52 "Magic Def. Bonus"+4 "Subtle Blow"+8 Haste+4%
Augs: Accuracy+7 Physical Damage Taken-4%

Iuitl Wristbands
Base: DEF:72 HP+17 STR+9 DEX+28 VIT+25 AGI+14 INT+10 MND+24 CHR+14 Accuracy+8 Ranged Accuracy+8 Evasion+16 Magic Evasion+30 "Magic. Def. Bonus"+1 Enh. "Snapshot" ef. Enmity-6 Haste+4%
Augs: Ranged Accuracy+9 Physical Damage Taken-4%

Iuitl Tights
Base: DEF:94 HP+32 STR+23 VIT+13 AGI+16 INT+24 MND+14 CHR+9 Mag. Acc.+10 "Mag. Atk. Bonus"+10 Evasion+36 Magic Evasion+56 "Magic Def. Bonus"+3 "Store TP"+5 Haste+6%
Augs: Ranged Attack+4 Physical Damage Taken-2%

Iuitl Gaiters
Base: DEF:57 HP+9 STR+10 DEX+19 VIT+10 AGI+29 MND+10 CHR+24 Attack+10 Ranged Attack+10 Magic Accuracy+15 Evasion+48 Magic Evasion+56 "Magic Def. Bonus"+3 Haste+4%
Augs: Recycle+1 Physical Damage Taken-3%



Beatific Shield
Base: DEF:45 HP+15 MP+26 Shield skill +72 Increases chance of successful block Magic damage taken -25%
Augs: Shield Mastery +1 Physical Damage Taken-4%

[OmnysValefor]

Seeing how the gear treadmill is where they are heading in the game I doubt they will bother and at some point ilvl will leave even the NNI gear behind.

^ Pretty much.

Had things been unresisted, they'd be mercilessly wrecking all our favorite gear. REM were the first on the chopping block.

My point? They're trying to move away from everything old. In some ways, that's interesting, but in others, its hard to let go of the money pieces like Armadaberks and E.body +1s (neither of which do I have, nq either.).

[Daemon]

^ Pretty much.

Had things been unresisted, they'd be mercilessly wrecking all our favorite gear. REM were the first on the chopping block.

My point? They're trying to move away from everything old. In some ways, that's interesting, but in others, its hard to let go of the money pieces like Armadaberks and E.body +1s (neither of which do I have, nq either.).

Yeah but you gotta admit its convincing to see they are giving us a bit of WoW Factor right now. I just hope updates to REM will later be made the icing on top of the cake.

Then maybe a good portion of the community will be happy.

I remember when new gears being implemented were ok but not mind blowing like the gear that's being added now.

[OmnysValefor]

Imagine if Toci's Harness or Heka's was revealed at 75 (but the pieces were still 95).

People don't seem to quite grasp that if level 110 was the cap, this gear would say that on it, and this gear wouldn't look *quite* so amazing.

It's why this inflation of stats was so dumb, people cannot get past this concept. Everyone's like "wow this gear". All all this gear means to me is that it's going to be baseline, or near it, for new delve, which means it's really gonna suck for people that don't have much of it.

Higher level is not always better, but they're trying to make it so that it is. Usukane was one of the last holdouts of Salvage II, and I believe even it has slipped away.

[Daemon]

Imagine if Toci's Harness or Heka's was revealed at 75 (but the pieces were still 95).

People don't seem to quite grasp that if level 110 was the cap, this gear would say that on it, and this gear wouldn't look *quite* so amazing.

It's why this inflation of stats was so dumb, people cannot get past this concept. Everyone's like "wow this gear". All all this gear means to me is that it's going to be baseline, or near it, for new delve, which means it's really gonna suck for people that don't have much of it.

Higher level is not always better, but they're trying to make it so that it is. Usukane was one of the last holdouts of Salvage II, and I believe even it has slipped away.

I believe everything falls under intentionally directing people to SoA so that the expansion doesn't fail. As I said part of running an MMORPG is about shifting the crowd from 1 area to another and when SoA was released, it didnt look good so the DEVs had to do something to make it a success.

I see these items are doing the job. Rather than linger on to old content it seems they are trying to keep everyone interested and busy with the new content as a first priority.

[Demon6324236]

At the cost of making every single bit of old content completely irrelevant. That, is a bad design philosophy, discard 10 years of content that could keep the players interested in the game longer for the sole reason of having them do newer content.

[Daemon]

At the cost of making every single bit of old content completely irrelevant. That, is a bad design philosophy, discard 10 years of content that could keep the players interested in the game longer for the sole reason of having them do newer content.

Yeah but SoA failing, Delve ruining REM, skirmish being skipped, Colonizations too hard, gap between abbyssea and SoA combined all together.

Best thing to do is sit down and start sorting things out one at a time and then work out the other details along the way.

Crowd was confused. Can't work out REM and other things first if SoA fails. Then that would be even a bigger disaster. At least now they are becoming a little bit organized.

[OmnysValefor]

Demon--

But, but, it werked for WoW! (That's @SE, not @Daemon).

[Kaisha]

I'm still waiting on them to bump up Voidwatch drop-rates so I can get a bloody Ogier's Helm.

Should just make for a flat 25% minimum drop rate on everything that doesn't have an iLvl tag. Majority of that stuff is obsolete gear that only serves its purpose as a step-up piece, so there's zero justification for keeping it 'rare'.

[Daemon]

I'm still waiting on them to bump up Voidwatch drop-rates so I can get a bloody Ogier's Helm.

Should just make for a flat 25% minimum drop rate on everything that doesn't have an iLvl tag. Majority of that stuff is obsolete gear that only serves its purpose as a step-up piece, so there's zero justification for keeping it 'rare'.

Lol I agree. Then maybe pulse cells will have a purpose to exist in AH.

[Tennotsukai]

I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to slap +25 all stats to say NNI gear and call it a day. I must agree with Demon that the content they juuuust released is now irrelevant. Just saying...it makes sense. And yes, I know SE is very senseless....

[hiko]

Imagine if Toci's Harness or Heka's was revealed at 75 (but the pieces were still 95).

People don't seem to quite grasp that if level 110 was the cap, this gear would say that on it, and this gear wouldn't look *quite* so amazing.


not really because the stat you should get leveling up are on the gear. diference between a lvl99 player with lvl99 and ilvl120 gear is not the difference with a lvl75player with 75 gear and toci but between a lvl75 in level75 gear and a lvl95player in toci

[Kriegsgott]

I know you guys are thinking about upgrading RME, but there are other pieces of equipment I would also like to see an upgrade to. Gear from NNI, SalvageV2, LimbusV2, etc. I just think since many of us worked so hard on this gear to see much of it obsolete from delve/coalition gear that an upgrade of lvl 100+ to most of it would be pretty savvy. Thank you.

how about the old but very nice Black Belt item?
still lvl 75 one of the best items for years

[Damane]

At the cost of making every single bit of old content completely irrelevant. That, is a bad design philosophy, discard 10 years of content that could keep the players interested in the game longer for the sole reason of having them do newer content.

haveing old content die out isnt a wrong thing, some content is really so old it better should die. Keeping things fresh with new content is allways interesting.

[Demon6324236]

Kill some content, that's ok, kill nearly every bit of the content, not ok.

Before Adoulin a number of events were relevant, now, every event that was done for gear is basically dead, instantly, because all of the new gear is so overpowered in stats thanks to trying to account for the level stat variance that nothing old is good. The only arguable good gear from the past are things like Rajas, Moonshade, or Brutal, things that give stats for the respective spot that you do not find that high elsewhere, and also have not been boosted by Adoulin in nearly the same way. But so far as I know, just about every head, body, hands, leg, and feet item, as well as nearly every weapon, have all been outdated by a very, very large margin. That, is a very large difference between outdating some content and all content die. For them to literally dump out 10 years worth of content and go with basically only Adoulin being relevant is basically saying if you do not like Adoulin, nothing added will ever be relevant to you again. Because so far as it seems, at this point, adding normal level 99 gear outside of Adoulin would be the same as if they added level 80~90 drops and gear while everyone was at level 99, just didn't happen.

[Zumi]

Old content should die out to make way for new content. Going back having to do some old content for a certain item that happens to be good is not fun. A lot of people won't want to do it because its old they already did it.

Let the old stuff die make way for new content you haven't done yet. Works so well in many other MMOs, they are just trying to get FFXI up to date with the standard model of MMO gearing.

[Xantavia]

Old content should die out to make way for new content. Going back having to do some old content for a certain item that happens to be good is not fun. A lot of people won't want to do it because its old they already did it.

Let the old stuff die make way for new content you haven't done yet. Works so well in many other MMOs, they are just trying to get FFXI up to date with the standard model of MMO gearing.
Great in theory, but if you can't get a group to do old content for minimum gear requirements, you can't participate in the new content if you aren't there day 1. By outdating items by such a margin, it makes it harder and harder new players to catch up.

Personally, I would like to see them add some more updates to Magian trial weapons. Not asking for boss drop ilvl, but it would be nice to continue growing these if you are unable to get a delve weapon.

[Daemon]

Great in theory, but if you can't get a group to do old content for minimum gear requirements, you can't participate in the new content if you aren't there day 1. By outdating items by such a margin, it makes it harder and harder new players to catch up.

Personally, I would like to see them add some more updates to Magian trial weapons. Not asking for boss drop ilvl, but it would be nice to continue growing these if you are unable to get a delve weapon.

I thought that's why they added additional stats to Bayld/Delve gear. Anyone can earn Bayld easily now and buy Bayld gear. Just they need to fill in the gap to those who don't have REM yet.

[OmnysValefor]

How about--

"Great in theory but when there's nothing to do but three varieties of the same event (WK MBs and Delve MBs are the same creatures), you begin the miss other activities"

No expansion in any game ever offers enough that they can keep busy, happy, and afford to obliterate all past content

[Stompa]

I doubt they would, and the main reason is the speed they replaced Thurandaut set with Shneddick set etc. No sooner had people built 5/5 of the bayld set, and augmented them, grinding mindbendingly dull rieves for days/weeks, then suddenly up pops the same set but a different color and way stronger stats. So now ppl I know are tossing the thurandaut etc. sets and starting to grind the same rieves again for the new version. SE should have said earlier 'we are making a more powerful armor set for almost the same bayld cost, in a few weeks, so don't waste your time on the old set.' Or alternately offer a trade-in system where you can trade back your outdated-overnight thurandaut set for the new one, with a bayld fee that covers the difference. I got the karieyh set and auged it and now its junk compared to the new set, and I wouldn't mind at all if they waited like a year or something inbetween sets but it was like you finish building the first set and then the next day it is superceded.
Given that kind of built-in obsolescence in the new gear, with people feeling they have to /toss full armor sets they farmed like 5 weeks ago, its hard to see why SE would care about old gear.
I agree with you 100% though, there's a lot of old stuff I would want to see upgraded to fit into the 2013 game.

[Masamune11]

I really don't get the mentality of a large chunk of the FFXI player community that thinks that if they work hard to obtain gear that it should last forever. For an MMO to survive, there needs to be new plateaus and new gear to obtain. Relics are like 7 years old and everyone is complaining that they aren't the best weapons in the game? People who obtained those 7 years ago worked a heck of a lot harder to get them than somebody who obtained one in the last two years. The people who worked really hard to get them 7 years ago enjoyed 7 full years of superiority. I can't think of a single other MMO where the best possible weapons for each class remained the best 7 years later. In fact, I can't think of an MMO where the best possible weapon remained the best for more than 2 years.

I will admit that this new item system is an absolute failure. The balancing is all over the place. The fact that any player can solo for Bayld and then leech Naakual fights for the key items and obtain top tier weapons (close to top tier) is ridiculous. Why do Skirmish? There is too much worthless content that can be skipped. An item system done correctly would be something as follows:

Player needs to obtain item level 100 gear. If they aren't fully equipped with level 100 item gear, there's pretty much a zero to 1% chance that they will be able to obtain 105 gear. Then a player needs to have full 105 gear to even think about getting 110 gear and so on and so on. That's how most MMOs do it. FFXI implements Skirmish, Delve, Bayld items and Naakauals. Why would a DRK buy a Bayld 100 weapon /105 weapon or even the Delve plasm scythe when he/she can solo courier coalitions, obtain enough bayld to leech the 5 Naakual fights and then be guaranteed a level 115 scythe from the library quest? There's too many loopholes and worthless content in this new system.

[Pars]

Why would a DRK buy a Bayld 100 weapon /105 weapon or even the Delve plasm scythe when he/she can solo courier coalitions, obtain enough bayld to leech the 5 Naakual fights and then be guaranteed a level 115 scythe from the library quest? There's too many loopholes and worthless content in this new system.

yaaaaaaaaaa... and then repeat the quest? oh wait.. you cant..

[OmnysValefor]

I really don't get the mentality of a large chunk of the FFXI player community that thinks that if they work hard to obtain gear that it should last forever. For an MMO to survive, there needs to be new plateaus and new gear to obtain. Relics are like 7 years old and everyone is complaining that they aren't the best weapons in the game? People who obtained those 7 years ago worked a heck of a lot harder to get them than somebody who obtained one in the last two years. The people who worked really hard to get them 7 years ago enjoyed 7 full years of superiority. I can't think of a single other MMO where the best possible weapons for each class remained the best 7 years later. In fact, I can't think of an MMO where the best possible weapon remained the best for more than 2 years.

FFXi isn't every other MMO, or wasn't. I don't know why some people can't understand that. The longevity of gear is what some people liked. It's what a lot of people liked.

[Stompa]

FFXi isn't every other MMO, or wasn't. I don't know why some people can't understand that. The longevity of gear is what some people liked. It's what a lot of people liked.

Liked that and totally agree with you. There was a sense of balance and continuity upto 2009, and especially pre-SoA, and even though we expected new gear with each expansion, it was usually only a few notches over previous gear, and you waited years for the next load of new gear to arrive so you could enjoy the gear you had been working to build/obtain. Now we have armor sets that are released one month and are made gimp by another armor set the very next month, despite both being paid for by similar amounts of bayld. FFxi seems to have lost its cohesion in the last few months, things are starting to unravel. Its like a familiar old friend you've known for a decade, a person who was always restrained and thoughtful, who has suddenly started injecting huge amounts of roids and going Rambo.

[Spectreman]

At the cost of making every single bit of old content completely irrelevant. That, is a bad design philosophy, discard 10 years of content that could keep the players interested in the game longer for the sole reason of having them do newer content.



Funny that happened with Abyssea and nobody complained.

[Spectreman]

And honestly, Your valiant efforts in the past made you very strong in the past, but the world evolved and you can't ask for those items to stay as powerful as before forever.

Learn to adapt, thats the rule. If your driving force to acquire better gear is over than why bother playing? Just go chat in facebook.

[OmnysValefor]

Abyssea updated a lot of gear but it didn't constantly pound on its own gear. There was the obvious progression that +2 was better than +1, but abyssea didn't pass out near gear every month, or three, that made last month's gear obselete.

[detlef]

Abyssea wasn't the reason we got new awesome gear. It was the rise of the level cap that necessitated it.

[Catmato]

Funny that happened with Abyssea and nobody complained.

Even after Heroes was released, there was still a decent amount of 75-era gear that wasn't useless.

Now there are very few items released 5 months ago that are useful.

[pretre]

I don't think any gear or weapons that drop from monsters or events should be auged, R/E/M is a special issue due to the grind players have to do to obtain. although I often argue with people on these forums that reply to my posts with "boohoo my onion sword isn't getting auged either" I do think there right but just not on the R/E/M issue. this game is built around the idea of building your character and if all my gear stayed awesome from before soa was released I would have nothing to chase and it would just be kill some new mobs then im bored again

[Damane]

Great in theory, but if you can't get a group to do old content for minimum gear requirements, you can't participate in the new content if you aren't there day 1. By outdating items by such a margin, it makes it harder and harder new players to catch up.

Personally, I would like to see them add some more updates to Magian trial weapons. Not asking for boss drop ilvl, but it would be nice to continue growing these if you are unable to get a delve weapon.

hence the reason why we are getting skirmish gear next update, and skirmish 1.0 was very very easy, so 2.0 is easy too

[Demon6324236]

Funny that happened with Abyssea and nobody complained.No, Abyssea by itself did not outdate all old gear, it did replace a lot, yes, but in my opinion it was very different on a matter of scale. So far as DDs go right now every single piece as been replaced so far as Head, Body, Hands, Legs, and Feet go, except for PDT, no weapon in the game has any use anymore except Adoulin ones, others are not even nearly close to the same level in any way. I don't know, maybe its just me, but the jump from pre-Abyssea to post-Abyssea felt a lot less... destructive to gear, than what we see with Adoulin, Adoulin has made a piece of gear better by miles, where as Abyssea gear might have been better, but the gap was much, much smaller I think.

[Catmato]

Abyssea wasn't the reason we got new awesome gear. It was the rise of the level cap that necessitated it.

Oh yeah, also Abyssea had Magian weapons. Every weapon that people had been working on could continue to be upgraded to be competitive.

[Daemon]

In my opinion we needed gear with drastic stats. I myself was tired of seeing items with barely any wow factor to make me jump out of my seat and go "OMG I want to waste 6 months to a year" hunting items that barely make a huge impact on power.

At least these new items are doing that which also allows survivability and solo much better than before.

Just they need to go back and adjust the condition of obtaining other items to be worth the effort. And so that previous content does not stay irrelevant.

Which i'm sure they are leaving it alone right now because the main focus and attention is SoA.

Then again its too early to say but I'm also hoping they further add more drastic stats so we can dump the "one purpose only" gear and save inventory space.

Which is how I see the new direction is heading.

This is why I keep saying for every good change has it's bad effects. Also why I said give it time.

Devs know or should know by now what they are doing.

[Daemon]

And for non casuals and casuals who are worried about not being able to hunt for previous content gear. I suggest doing colonization relieves, buy Bayld gear AND THEN go back to old content and work on REM/AF because the new stats on these armors are far more superior than Cruor/Auction house equipment.

Then maybe if you think you need VW/NNI/Salvage, take a look at Delve/New Skirmish equipment first before you decide you want to spend time on those.

Atleast fresh out of Abby at 99 Bayld gear in SoA would be the first priority on my list.

[Stompa]

Abyssea wasn't the reason we got new awesome gear. It was the rise of the level cap that necessitated it.

The level cap rose in Aby not SoA, going up during each Aby expansion, we started on 75 in Aby, went to 80, 85, etc. with tougher new Aby zones to match the higher levels we were unlocking. During the Aby years we got level 99, and lvl 99 Magians, Mythics, Empys, Relics. Level 99 has nothing to do with SoA, or the strange fever that gripped SE when they designed the SoA game-toppling gear and seemingly random re-issues of new bayld gear which almost seems like they are intended to make you regret spending the previous weeks building the last bayld set just so you can toss it and start over again without even using your old set for more than a few days.

Re; Aby weapons/armor they did not, will caps, NOT gimp the pre-2010 gear at all. I'm PUP main job since 2006 and theres no way I'd pick empy h2h over mythic h2h in a million years. Also SE patched relic armors during the Aby age, and in the case of PUP you would pick relic+2 body/hands/hat over the AF3 empy set equivalent in all remote-mode battles, for the pet enhancements. Many people during Aby were mix-match af3 empy armor / relic+2 / AH gear etc. there was never a question of Aby has arrived so toss all your old gear. Unlike SoA, where you toss not only pre-seekers stuff but also toss the seekers stuff you farmed a fortnight ago which is now gimp by the latest batch of identical looking armors.
Re; magians SE have to patch those to upgrade them, if they don't I will lose so much respect for SE. Magians can take months to build for a player who has 2~ hrs per evening, requiring effort and smarts in many cases. So to replace them with triple-power SOA weaps that you can leech in a week or so, is an insult to everyone who built their magians and were really happy & proud of their work & their new weapon.

[Demon6324236]

Oh yeah, also Abyssea had Magian weapons.We may not have Magian weapons, but its not hard to see a progression path one can take if they truly want to, for instance, a MNK could easily progress like this.

http://www.bg-wiki.com/images/0/0d/Vineslash_Cesti_description.png
http://www.bg-wiki.com/images/c/cb/Forefront_Cesti_description.png
http://www.bg-wiki.com/images/6/60/Tlalpoloani_description.png
http://www.bg-wiki.com/images/a/a0/Rigor_Baghnakhs_description.png
http://www.bg-wiki.com/images/0/0e/Ninzas_%2B1_description.png
http://www.bg-wiki.com/images/4/4a/Oatixur_description.png

Admittedly not linked to one another, and all gotten in a different way, but, its still an upgrade path type system in a sense.

[Daemon]

Although I still think people fresh out of Abyssea without AF could earn Bayld gear then play Wildskeeper Rieves/Delve for equipment as a mage class job like WHM and never find the need to go back to old content (except to complete AF, REM, collect items for specific sets) even if you have to wing it playing a job that doesn't require REM in Delve.

Would you rather waste several weeks/months to obtain REM just to play Delve or a week leveling, skilling up, purchasing Bayld armor to play a job like WHM instead?

Hmmm.

If you don't like Mage jobs, don't play it. I just think you could earn your DD weapons faster.

Than not earn them at all.

[Demon6324236]

At least these new items are doing that which also allows survivability and solo much better than before.Of course they let you survive better, its supposed to simulate the effects of having level to the level on the gear. If I wear full Mikinaak my base stats are supposed to be roughly that of what I would have if I had leveled to level 110, of course it would be easier to survive in Abyssea at level 110 than 99, your gaining 11 levels. The issue with it is that its all tied to gear, and by tying it to gear, it makes all old gear irrelevant. By tying our base leveling stats to our gear it makes the gear massively stronger, which also makes all other gear much weaker than it by effect. This is overall a very bad thing for the game in general in my opinion, as it limits the reasons to go back and do older content. No matter if you think everyone should do new content or not, I think its important to do both old and new, not simply forget the past content and move only on to the newest thing every month.

[Catmato]

Admittedly not linked to one another, and all gotten in a different way, but, its still an upgrade path type system in a sense.True, but it still trashed everything that came prior instead of building upon previous progress.

[OmnysValefor]

I understand what you're saying Demon, this reply is more directed at the SE staff member who will never read this...

That's all well and good, but gear progression is always skipped when it can be skipped. Nobody likes making unnecessary pitstops for suboptimal gear.

[Daemon]

Of course they let you survive better, its supposed to simulate the effects of having level to the level on the gear. If I wear full Mikinaak my base stats are supposed to be roughly that of what I would have if I had leveled to level 110, of course it would be easier to survive in Abyssea at level 110 than 99, your gaining 11 levels. The issue with it is that its all tied to gear, and by tying it to gear, it makes all old gear irrelevant. By tying our base leveling stats to our gear it makes the gear massively stronger, which also makes all other gear much weaker than it by effect. This is overall a very bad thing for the game in general in my opinion, as it limits the reasons to go back and do older content. No matter if you think everyone should do new content or not, I think its important to do both old and new, not simply forget the past content and move only on to the newest thing every month.

Yeah I understand what you are saying but also observe from the point of view I already mentioned earlier. SoA was failing. Matsui's tier design wasn't working out correctly when people skipped skirmish and went straight for Delve instead. If Wildskeeper Rieves was meant to be before Delve then even worse.

In order to make SoA a success they had to give us some sort of WoW factor and honestly before the new update adding additional stats and also adding in items like Tamaxchi etc, delve rank gears were the only reason to play Delve and nothing else.

Going back to old content and making REM, they said they would implement upgrades later but also add WoE weapons to allow those to unlock weapon skills. To me that says "Let's drive the player base back to old content" rather than fix and keep People interested in SoA. Which is brand new and failing.

Regardless if the new equipment killed old content. The focus is SoA right now and anything that drives people away from that will only kill off areas like colonization reives and minor details because rather than enough people interested in Delve plasm farming or Wildskeeper Rieves, giving everyone reasons to do more will only dilute the interest of focused areas.

They already said they will work on filling the gaps which means they already know the issue. That's how I see it.

[Daemon]

I also think once the DEV team can get SoA off the ground with enough content to keep everyone busy and happy, then they will have the ability to take time off from SoA and revise everything else.

My question is what are you going to do once you max upgrade all delve gear, collect all items and gear from Megabosses and Wildskeeper Rieves. And after New Skirmish released, once your done with that?

Sure new Delve coming also but then after that?

I see a weight scale with 2 sides. It's either go back and fix old content or work on the new content. Which one do you think has higher priority?

[Daemon]

The faster people play the new content the more time Devs will have to spend creating and pumping out more new content which to me would make it harder for the DEV Team to go back and work on older content and this is why I think some people are playing the game too fast and not giving the Devs time to breathe.

Also the reason I'm not playing the game as much as I did before taking my time with SoA to enjoy what the Devs are serving us now.

I agree WR sucks for the amount of time it takes to play but I see this as a good excuse to allow the DEV TEAM more time to work on new updates.

And I'm not going to hold that against them for doing it.

[Daemon]

They can keep adding in rollercoasters and rides but if you get bored too fast before they can build the next one, then what more can they do?

Again,

This falls under every video game developers worse inevitable question working on an
MMORPG.

What happens when people reach the end?

[OmnysValefor]

if that's the question of their nightmares, perhaps it wouldn't have been a good idea to entice people into leapfrogging.

Just a thought.

[Daemon]

if that's the question of their nightmares, perhaps it wouldn't have been a good idea to entice people into leapfrogging.

Just a thought.

All mmorpgs have no choice but to play leapfrog because an MMORPG has no ending otherwise if it did, the game wouldn't have lasted this long and that's the reason why single player games exist.

As I said earlier, mmorpgs is about adding, taking things away and shifting the crowd from 1 area to another.

The longer the game exists and upon adding more content, the wider the gap becomes between new and end game players. This is why people starting new have a hard time playing catch up.

And because people today want to play faster, speeding up the leveling process only leaves the DEVs no choice but to have such gaps.

Why else the majority of the auction house equipment is irrelevant? You won't even stay that level long enough to enjoy them.

This is why I also said for every good decision comes bad effects.

[Daemon]

I mean why else make SoA end game to begin with? Too many people were reaching the envitable question again. Sitting in town bored with nothing else to do but go back and repeat the same tasks over and over again.

I'm bored lets do NNI. I guess I'll go level yet another job. Lets make a new Relic weapon. Ok I'm bored now ill go make another Magian trial. Well nothing to do now so let's go kill Qilin another 10 million times....

[Daemon]

Sorry to break it that way but unless my logic is wrong... That's how I see every MMORPG...

[Stompa]

I mean why else make SoA end game to begin with? Too many people were reaching the envitable question again. Sitting in town bored with nothing else to do but go back and repeat the same tasks over and over again.

I'm bored lets do NNI. I guess I'll go level yet another job. Lets make a new Relic weapon. Ok I'm bored now ill go make another Marian trial. Well nothing to do now so let's go kill Qilin another 10 million times....

Nobody doubts that SoA should have had new battlefields and endgame content. Its been the same in every expansion, pre-toau we were sick of dhalmel merit pts etc. then pre-wotg we were sick of imps, pre Aby we were sick of campaign. In each case the new XP areas, missions, quests and new gear was welcomed with open arms. There is no reason to not have expected the same with SoA. The problem with SoA is SE changed the core game entirely, with weapons you can buy on the AH (with rmt gil in some cases) that are 2x the dmg of lvl99 empys, so you can become mega-uber in a single mouse click. Contrast that with the tiered meritocratic gradual building of power-weapons in the previous decade. Or you can get delve wkr weaps which again are too powerful for the core game and in some cases require less effort than building a solo magian. Add to that the disposable nature of the bayld armors, which make themselves obsolete once a month it seems. SoA isn't FFxi, it is so far removed from the core game it is unrecognisable. A cynic might say this departure from normal FFxi is way to pull in more revenue, after the catastrophe of 14, and get money from the mainstream/WoW/etc. gamer market, people who want overpowered gear you can buy with gil or farm in a couple of weeks.

[Daemon]

Nobody doubts that SoA should have had new battlefields and endgame content. Its been the same in every expansion, pre-toau we were sick of dhalmel merit pts etc. then pre-wotg we were sick of imps, pre Aby we were sick of campaign. In each case the new XP areas, missions, quests and new gear was welcomed with open arms. There is no reason to not have expected the same with SoA. The problem with SoA is SE changed the core game entirely, with weapons you can buy on the AH (with rmt gil in some cases) that are 2x the dmg of lvl99 empys, so you can become mega-uber in a single mouse click. Contrast that with the tiered meritocratic gradual building of power-weapons in the previous decade. Or u can get delve wkr weaps which again are too powerful for the core game and in some cases require less effort than building a solo magian. Add to that the disposable nature of the bayld armors, which makes themselves obsolete once a month it seems. SoA isn't FFxi, it is so far removed from the core game it is unrecognisable. A cynic might say this departure from normal FFxi is way to pull in more revenue, after the catastrophe of 14, and get money from the mainstream/WoW/etc. gamer market who like overpowered gear you can buy with gil or farm in a couple of weeks.

True but that's why I said DEVs had to give us WOW Factor to keep everyone interested in an expansion that was failing. Especially when FFXIV is around the corner.

How many people threaten to rage quit and move over to FFXIV? Focus is on SoA now. Mediocre stats on items wouldn't really grab everyone's attention as fast as it did when they added these new items.

And the good portion of players on every server were at or close to the envitable question again. What happens when you reach the end?

[Stompa]

True but that's why I said DEVs had to give us WOW Factor to keep everyone interested in an expansion that was failing. Especially when FFXIV is around the corner.

How many people threaten to rage quit and move over to FFXIV? Focus is on SoA now. Mediocre stats on items wouldn't really grab everyone's attention as fast as it did when they added these new items.

Well like I said SoA could have wowed me a lot more if they just added the new areas, quests, missions, new gear, but actually kept it in balance with previous expansions where the new gear was a few notches better than the old gear but not 3x as powerful. Re; FF14 it is a different game to FFxi, a lot of FFxi players wouldn't touch 14 with a long stick because they like the arcade engine of FFxi and/or dislike the 14 battle/job/menu system. Some people just prefer different types of game, 14 has eyecandy and looks v.nice etc. but some people prefer the FFxi game engine, even now that 14 has been overhauled it doesn't play the same as Xi, so you won't get those players changing games regardless of the higher graphic quality. Its great if you like 14 and I hope you enjoy it, but I like the FFxi game engine for WAY too many reasons to list here, and found 14 and 14.2 lacked the gameplay that I enjoy in FFxi.
In either case there was no reason to jack SoA gear like that except to bring in money from the Hulksmash gamer market, and that money will probably go into keeping 14 on life-support too.

[Daemon]

Well like I said SoA could have wowed me a lot more if they just added the new areas, quests, missions, new gear, but actually kept it in balance with previous expansions where the new gear was a few notches better than the old gear but not 3x as powerful. Re; FF14 it is a different game to FFxi, a lot of FFxi players wouldn't touch 14 with a long stick because they like the arcade engine of FFxi and/or dislike the 14 battle/job/menu system. Some people just prefer different types of game, 14 has eyecandy and looks v.nice etc. but some people prefer the FFxi game engine, even now that 14 has been overhauled it doesn't play the same as Xi, so you won't get those players changing games regardless of the higher graphic quality. Its great if you like 14 and I hope you enjoy it, but I like the FFxi game engine for WAY too many reasons to list here, and found 14 and 14.2 lacked the gameplay that I enjoy in FFxi.
In either case there was no reason to jack SoA gear like that except to bring in money from the Hulksmash gamer market, and that money will probably go into keeping 14 on life-support too.

Yeah but not everyone thinks that way. Also improvements are showing how much they can add on to 1 item which hopefully will allow us to discard all "One purpose only" gear with items that can have multiple use on a single item.

To me it shows they are trying to push the limits and see how it goes from there.

Personally I agree with you but tell that to the angry players over skirmish and REM. at least this new direction is sparking interest back into players who lost hope.

[Demon6324236]

Yeah I understand what you are saying but also observe from the point of view I already mentioned earlier. SoA was failing. Matsui's tier design wasn't working out correctly when people skipped skirmish and went straight for Delve instead. If Wildskeeper Rieves was meant to be before Delve then even worse.Can I just point something out with this?

The primary content which outdated other things was, Delve, and you are saying they did such radical things because SoA was failing, because people were skipping Skirmish for Delve.

So, they made Delve, because of people skipping Skirmish to do Delve, which only happened because of Delve, which was only created to solve the problem, which was created by Delve?

Is it just me or was all sense of logic lost here?



Also, people skipped Skirmish for a good reason, it involved only weapons, and scrolls. Can you name a single good event in FFXI history that dropped only weapons so far as gear goes that was actually good and people did on a constant basis? I myself, can not, at all. SoA was not close to failing before Delve, it was fine, and it was fine with Delve too, the problem that SoA had from the start was the easy of obtaining weapons that were as strong as RMEs, which originally some people felt on edge about, had they paid proper attention to that issue, things may not have been as bad, and less people would have quit I believe, instead, by adding Delve and its weapons, they exacerbated the problem in a grandiose way by making the weapons literally twice as strong as RMEs, which sent some people over the edge enough to quit.

Did it make SoA more important? Yes, of course it did, but at the same time it did a major amount of damage to the game itself. Did the recent item level and stat additions make the problem worse again? Yes, it did, because now all old gear is quickly losing its place, what pieces still are allowed to matter like PDT pieces will be destroyed in the coming weeks or months I am sure. So in the end, while you can praise Matsui and think he saved the expansion, it was fine before, some slightly better gear has always been enough to make this player base go get it without it completely trashing every other piece of gear in the last few years, but, that apparently was not enough in this case, they went way overboard. It is doing damage to the game in general, because while it made SoA important, it made the rest of the game exactly not that, it made it all just a bunch of side things, with no real incentive so far as gameplay goes to doing it, especially not challenge, after all, this entire game besides SoA has been made nothing more than a bad joke at this point.

[Daemon]

I just think the DEV team was boxed in a corner that required desperate measures. I mean I wouldn't want to be responsible for killing an MMORPG that's been around 11 years. Look on the bright side though. The new direction is showing new possibilities. If they keep on going the old direction it can only keep the fanbase happy for long for a game that's constantly losing more people on a daily basis.

Serving us with WoW factor is a good solution for keeping the people we have now and possibly bring back those who did leave.

And the way I see it. Once the DEV TEAM can implement enough content in SoA to keep everyone busy and happy, at least then they can impress us by going back and fill in the gaps. By adding new areas to older content and revise things like REM.

At least I see it that way. Imagine adding new areas connected to ToAu, Add in a Salvage III, a new NNI, Colosseum, additional areas to SEA and Sky. Maybe a new area to Einherjar. Maybe new Abyssea maws. Connecting new maps to other areas of the game have endless possibilities.

That's the thing about MMORPGs. Once they are done with SoA. It would only make sense to go back and add more areas connected with the old ones to be on par with the gear and level the majority is at.

I mean I wouldn't add level 120 zones unless the people had the gear to explore them and that's what SoA is for.

It's just that SoA is the main focus right now and I think we should give the DEV TEAM some time to finish their vision with SoA first.

[OmnysValefor]

I think you're completely wrong.

I'm sorry, I just think they're so out of touch with this playerbase and trying desperately to do just like every other mmo.

And no, there will never be enough content to keep everyone satisfied, and it was a really awful call to nail the coffin closed on old content.

Salvage II, Einherjar II, Limbus II, NNI II were all magnifications of existing gear. Some required you have the old gear, while others didn't. Last year, they were embracing the game's past.. yeah it was a little bit cheap that they were recycling content, but why can't we have both.. Why couldn't we have a new event (new) that offered upgrades of salvage or limbus gear?

The answer is simple. They wanted to do things like every other mmo does. They wanted to attract players that had no interest in XI's methods, and they completely looked past us.

For people without attachment to this game, this is a laggy, buggy, ugly game. Tab targeting is old. For people, like us, who have played for years--we've played because they were doing things right. Was it really worth changing that, *just to leave your mark?*

[Daemon]

Can I just point something out with this?

The primary content which outdated other things was, Delve, and you are saying they did such radical things because SoA was failing, because people were skipping Skirmish for Delve.

So, they made Delve, because of people skipping Skirmish to do Delve, which only happened because of Delve, which was only created to solve the problem, which was created by Delve?

Is it just me or was all sense of logic lost here?

Uh no DJ. I said I believe Delve was implemented with the expectation that this would fit into the tier design from Colonization Rieves/Skirmish/Wildskeeper/Delve. But the mistake was making it too easy to do Delve led everyone to skip Skirmish.

Why else such a huge gap from Abbysea to Delve?



Also, people skipped Skirmish for a good reason, it involved only weapons, and scrolls. Can you name a single good event in FFXI history that dropped only weapons so far as gear goes that was actually good and people did on a constant basis? I myself, can not, at all. SoA was not close to failing before Delve, it was fine, and it was fine with Delve too, the problem that SoA had from the start was the easy of obtaining weapons that were as strong as RMEs, which originally some people felt on edge about, had they paid proper attention to that issue, things may not have been as bad, and less people would have quit I believe, instead, by adding Delve and its weapons, they exacerbated the problem in a grandiose way by making the weapons literally twice as strong as RMEs, which sent some people over the edge enough to quit.

Yeah it would have been fine if people did not skip Skirmish. Then the outrage that Delve weapons were better than REM.


Did it make SoA more important? Yes, of course it did, but at the same time it did a major amount of damage to the game itself. Did the recent item level and stat additions make the problem worse again? Yes, it did, because now all old gear is quickly losing its place, what pieces still are allowed to matter like PDT pieces will be destroyed in the coming weeks or months I am sure. So in the end, while you can praise Matsui and think he saved the expansion, it was fine before, some slightly better gear has always been enough to make this player base go get it without it completely trashing every other piece of gear in the last few years, but, that apparently was not enough in this case, they went way overboard. It is doing damage to the game in general, because while it made SoA important, it made the rest of the game exactly not that, it made it all just a bunch of side things, with no real incentive so far as gameplay goes to doing it, especially not challenge, after all, this entire game besides SoA has been made nothing more than a bad joke at this point.

And you feel this way because of the huge gap in tier design. Which I see the DEV team is going to fix it just you can't expect them to finish an entire expansion in such a short time. Mistakes were made and now they are trying to fill in the gaps.

Your point of view right now is from the End game players POV. Where you've done REM, you've played Delve, you were disappointed with Skirmish. Give it time, I'm seeing progress in many ways.

[Daemon]

I also told you as players further progress to the inevitable question, the further the gaps between new players and end game will exist no matter what.

Look at auction house gear. We are in a moment of the game that people at end game need multiple jobs and will not have the patience to follow slow level progression that's why they had to give us a reason to speed up the leveling process which is now level to 99 in half a day for everyone to be able to play end game events. And for new players to catch up to end game players. Otherwise you would be stuck with 1-3 jobs missing out on invites for events that don't have room for the job you want to play.

Also the more time you spend leveling the more time you miss out on end game events, which by the time you do finish others will already reach the inevitable question for that event.

While New players will give up for not finding the help they need.

At the cost of convenience all auction house gears became irrelevant.

Again,

For every good change for the majority bad effects come with it.

You seem to be looking at the game as a one sided scale when I'm trying to tell you the scale has 2 sides. Look at it from the bigger picture outside of the box.

Each day FFXI losing players doesn't help if the game stays at slow progression. Which cannot be avoided for a game that's been around this long.

The more powerful players become the faster everyone will speed past content. And when they make it too hard, people complain to the Devs to make it easier.

Which making it easier only makes you speed through the content faster.

So the only option left is to make the content easy like wildskeeper Rieves but longer in play to keep everyone busy long enough so they can have time to work on more content.

2 sided scale. This I went over in the game programming course.

[OmnysValefor]

You keep saying "give them time, give them time".

Listen bud, the plane's pointed at the ground--if we don't say something now, it's gonna crash.

[Daemon]

I think you're completely wrong.

I'm sorry, I just think they're so out of touch with this playerbase and trying desperately to do just like every other mmo.

And no, there will never be enough content to keep everyone satisfied, and it was a really awful call to nail the coffin closed on old content.

Salvage II, Einherjar II, Limbus II, NNI II were all magnifications of existing gear. Some required you have the old gear, while others didn't. Last year, they were embracing the game's past.. yeah it was a little bit cheap that they were recycling content, but why can't we have both.. Why couldn't we have a new event (new) that offered upgrades of salvage or limbus gear?

The answer is simple. They wanted to do things like every other mmo does. They wanted to attract players that had no interest in XI's methods, and they completely looked past us.

For people without attachment to this game, this is a laggy, buggy, ugly game. Tab targeting is old. For people, like us, who have played for years--we've played because they were doing things right. Was it really worth changing that, *just to leave your mark?*

Which is easy to come to such a simple conclusion but that's not how game programming works. It's hard to explain it unless you take a course on game programming I don't know how to explain it better than I already have.

[Daemon]

You keep saying "give them time, give them time".

Listen bud, the plane's pointed at the ground--if we don't say something now, it's gonna crash.

For someone who has played as long as you. This is why all DEVs struggle. I mean its not easy to please a veteran compared to a new player. The further you level up to max level, the harder it is to please those who expect more. Higher levels require much more detail than lower level players.

Your attention spam as an end game player require way more options.

[Daemon]

I mean if players are speeding past the content faster than they can put it out there, how easy would your job be as a Game developer? Then again what would you do to stall people? What can you do to give yourself time to work on new content?

[Demon6324236]

Yeah it would have been fine if people did not skip Skirmish.Do you even understand why people skipped Skirmish?

[OmnysValefor]

You haven't explained away impractical decisions.

Listen dude, I get it. You think that because I don't agree with you, I don't understand game programming and that's simply not the case. You call my thinking simple because I see a company that made poor decisions. They put a lot of work into these poor decisions, but they were still poor decisions. I respect that Dakuwaqa/Tchakka (shark) has unique mechanics and took time to program, as well as to create. I respect that Morimar is a pretty unique zone, but I can also look at Marjami and see a lot of repetition and laziness.

I know how Cirdas [U] works as well as anyone.. NONE of that explains why they saw a need to obsolete gear and yeah yeah I realize it was easier to copy a limbus battlefield, and the bosses and just make them more powerful, rather than design a new battlefield--that doesn't mean that's what we deserved.

I realize that it's easier to do things in broad strokes and that that's exactly what they did.

You have got to quit thinking that you have some insight I don't simply because you agree with what they're doing, or are willing to give them time. Matsui has proven in the last several updates that if we give him time, he's going to just keep running in the direction he's going, and also that nothing we say here really matters.

[Daemon]

You haven't explained away impractical decisions.

Listen dude, I get it. You think that because I don't agree with you, I don't understand game programming and that's simply not the case. You call my thinking simple because I see a company that made poor decisions. They put a lot of work into these poor decisions, but they were still poor decisions. I respect that Dakuwaqa/Tchakka (shark) has unique mechanics and took time to program, as well as to create. I respect that Morimar is a pretty unique zone, but I can also look at Marjami and see a lot of repetition and laziness.

I know how Cirdas [U] works as well as anyone.. NONE of that explains why they saw a need to obsolete gear and yeah yeah I realize it was easier to copy a limbus battlefield, and the bosses and just make them more powerful, rather than design a new battlefield--that doesn't mean that's what we deserved.

I realize that it's easier to do things in broad strokes and that that's exactly what they did.

You have got to quit thinking that you have some insight I don't simply because you agree with what they're doing, or are willing to give them time. Matsui has proven in the last several updates that if we give him time, he's going to just keep running in the direction he's going, and also that nothing we say here really matters.

And human error doesn't exist? I never said they never make wrong decisions. But observe for a minute where the majority of the people around you are at?

Based on how long it takes to throw out updates, I've seen them do more in 2 months than I've seen from previous updates when all other expansions were implemented and things worked out according to the tier design.

When things don't work out according to plan, time is wasted to go back and fix it rather than move forward and you are giving me the impression that you expect things to be perfect and its uncalled for when its not. Which I agree, since we are paying customers however I'm not going to hold a grudge when I do see what they are doing.

When ToAu was released VS SoA, power difference shows the rate of progression. We are at a point where players are speeding past content faster than they can put it out.

And you thinking I should stop having insight. I did take a game programming course that has changed my point of view and can't help that.

[Demon6324236]

nothing we say here really matters.I would not go so far as to say nothing, but, I think if it goes against his original plans, nothing will really change. Some things they accept feedback on, like Monstrosity, but nothing we see in the normal game itself, all of the normal game feedback seems easily ignored and left out of any talks about how to move forward on their part.

[Demon6324236]

We are at a point where players are speeding past content faster than they can put it out.Gee, I wonder why, they only made 90% of the game's content irrelevant including parts of Adoulin's content, not hard to speed through it all when only 2~3 events are relevant rather than 10.

[Daemon]

Do you even understand why people skipped Skirmish?

Several reasons. Delve was better providing both gear and weapons, which sparked more interest. Players with REM could skip it. I mean why waste time earning Skirmish weapons when Delve weapons were better in stats and require less effort.

When they showed us Delve, it was too early. Some probably felt the need that having REM was time consuming enough not to spend time earning a skirmish weapon. I mean chance of aug stats to surpass REM on a weapon with no WS. Not my idea of wasting time on something like this.

Not enough wow factor to be convincing.

Other reasons I'm sure I'm leaving out, but you can add your take as to why I'm wrong or add in to what I left out.

[Daemon]

Gee, I wonder why, they only made 90% of the game's content irrelevant including parts of Adoulin's content, not hard to speed through it all when only 2~3 events are relevant rather than 10.

Which I already explained this....

[Daemon]

I would not go so far as to say nothing, but, I think if it goes against his original plans, nothing will really change. Some things they accept feedback on, like Monstrosity, but nothing we see in the normal game itself, all of the normal game feedback seems easily ignored and left out of any talks about how to move forward on their part.

I don't think they are ignoring us. I just think that's not first priority right now when the interest of the expansion is.

[OmnysValefor]

People can mock Abyssea, but you couldn't so easily buy a victory in abyssea.

It's awful that I can go in my moghouse and put together a warrior or monk that stomps all over the warriors and monks my friends have worked on for years when I've never had significant interest in either job. (Both do lack necessary augmented +2 relic gear though).

[Demon6324236]

I mean chance of aug stats to surpass REM on a weapon with no WS. Not my idea of wasting time on something like this.This is the only reason that is correct out of what you listed since I was talking about Skirmish before Delve ever came out. If you want to say that SoA was not being done, or rather, Skirmish was not being done after its release and they wanted to bring more attention to it, they did something completely stupid. If they wanted SoA to be alive, guess what, a ton of people were doing SoA content, not all of it, no, but a lot.

Everyone without a RME could do Skirmish for weapons, everyone with a RME which was 1-handed could go get a great off-hand. But all of this was shot down by its largest, most amazingly horrible issue it had. The event required 3 pieces of a statue to go to, right now, that's easy, its no problem to get these, but back when SoA was released, they were 5~10M easy on every server because they were so rare. The people who needed Skirmish most, the people without RMEs, were the people who could not access the content because they could not afford to, and the drops were so rare that only the most dedicated of people would actually go farm the things. On top of that, as you said, its random augments, and stones are random drops at the end as well, so unless you did a shit ton of Skirmish, you would not afford a +2 or likely even get a +2 from the end, then if you did, hope you get good augments.

Add on top of that, that the event is the only event I can think of in the game off the top of my head which has no armor rewards of any kind what so ever, where the only reward is weapons. Except for mages, we all know, DDs have 1~3 best weapons in the game depending on job and situation, very few times will you need to reach outside of those 1~3 weapons for something. This event offered a single weapon for each type, so, it had to either A, beat out a use of those other weapons in some way, even though they had no special properties, or B, be so strong it beat RMEs. The second was possible, but not likely, which also contributed to its failure. If they added gear, we all know, this community would have gone for it, but weapons are limited in how many you can really use effectively, as such, its reward quality dropped.

The event was setup to fail from the start as an event a lot of people did, it was far to exclusive, and the very update that helped solve it the most, was the same update which brought Delve into the game. It was as though they literally resurrected the event at the same time as shooting it in the heart again, because while the supply went up, the chance at doing it went up, and the price went down, the event got completely crushed by another event at the exact same time.

[Daemon]

People can mock Abyssea, but you couldn't so easily buy a victory in abyssea.

It's awful that I can go in my moghouse and put together a warrior or monk that stomps all over the warriors and monks my friends have worked on for years when I've never had significant interest in either job. (Both do lack necessary augmented +2 relic gear though).

Yeah but you wouldn't be able to if SoA failed, if people continued to be disappointed with SoA, colonization reives failing, many people quit over REM, if you take away all they added in the past 4 months and we only had what the installed expansion has now, what would your point of view be?

I mean we need people to exist to even do the content that's out now or else we will end up in town shouting endlessly like a small server would just trying to find people to do basic stuff like plasm farming.

Which is why I keep saying the interest of SoA would be first priority.

[Demon6324236]

I don't think they are ignoring us. I just think that's not first priority right now when the interest of the expansion is.So their first priority is with the expansion rather than pleasing the players? We do not give feedback to a game because it would not make us happy, if I ask for something its because it would be an improvement to the game I would like to see happen, do I expect them all? No, but, I expect something, rather than nothing, and more often than not, we get nothing when it comes to the general game itself.

[Daemon]

So their first priority is with the expansion rather than pleasing the players? We do not give feedback to a game because it would not make us happy, if I ask for something its because it would be an improvement to the game I would like to see happen, do I expect them all? No, but, I expect something, rather than nothing, and more often than not, we get nothing when it comes to the general game itself.

For a project that big, uh yeah. Fail SoA means damage to FFXI on a Richter scale big enough to effect the way you, me and everyone plays the game.

Yeah SoA was fine in the beginning. It's after Delve that screwed it up.

[Daemon]

Between paying customers who all bought SoA, those who paid several months to work on REM which had every reason to be upset because I still have friends even JP friends who don't have SoA yet.

Unless you guys are forgetting all the previous post after Delve.

Are you guys forgetting topics like these?

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/33077-I-feel-like-Delve-just-made-90-of-the-Adoulin-content-irrelevant

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/34745-Wake-up-Seekers-is-failing

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/35226-Reasons-Why-FFXI-is-Declining

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/35272-Losing-Faith-in-you-DEV-TEAM.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/31485-New-weapons-with-higher-base-damage-then-relics

To me I think SoA was much more important to be first priority and once they get this expansion at a point they can ease off on the attention, I'm sure they can go back to old content, revise things and add new content. As I said the possibilities are now endless. Whose to say they won't add more harder maps on top of old areas?

I see a lot of new possibilities now. Which I think they are doing a good job at this point in the expansion. For all the things they implemented and adjusted, plus all the items they added.

New Skirmish looks like it will be the next update from what I'm seeing. But at this point I think Matsui is getting it together and I'm waiting to see how he will impress us in the upcoming updates. We'll just have to see.

[Stompa]

So their first priority is with the expansion rather than pleasing the players?

Neither. Their first priority is to bring in revenue and fast, because they lost their shirt and shoes when they gambled all their money on FF14, and had to walk home barefoot in the rain. Everything since then has been making FFxi easier to beat in terms of levelling, skilling-up, and obtaining the most powerful weapons in the game without breaking a sweat. This is all to bring in money from the mainstream gamer market and the people who want to "beat" games in short time and feel uber without really earning it.

[Daemon]

By the way DJ, I'm sure the community reps, DEV Team are reading posts and seeing our discussions from all forums. Why else do certain things get deleted on the spot when something gets posted that deserves to be removed that can contradict the way SE runs things?

Maybe some ideas we present, from our point of view as 1 player or the amount of people we group up in each topic discussing things might seem important no doubt but sometimes such ideas and opinions that seem important to us may not be as urgent as something they are working on to them. I mean do the DEVs implement 1 update adjusting according to each server or 1 update across all servers?

From what I understand, some servers don't have the same amount of people as other servers which changes the condition of how everyone can play the content.

While our server may have the man power to take down Yumcax and Hurkan in 3-5 hours, other servers lacking may take longer if they have the man power to even group enough people to do it.

Therefore, bigger priorities that effect every server as a whole becomes much more focused on than adjustments that only a few of us think are more important, when to the DEV team might be based on the interest of every server first.

[Daemon]

Neither. Their first priority is to bring in revenue and fast, because they lost their shirt and shoes when they gambled alll their money on FF14, and had to walk home barefoot in the rain. Everything since then has been making FFxi easier to beat in terms of levelling, skilling-up, and obtaining the most powerful weapons in the game without breaking a sweat. This is all to bring in money from the mainstream gamer market and the people who want to "beat" games in short time and feel uber without really earning it.

Well yeah I wonder how much they invested to make SoA expansion? To fail would mean a huge loss in time invested and the salaries that were being paid to make the expansion available.

This is why many game companies go bankrupt.

[Stompa]

Well yeah I wonder how much they invested to make SoA expansion? To fail would mean a huge loss in time invested and the salaries that were being paid to make the expansion available.

This is why many game companies go bankrupt.

Not really. Anyone playing FFxi was going to buy SoA expansion anyway. Everyone I know was excited about SoA and waiting to pay for it.
FF14 was a new game, it didn't have an existing fanbase and so people decided to buy it or not buy it based on customer and media reviews after the launch. Reviews which described it as one of the worst games ever made.

[Daemon]

Many rookie companies don't have the financial freedom to recover from failure like SE and give up. If I remember correctly, Squaresoft and Enix merged together making Square Enix to keep the company from failing.

Game industry is not easy.

Especially when times have changed where many adults have given up on consoles for cellphone games losing a great portion of its revenue to smartphone companies. I mean again convenience has its bad effects.

How many people prefer to play 99 cent quick instant games than buy and pay for consoles and games that constantly evolve? With apps, you never lose quality vs CDs that get old, scratch and consoles always changing its way that forces you to buy a new console with its new cartridges.

That's why Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64 was forcing its customers to keep buying their new consoles the same reason why computer manufacturers force you to buy a new computer by changing its CPU, motherboard and memory chips.

[detlef]

To me I think SoA was much more important to be first priority and once they get this expansion at a point they can ease off on the attention, I'm sure they can go back to old content, revise things and add new content. As I said the possibilities are now endless. Whose to say they won't add more harder maps on top of old areas?Adoulin is pretty fucked. Dangerously unsustainable precedents have been set and you have to wonder about the game's health at this point. I’m usually optimistic about this kind of thing, but it’s very worrying.

Aren’t you worried about the gear? We’re getting to the point where some pieces of gear can be full-timed. This game has always been about macroing gear around. You really lose a lot of what FFXI is when you start full timing pieces of gear due to the fact that it’s good for every purpose.

Plus the whole item level thing… Any gear that isn’t level 119 or higher is pretty much guaranteed to be ignored unless they can fill a specific niche. I give credit to the new Skirmish armor for giving us some hybrid set possibilities. But at the same time, the Bayld gear looks dead on arrival.

The best weapons come from Delve Fracture bosses or are crafted from mega boss drops along with a (usually) extremely expensive VW/Legion drop. This means that for the foreseeable future, every MNK will have Oatixurs and use Shijin Spiral. Every DRK will have Senbaak Nagan and use Resolution. Every WAR will have Razorfury/Ixtab and use Upheaval. It’s all going to be the same, everybody will look the same and use the same weaponskills.


I see a lot of new possibilities now. Which I think they are doing a good job at this point in the expansion. For all the things they implemented and adjusted, plus all the items they added.What possibilities are you seeing? I’m looking at the situation and seeing fewer events being done, less variety, and fewer goals to pursue. There are only a handful of Naakuals left to introduce, which means only a handful of Delve Fracture mega bosses to fight. Frankly, I worry about what will happen to the game after those NMs are introduced, dissected, and reduced to farm status.

Brand new events better be in the pipeline, well beyond the conceptual stage. That's the kind of thing that becomes necessary when you render so much of the game irrelevant.


New Skirmish looks like it will be the next update from what I'm seeing. But at this point I think Matsui is getting it together and I'm waiting to see how he will impress us in the upcoming updates. We'll just have to see.There are some things to like in the Skirmish II sets. I hope that it is the first of much more gear to come that has niche uses instead of being clearly better or worse than other things. But man that is some blind optimism you got there. I wish it could be distilled, bottled, and sold for a fair price.

[Daemon]

Not really. Anyone playing FFxi was going to buy SoA expansion anyway. Everyone I know was excited about SoA and waiting to pay for it.
FF14 was a new game, it didn't have an existing fanbase and so people decided to buy it or not buy it based on customer and media reviews after the launch. Reviews which described it as one of the worst games ever made.

Lol developing an average game cost a million dollars. The money they get back from selling 1 expansion doesn't leave a lot of room for profit on money that's invested in advance. Unless FFXI was famous like the launch of Diablo 3, I didn't see a huge increase in new players suddenly flood FFXI.

[Daemon]

Adoulin is pretty fucked. Dangerously unsustainable precedents have been set and you have to wonder about the game's health at this point. I’m usually optimistic about this kind of thing, but it’s very worrying.

Aren’t you worried about the gear? We’re getting to the point where some pieces of gear can be full-timed. This game has always been about macroing gear around. You really lose a lot of what FFXI is when you start full timing pieces of gear due to the fact that it’s good for every purpose.

And that's not their fault that times are evolving. They cannot raise level cap past 99. Ps2 limitations has a lot to do with why we are seeing a different direction than how they could have done it if they had the ability to. Again I think we just need to wait it out and further see what they have to bring to the table.


Plus the whole item level thing… Any gear that isn’t level 119 or higher is pretty much guaranteed to be ignored unless they can fill a specific niche. I give credit to the new Skirmish armor for giving us some hybrid set possibilities. But at the same time, the Bayld gear looks dead on arrival.

That's why I explained the scale has 2 sides. And why i also explained that as players reach higher level, gaps will become more wider but through time after implementing the things that are first priority, then going back to fill in the gaps would be the reasonable solution. Right now it may seem this way but we gotta give the DEV Team room to breathe.


The best weapons come from Delve Fracture bosses or are crafted from mega boss drops along with a (usually) extremely expensive VW/Legion drop. This means that for the foreseeable future, every MNK will have Oatixurs and use Shijin Spiral. Every DRK will have Senbaak Nagan and use Resolution. Every WAR will have Razorfury/Ixtab and use Upheaval. It’s all going to be the same, everybody will look the same and use the same weaponskills.

What possibilities are you seeing? I’m looking at the situation and seeing fewer events being done, less variety, and fewer goals to pursue. There are only a handful of Naakuals left to introduce, which means only a handful of Delve Fracture mega bosses to fight. Frankly, I worry about what will happen to the game after those NMs are introduced, dissected, and reduced to farm status.

Auction house gears should tell you the story already. Can't linger on to old content forever and the way I see it, the only way to move forward is to add new content on to the old like add a Salvage III, IV, V. New NNI II, III, IV, V.


Brand new events better be in the pipeline, well beyond the conceptual stage. That's the kind of thing that becomes necessary when you render so much of the game irrelevant.

What's irrelevant now can't be helped until SoA is balanced out with enough content to keep everyone happy. I see the content is doing good but not lasting as long as it should because as more players become stronger, the faster everyone will speed through it.


There are some things to like in the Skirmish II sets. I hope that it is the first of much more gear to come that has niche uses instead of being clearly better or worse than other things. But man that is some blind optimism you got there. I wish it could be distilled, bottled, and sold for a fair price.

Well its not that I'm blind, its that after taking a game programming course taught me to see behind the hidden fold. Which is why I understand better than before than taking the course.

[Demon6324236]

By the way DJ, I'm sure the community reps, DEV Team are reading posts and seeing our discussions from all forums. Why else do certain things get deleted on the spot when something gets posted that deserves to be removed that can contradict the way SE runs things?GMs.


Maybe some ideas we present, from our point of view as 1 player or the amount of people we group up in each topic discussing things might seem important no doubt but sometimes such ideas and opinions that seem important to us may not be as urgent as something they are working on to them. I mean do the DEVs implement 1 update adjusting according to each server or 1 update across all servers?That bolded/underlined part is the issue. Its not about them. Its about what the players want. They can make all of the best content in the world to them but it means absolutely nothing if the players do not like it. If I own a restaurant and everyone asks for a hamburger but I myself love Chicken, and think its better, it does not matter what I think, I give them a hamburger, because its what the customer wants. If your selling a product you need to please your customers, not make them angry, and you should be giving them what they are asking for, not just giving them whatever you feel is best, or convenient.


From what I understand, some servers don't have the same amount of people as other servers which changes the condition of how everyone can play the content.

While our server may have the man power to take down Yumcax and Hurkan in 3-5 hours, other servers lacking may take longer if they have the man power to even group enough people to do it.This is the reason large scale events do not work, like WKs and really Reives, or Campaign in general. Those kind of events require a large number of participants, some servers can do somewhat ok, others do horrible.


Therefore, bigger priorities that effect every server as a whole becomes much more focused on than adjustments that only a few of us think are more important, when to the DEV team might be based on the interest of every server first.Another reason that old content staying relevant would help. Gives people more to do while they spend their time fixing problems, rather than having a limited amount of content like now, while they fix it and we have little to do, or rather, little that's fun & rewarding to do.

[Daemon]

Again I know how you feel DJ. I'm on your side. But after the disaster with Delve. How many people do we think would have quit? Would there be enough people to even do the SoA content? Why else so many complained about colonization reives being too hard? Players not able to participate in Delve unless you were an end game already prepared with REM?

The difference in gap was so many players that "Could" participate in Delve were leaving behind those that "Couldn't" do Delve only to create an even wider gap between players down the road. Ignoring it would seem like a huge mistake.

I agree old content should be fixed. But at the cost of losing players who just paid for SoA? I was disappointed with the expansion and wondered why I even bought it to begin with? I mean $30 plus the $20 I pay for Subscription fees.

Your idea of fixing old content makes me question do you even care about the new content? Would it be better to just leave it a failing disaster and waste time fixing the old content and ignore everybody who just bought a disappointing expansion?

Long scale events don't work yeah but when players like us are speeding through the content faster than they can put it out only tells me this was done to stall players so they can have time to work.

Its that the expansion was there incomplete and utterly lacking in too many details. Storylines with no real detail other than go here, do this, go there, do that, done.

Elemental adjustments were made to being all mages up to par than be stuck in a gap in power and accuracy.

I'd rather then add more flowers to the new garden that only has a few roses than go back and pull weeds when the spark of interest is focused on the next new thing.

[Demon6324236]

Heres the thing, I do not specifically want them to fix old content, I want them to fix new content to fall into line in accordance with old content so that both are relevant, its easier for them to fix the new than it is to fix the old. The fact its even broken as it is in the first place is stupid, it should have never came into their minds to do it how they did. Also, no matter how much work they do on the expansion, some work should always be devoted to fixing their issues they have created along the way, this is a very large issue, they have done nothing I can think of to really fix it. That, is a problem, yes.

[Daemon]

Heres the thing, I do not specifically want them to fix old content, I want them to fix new content to fall into line in accordance with old content so that both are relevant, its easier for them to fix the new than it is to fix the old. The fact its even broken as it is in the first place is stupid, it should have never came into their minds to do it how they did. Also, no matter how much work they do on the expansion, some work should always be devoted to fixing their issues they have created along the way, this is a very large issue, they have done nothing I can think of to really fix it. That, is a problem, yes.

Well yeah, I see them doing that now. Adding additional stats to Bayld gears to fill in the gap to players just entering SoA. New Skirmish on the horizon. Again dude you sound like you expect everything to be done in 1 day when I'm trying to tell you no one can expect a huge amount of work to be done in such a short time. Last 2 updates shows a good amount of work. Wait for the next 3-5 updates before you come to the conclusion that Matsui isn't doing his thing.

Don't forget adding in Geo and Rune AF to further allow those who already leveled it waiting to better equip for events than rely on old gears.

I mean I had both leveled to 99, skilled up 5 months ago. Even I thought it was ridiculous showing up gimp for having no Job specific gear for new jobs we wanted to use for the new events in SoA.

They also made it easier for players in abyssea to obtain the foot AF they need by trading in 3 pieces they don't need for the ones they want. Which is a time saver.

So I do see them adjusting old content along they way too.

[Demon6324236]

Well yeah, I see them doing that now. Adding additional stats to Bayld gears to fill in the gap to players just entering SoA. New Skirmish on the horizon. Again dude you sound like you expect everything be done in 1 day when I'm trying to tell you no one can expect a huge amount of work to be done in such a short time. Last 2 updates shows a good amount of work. Wait for the next 3-5 updates before you come to the conclusion that Matsui isn't doing his thing.They are filling in a gap that should not exist. At most, at very most, we should have jumped 5 or 10 levels, so far, as have jumped 20 full levels, assuming more Delve will increase the levels further, and the gap between the original WKs & their Delve counterparts, we can expect level 130+ gear from the next tier of Delve. That is a full 30 level gap which will never have much gear, not even a piece for every level most likely. They literally made gear for like 8 levels, and the other 12 levels we went up got nothing at all. Do I expect them to just throw content out from no where? No, I do not, but I expect them to progress like sane and intelligent people, you work 1 by 1, going up, not make a piece of gear for level 100, then one for 119, and then start to make gear for 101~118 as you go along just randomly throwing things in 1 by 1 till its filled out, that's stupid.

The bottom line of what I am saying is they screwed up and created problems that never should have happened, and rather than doing what they should have, which is lowered the level of every piece of gear practically in order to correlate to a proper format where it would go up in a nicer curve and actually have less holes, they simply went with the holes they made, and are trying to fit in things where they can as long as they can so it looks better.

[Daemon]

They are filling in a gap that should not exist. At most, at very most, we should have jumped 5 or 10 levels, so far, as have jumped 20 full levels, assuming more Delve will increase the levels further, and the gap between the original WKs & their Delve counterparts, we can expect level 130+ gear from the next tier of Delve. That is a full 30 level gap which will never have much gear, not even a piece for every level most likely. They literally made gear for like 8 levels, and the other 12 levels we went up got nothing at all. Do I expect them to just throw content out from no where? No, I do not, but I expect them to progress like sane and intelligent people, you work 1 by 1, going up, not make a piece of gear for level 100, then one for 119, and then start to make gear for 101~118 as you go along just randomly throwing things in 1 by 1 till its filled out, that's stupid.

The bottom line of what I am saying is they screwed up and created problems that never should have happened, and rather than doing what they should have, which is lowered the level of every piece of gear practically in order to correlate to a proper format where it would go up in a nicer curve and actually have less holes, they simply went with the holes they made, and are trying to fit in things where they can as long as they can so it looks better.

And that can't be helped when you can only do so much in such a short time. You must absolutely think game development is easy and things can be done instantly or at least that's what you are showing me through each response I read from you.

Ever see Promatheus? As the bot says "Big things have small beginnings."

What about seed of chucky? "Rome wasn't built in 1 day."

If you hired me to be a game developer. You sure wouldn't have content as fast as they are putting it out now. That's for sure.

[Daemon]

I mean it "Only" took the DEV team 3 years to release SoA incomplete after Heroes of Abyssea..

[Demon6324236]

You must absolutely think game development is easy and things can be done instantly or at least that's what you are showing me through each response I read from you.They changed the stats of every single item in Adoulin to fit their new item levels, how could it have been so much harder to simply make them fall in line to fix a more accurate and more balanced scale rather than leaving it how it is now with the game scaling up much to fast? It wouldn't have been, it would have been the same amount of work.

[Daemon]

They changed the stats of every single item in Adoulin to fit their new item levels, how could it have been so much harder to simply make them fall in line to fix a more accurate and more balanced scale rather than leaving it how it is now with the game scaling up much to fast? It wouldn't have been, it would have been the same amount of work.

Well if you only look at it from that angle. I'm seeing it as helping everyone from Abyssea entering SoA level out stats to survive outer areas of Adoulin better plus last up to the point players can earn some delve gear.

Again I already said SoA seems to be first priority. Adjust old content would only draw players to stop doing SoA and go back to old content which would work absolutely fine if all servers had a thriving amount of people.

But we don't.

And only giving us more reasons not to do SoA would direct our attention away from SoA which would lead us to all struggle doing plasm runs, Wildskeeper Rieves, Delve Megabosses etc.

Would you rather sit in town all day trying to get a group together to do Yumcax? Or rather watch a vast majority go back and do old content such as REM upgrades instead?

Or continue to spam VW endlessly and let SoA continue in its failure?

All the attention I'm seeing through the past updates tell me they intended to direct more players to SoA and give everyone a reason to play the new content.

Not abandon it.

Sorry to say this but for the time being such a gap has to exist to keep players interested in SoA. In order to move forward rather than take a step back.

Something I see intentionally being used to their advantage.

[Demon6324236]

Again, I am not saying to go back and adjust old content, it should not need adjusted, adjust new content to better fit in line with old content and it will be fixed, the increased everything at far to quick a speed, even if they go back to fix things now, its actually worse than simply moving ahead even more. Now they have to go back and add weapons and items as well as events for people who have not been able to get to Delve, rather than making new content to push forward. Do I disagree with that idea? No, but, it could have been done all the same by rebalancing the weapons and armors that have come out so far to fit a smaller level limit, for instance, rather than going to level 119, we could have only went up to 108 or 110, a smaller gap, thus, less holes to fill. Yes, some NMs would need a little rebalancing but it would overall be less work to change things already in the game than to make entire new pieces of content as well as new items just for the sake of filling the gap they made. Less work, more advanced content more quickly, and less gaps, all in all seems like a win win to me, but then again, perhaps I simply don't understand...

[Demon6324236]

Sorry to say this but for the time being such a gap has to exist to keep players interested in SoA. In order to move forward rather than take a step back.A step back? If you want to see a step back look no further than that very same gap. Thanks to the gap, people seem to think no one without Oat H2H can kill Tojil, or is worth bringing to Tojil, I have a friend who tried to goto many Tojil parties with me on his MNK, he is not a loser, he's not an ass, he has good gear & knows how to play the game, but, no Oats. I have seen Forefront DDs get turned down from Plasm farms, again, same problem, to big of a gap, people look at them and think they are to weak for the content, and leave them out. This is a common issue appearing in FFXI, before it was RMEs, now its Delve weps and Delve boss weps. This is not a step further, its a step back, because at least with RMEs you could go do Dyna or Abyssea, get your weapon, then move on, but now... now they want you to have the weapon from the enemies your killing, before you can kill them, you have to have a Delve Boss weapon, to kill a Delve Boss, you have to have a Delve weapon, to do Plasm Farms, so on. This problem was made worse, not fixed, it was not a step forward. The gap only seperates people more, and its not 'needed' to keep people interested, it pushes them away. Your saying content which causes players to be left out is the content that actually is needed to keep them interested? Because that's how it looks and sounds.

[Daemon]

Again, I am not saying to go back and adjust old content, it should not need adjusted, adjust new content to better fit in line with old content and it will be fixed, the increased everything at far to quick a speed, even if they go back to fix things now, its actually worse than simply moving ahead even more. Now they have to go back and add weapons and items as well as events for people who have not been able to get to Delve, rather than making new content to push forward. Do I disagree with that idea? No, but, it could have been done all the same by rebalancing the weapons and armors that have come out so far to fit a smaller level limit, for instance, rather than going to level 119, we could have only went up to 108 or 110, a smaller gap, thus, less holes to fill. Yes, some NMs would need a little rebalancing but it would overall be less work to change things already in the game than to make entire new pieces of content as well as new items just for the sake of filling the gap they made. Less work, more advanced content more quickly, and less gaps, all in all seems like a win win to me, but then again, perhaps I simply don't understand...

Yes but again wait for the next 3-5 updates before you come to this conclusion you have on your mind right now. When the last update implemented the ability to trade in 3 random AF foot gear for a piece you actually need although may seem like a minor adjustment only proves that SE does care about the other side of the player base.

And that they do focus on minor details and not just big ones.

Also elemental adjustments benefit all players including new players or casuals who are at Abyssea and below.

Imagine after SoA the possibilities to adjust old content such as Legion. Maybe they will add level 120+ maps on top of existing old content for everyone.

Maybe the possibility to expand NNI, Einherjar. Salvage, Sea etc. whose to say they won't add in a totally new area similar to limbus.between campaign, colonization Rieves, etc we already know they recycle these events by adding in similar events to new content.

Imagine adding in new HNMs. SoA to me looks like a whole new beginning of a new direction with so many possibilities once we past this phase.

We know REM and New AF were mentioned. But all this exciting stuff takes time.

Adjusting other NMs wouldn't be a high priority IMO when SoA needs to be at a state that people can enjoy the content and have reasons to login and play. Yes they need to add more areas that have repeatable loops like VW but at this point I'm not seeing much events that allow that except Delve Megabosses and WR.

But even so they still need content that will last longer than now because too many people are just not quite satisfied at the moment and are speeding past what's being released too quickly.

Hopefully Skirmish will be made to last long enough for the DEV team to start working on the minor details filling in the gaps and as you say "Adjust new content to better fit in line with old content and it will be fixed."

Although I think it may be the other way around. Things like REM would bring players back to old content. Then maybe adding new Magian trials would serve to do the same.

I'd be surprised to even see new Abyssea maws and Dyna added to SoA areas. Or possibly other VW paths with a continuation of a different story. Time travel would be a reason this could happen. Forgotten realm of the past SoA!

Who knows but I'm sure Matsui knows what he is doing. We may not know the secrets behind what's being developed but that's the point in being surprised when it does get implemented.

[Daemon]

Btw I did tell you balance is not easy and its even much more complicated in the state we are now than when the game was first implemented. And as players reach higher level, gaps become wider between low levels and high levels. And higher levels require much more content, much more attention to keep you busy. At the cost of convenience requires sacrifice.

Time is important to Devs. If you can understand what I've been trying to explain this whole time, you will see and understand why an 11 year old MMORPG is the way it is right now with a small team trying to keep thousands of players happy.

It's like hiring 1 babysitter to watch over and make important decisions for 200+ children.

I'm sure you can see the bigger difference in my example when they have to please thousands.

Not just on 1 server but on several.

[Stompa]

Lol developing an average game cost a million dollars. The money they get back from selling 1 expansion doesn't leave a lot of room for profit on money that's invested in advance. Unless FFXI was famous like the launch of Diablo 3, I didn't see a huge increase in new players suddenly flood FFXI.

Well after FF14 did the fireball-into-the-ground act, FFXI saw the arrival of Destrier Beret with regen, refresh, mvmnt speed, reraise, skillup on a lvl1 hat that you got if you bought the compilation. Those effects by the way, used to take you long time or huge gil to obtain (mvment+) or required you lvled the appropriate job etc. The fact that stuff was given to lvl 1 chars in FFxi, after FF14 sank, was because SE needed funds quickly and bringing new/returning players into FFxi was a way to survive the fallout of 14. Also following 14s demise was the skillup patch, cap guard/parrying in a few hours, skillup rings & earrings, all intended to encourage people from the casual mainstream gamer market, because of the money situation after 14. SOA is just a continuation of this revenue claw-back, trying to attract casual/mainstream people who want to get uber overnight and who avoided FFxi for ten years because it was too difficult. Now they just buy some of the highest dmg weapons in the game from the AH. I'm sure if 14 hadn't fireballed, FFxi would still have the old skillup and tiered effort-related weaponry. Now all I hear is ppl with the AH mega-dmg weapons saying how bored they are coz mobs die too fast. Thats the price we are paying for 14, imo. And just because there aren't floods of new players in FFxi doesn't mean SE haven't been trying to get those floods by changing the type of game it was.

Edit: and btw I love SoA, the areas are beautiful and missions/quests are really great. I just wish they'd done it without unbalancing the original game so much.

[Stompa]

Adoulin is pretty fucked. Dangerously unsustainable precedents have been set and you have to wonder about the game's health at this point. I’m usually optimistic about this kind of thing, but it’s very worrying.

Aren’t you worried about the gear? We’re getting to the point where some pieces of gear can be full-timed. This game has always been about macroing gear around. You really lose a lot of what FFXI is when you start full timing pieces of gear due to the fact that it’s good for every purpose.


You are so right about that. SoA killed "tweaking" which was the centrepiece of FFxi for 10 years, using macro swapouts, food, SC's, MB's, experimenting with different unusual sets to try to nudge the dmg up a bit. That was half the fun of playing FFxi, customising and tweaking your own game style, just to see if you can squeeze out an extra hundred hp damage on the mob. That's all gone now, just wear the stat-heavy armors and buy/leech the most insanely overpowered weapon and then go around oneshotting stuff without using macros or anything.

[Daemon]

You are so right about that. SoA killed "tweaking" which was the centrepiece of FFxi for 10 years, using macro swapouts, food, SC's, MB's, experimenting with different unusual sets to try to nudge the dmg up a bit. That was half the fun of playing FFxi, customising and tweaking your own game style, just to see if you can squeeze out an extra hundred hp damage on the mob. That's all gone now, just wear the stat-heavy armors and buy/leech the most insanely overpowered weapon and then go around oneshotting stuff without using macros or anything.

Which would still be possible if we didnt have inventory crisis. They can't raise the cap above 80 due to PS2 limitations. So the best solution is to add gear that can allow you to carry less sets.

It's jobs like SCH and RDM that make it overwhelmingly unbearable.

I still haven't seen changes that allow me to toss out gear. Atleast not yet.

[OmnysValefor]

And that's not their fault that times are evolving. They cannot raise level cap past 99. Ps2 limitations has a lot to do with why we are seeing a different direction than how they could have done it if they had the ability to. Again I think we just need to wait it out and further see what they have to bring to the table.

How is it not their fault that the game is changing? 'Time is evolving' is incorrect, they're making changes because the guy at the head of the game doesn't understand what makes the game work.

If you can say time is evolving to explain ill-conceived ideas, then I can say time is evolving to say that they should have dumped the PS2 a few years ago. PS2 limitations are their fault, because they're carrying the key to their own ball-and-chain.

- - -

Devs reading our posts.. As to devs reading our posts, see that little triangle with the exclamation point in the bottom left corner? That's how posts get deleted. Your alternative that they're reading and just not responding is very insulting (of them, if that's true). We get responses to goofy threads like "Login thingy event" and my "Scrolls of Instant Protect", and other threads that actually matter, they remain silent.

Edit: We did get a reply to AF4 thread, and the reply to the relics topic is months old and that took them weeks.

I get that Camate is a translator and can't say much but even a "Hey guys, we're paying attention to the discussion and I'll bring your concerns to the dev team" would be better than the absurd silence.

[detlef]

And that's not their fault that times are evolving. They cannot raise level cap past 99. Ps2 limitations has a lot to do with why we are seeing a different direction than how they could have done it if they had the ability to. Again I think we just need to wait it out and further see what they have to bring to the table.It kinda is their fault. They made the game after all. Their current efforts to make things right, while commendable, do not excuse the lack of foresight they showed in the first place.


That's why I explained the scale has 2 sides. And why i also explained that as players reach higher level, gaps will become more wider but through time after implementing the things that are first priority, then going back to fill in the gaps would be the reasonable solution. Right now it may seem this way but we gotta give the DEV Team room to breathe.Think about this. Does it make sense to create a huge chasm between the easy-to-get options and “the best” and then fill in the gaps? Or does it make more sense to implement “the best” last? I know Matsui admitted that they messed up introducing Delve first, but that is that lack of foresight I mentioned earlier. It’s still a mistake that you can’t ignore, even if the devs are trying to make amends.

Also, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s a very straightforward step from Rigors to Oatixurs, so much so that I highly doubt that the weapon drops from Skirmish II will be given even a seconds glance once augments are figured out (except as off-hand weapons). Basically you have the best and one reasonable alternative. Everything else is crap or not worth the time.


Auction house gears should tell you the story already. Can't linger on to old content forever and the way I see it, the only way to move forward is to add new content on to the old like add a Salvage III, IV, V. New NNI II, III, IV, V.Maybe they should have made Salvage II gear a little better so it could possibly fill some niches in existing builds. I don’t think anybody wants neo-neo-Salvage. They just want neo-Salvage to have remained relevant and useful for a little longer instead of having something be clearly better, rendering the original event moot.


What's irrelevant now can't be helped until SoA is balanced out with enough content to keep everyone happy. I see the content is doing good but not lasting as long as it should because as more players become stronger, the faster everyone will speed through it.It does not bode well when 3 of the 5 Naakuals are not worth killing while Skirmish was dead on arrival. If you’re not doing Delve while waiting for a Wildskeeper shout (getting less and less common), all that’s left to do is reive. And speeding through content? That's the kind of thing that can happen when you introduce weapons with godly base damage and then give them over 200 attack and accuracy on top of that.


Well its not that I'm blind, its that after taking a game programming course taught me to see behind the hidden fold. Which is why I understand better than before than taking the course.I see, did you also stay at a Holiday Inn Express?

[Xantavia]

Filling in the gaps doesn't work with the way the playerbase of this game is. If something better is available, it seems that a lot of people won't bother with anything weaker. How many times while leveling in abyssea did you see people wearing event armor and a crappy weapon (if they anything at all). The response was always along the lines of it is a waste of time to gear up for my current level since there is something better coming up. I'm sure there are a lot of blm out there who don't have any lower tier spells, since they figure its a waste to buy 1-4 when they can cast a 5.

It is a player problem, but the developers are the ones making it possible.

[Daemon]

How is it not their fault that the game is changing? 'Time is evolving' is incorrect, they're making changes because the guy at the head of the game doesn't understand what makes the game work.

If you can say time is evolving to explain ill-conceived ideas, then I can say time is evolving to say that they should have dumped the PS2 a few years ago. PS2 limitations are their fault, because they're carrying the key to their own ball-and-chain.

Well to me that argument would work if they could tell all PS2 players to stop playing FFXI and go rebuy the game on a higher format. Which wouldn't be fair would it? SE made the game 11 years ago and has to deal with reason like these why they have to stay limited. Soon after would it be fair to ask all Xbox 360 to go rebuy the game because technology is advancing? Which would work by releasing another game if FFXI wasn't an MMORPG that has no ending.

To recode ALL of FFXI down to the last expansion would not cost years plus multimillion dollars to do it?


Devs reading our posts.. As to devs reading our posts, see that little triangle with the exclamation point in the bottom left corner? That's how posts get deleted. Your alternative that they're reading and just not responding is very insulting (of them, if that's true). We get responses to goofy threads like "Login thingy event" and my "Scrolls of Instant Protect", and other threads that actually matter, they remain silent.

Edit: We did get a reply to AF4 thread, and the reply to the relics topic is months old and that took them weeks.

I get that Camate is a translator and can't say much but even a "Hey guys, we're paying attention to the discussion and I'll bring your concerns to the dev team" would be better than the absurd silence.

Yeah but if Calmate could tell us every single detail on the spot without causing any conflicts or spreading false hope. I just think he can't do more than he is already allowed to. Not everybody will agree to announcements. How many times have you seen every single player agree to all his announcements? I've seen players still not happy and complain. "Oh but the DEV team can do this but they can't even fix this that's been promised years ago??"

[Daemon]

Filling in the gaps doesn't work with the way the playerbase of this game is. If something better is available, it seems that a lot of people won't bother with anything weaker. How many times while leveling in abyssea did you see people wearing event armor and a crappy weapon (if they anything at all). The response was always along the lines of it is a waste of time to gear up for my current level since there is something better coming up. I'm sure there are a lot of blm out there who don't have any lower tier spells, since they figure its a waste to buy 1-4 when they can cast a 5.

It is a player problem, but the developers are the ones making it possible.

Yeah some gaps can't be fixed due to the price of convenience. Why else all other gear in Auction House level 30-90 are irrelevant? Since they allow everyone to speed level to 99. It's an exchange for convenience.

[OmnysValefor]

Well to me that argument would work if they could tell all PS2 players to stop playing FFXI and go rebuy the game on a higher format. Which wouldn't be fair would it? SE made the game 11 years ago and has to deal with reason like these why they have to stay limited. Soon after would it be fair to ask all Xbox 360 to go rebuy the game because technology is advancing? Which would work by releasing another game if FFXI wasn't an MMORPG that has no ending.

Would you please quit flying their flag for a second and think rationally about things? Times change, they evolve. SE wants to be like every other MMO? Fine. Every other major mmo requires their players to upgrade their hardware occasionally or experience sever performance drags, and sometimes no longer able to play.


Yeah but if Calmate could tell us every single detail on the spot without causing any conflicts or spreading false hope. I just think he can't do more than he is already allowed to. Not everybody will agree to announcements. How many times have you seen every single player agree to all his announcements? I've seen players still not happy and complain. "Oh but the DEV team can do this but they can't even fix this that's been promised years ago?

How does that even relate to someone actually reading the posts and replying with a thoughtful post? I don't want a canned response, though at this point those would be better than nothing. I'd like something like--

(This is not a real post by SE)


"We're aware of the growing dissatisfaction with Naakuals. I've read the complaints here and I will take them to the development team to let them know. Any changes will take some planning, development time, and testing time, but we do not intend to leave things as they are.

Alliance hate was meant to be a mechanic so that players worked together and we are sorry that it's causing difficulties. This is something we'll look into. We're also sorry that while the battles require the presence of certain jobs, those jobs get lackluster rewards. Perhaps there are ways that we can tweak battle-progression so that jobs like Corsair, so necessary to the fight, are enticed into coming."

See, such a post would mean that the writer clearly read the highlights of the discussion about it, even if he didn't read every page. It promises nothing but effort and investigation.

But man, this is so off-topic.

Let's get back to the OP's original question of bringing old coveted gear back into the spotlight. Not saying I agree or disagree, but that was the topic of this thread.

[Daemon]

It kinda is their fault. They made the game after all. Their current efforts to make things right, while commendable, do not excuse the lack of foresight they showed in the first place.

Which is an easy conclusion. You are ignoring how technology has advanced in the past 11 years. How competition between gaming industry is now struggling with Smart phone companies. How a portion of FFXI players are still playing on older consoles such as PS2. How much time and money it would cost to recode FFXI down to the last expansion.


Think about this. Does it make sense to create a huge chasm between the easy-to-get options and “the best” and then fill in the gaps? Or does it make more sense to implement “the best” last? I know Matsui admitted that they messed up introducing Delve first, but that is that lack of foresight I mentioned earlier. It’s still a mistake that you can’t ignore, even if the devs are trying to make amends.

Same way it makes sense trying to compare the difference between new players and endgame. Adjustments don't all revolve around 1 type of player. There is no best last in an MMORPG when people will reach the inevitable question again. At some point what seems the best will always be replaced with a new best.


Also, in case you haven’t noticed, it’s a very straightforward step from Rigors to Oatixurs, so much so that I highly doubt that the weapon drops from Skirmish II will be given even a seconds glance once augments are figured out (except as off-hand weapons). Basically you have the best and one reasonable alternative. Everything else is crap or not worth the time.

Yes it's a straightforward step to you. Had the difficulty to obtain the weapon been different, your point of view would be the same? Or does not these weapons match the level of the item it's implemented as?


Maybe they should have made Salvage II gear a little better so it could possibly fill some niches in existing builds. I don’t think anybody wants neo-neo-Salvage. They just want neo-Salvage to have remained relevant and useful for a little longer instead of having something be clearly better, rendering the original event moot.

I think it would be better to place a new salvage with better gear than adjust these. At the price of convenience gear becoming irrelevant isn't new. You seem to think its irrelevant but in reality compare the I level gear you own with Salvage II and tell me if the point your at in the game is the same?

To me it sounds like you haven't grasp the fact that you and everyone else playing SoA are surpassing the level of older content. It's like saying REM players expect 1 item to last forever.


It does not bode well when 3 of the 5 Naakuals are not worth killing while Skirmish was dead on arrival. If you’re not doing Delve while waiting for a Wildskeeper shout (getting less and less common), all that’s left to do is reive. And speeding through content? That's the kind of thing that can happen when you introduce weapons with godly base damage and then give them over 200 attack and accuracy on top of that.

Which this event depends on the amount of people who can play the event. How many people are on that level and how much of the player base exist on your server. Not all servers have the same amount of players.

Well Godly damage to weapons that no one had at the time of release. Unless DEVs adjust the difficulty on a daily basis and did not have to watch the servers and see the effects of implementing things. People complained Colonization reives were too hard. They made it easier. Now people are complaining WR takes too long. Anyone complaining its too hard? Your argument would be understood if we have a thriving player base and several DEV teams to adjust the game on a daily basis. But then shutting down FFXI every single day to make these adjustments are not my idea of waiting to adjust according to the moment each person feels the game should be this way or that way.


I see, did you also stay at a Holiday Inn Express?

No I actually stayed on the bench at the park. Sometimes its best to see things from all points of view. Even if its the from the view of a homeless person.

[Daemon]

Would you please quit flying their flag for a second and think rationally about things? Times change, they evolve. SE wants to be like every other MMO? Fine. Every other major mmo requires their players to upgrade their hardware occasionally or experience sever performance drags, and sometimes no longer able to play.

Honestly I'm not trying to fly their flag. I just think you are wasting your time arguing that "they have no excuse for what they did, this is unreasonable, that is not how you run a game, this is not as important as this." Which I agreed with you already on everything else you said in previous topics but wasting all this time trying to tell you "why are you wasting your breathe, Devs have their reason and complaint about them won't help." (Which by the way I am not putting words in your mouth but giving examples as to how I'm taking your response)


How does that even relate to someone actually reading the posts and replying with a thoughtful post? I don't want a canned response, though at this point those would be better than nothing. I'd like something like--

Well I noticed Community Reps don't reply everyday. They took awhile to respond to my AF4 post. I believe I saw several replies by the reps after the new update. I just think you expect a response at the moment. Which would be great but the more a rep answers facts they have to make sure they officially answer all of us correctly. Which I see as difficult if they have to interact with the DEV team.




See, such a post would mean that the writer clearly read the highlights of the discussion about it, even if he didn't read every page. It promises nothing but effort and investigation.

I just think they are reading them but the less they respond the less conflicts because 1 answer to thousands won't mean everyone will be happy with that answer.

[OmnysValefor]

Which is an easy conclusion. You are ignoring how technology has advanced in the past 11 years. How competition between gaming industry is now struggling with Smart phone companies. How a portion of FFXI players are still playing on older consoles such as PS2. How much time and money it would cost to recode FFXI down to the last expansion.

How can you talk about technology advancing in the past 11 years and simultaneously support that they keep themselves tied to the PS2?

For the upteenth time, PS2 limitations did not cause the lack of foresight that created 130 dmg swords or 240+ damage 2h weapons. No imaginable amount of old code required Adoulin to go like this.

[Daemon]

How can you talk about technology advancing in the past 11 years and simultaneously support that they keep themselves tied to the PS2?

For the upteenth time, PS2 limitations did not cause the lack of foresite that created 130 dmg swords or 240+ damage 2h weapons. No imaginable mount of old code required Adoulin to go like this.

You are combining 2 different points. I never said PS2 limitations has anything to do with creating a 130 DMG sword or 240 damage 2H weapons.

I agreed the level difference is significant. But are you seriously going to hold a grudge of the DMG of an item? So for another 11 years do you think 130 DMG sword is meant to last?

Am I the only one who thinks such increase in DMG on a weapon and such increase in stats are being addressed to to the complaint many of us fed the Devs for several years???

What part of trading in for convenience at the cost of sacrifice are you not understanding? Unless you want to stay depending on 18 man alliances to do everything, I see the cost of sacrificing old weapons for the new, old gear for the new gear allows us to be much more low man friendly if not solo friendly.

And in the future carry less gear saving more inventory space.

They already said they are going to revise REM due to so many complaints so what's the problem? It's just not that time for it to happen yet and I already believe they cannot ignore this. Too many people are upset ready to quit if this particular part of the game is not addressed.

I don't expect them to throw out a quick fix just to keep everyone happy for the moment. In fact I'm expecting them to take their time implementing REM better with thought to actually show they do care than a quick temporary fix.

Although they could just not care at all and make a quick minor adjustment only to add more insult to injury.

[Daemon]

The game is evolving everyday and that's why promises cannot be kept or thrown out into the wild. What might sound like a good idea now, 2 weeks later the progress of the player base might surpass the original idea. So if they announce REM today, 1 month later they may be worthless and need revision.

That's why I'm not holding it against them for not announcing REM.

Especially at a moment where they are constantly implementing new gear. Which is not something that will happen every update but at some point when they do stop, at least that gives time to make better observations.

It makes it harder right now because these new items being implemented change the overall power not just from 1 player but all players which after awhile will effect the overall rate in difficulty to do the current content.

Even if 20 players received 1 Nakuul weapon per day. That's 20 players making the content easier as a whole. 200 players to 2,000 players will change the difficulty of the overall content being played.

As the number become higher say 10,000 to 50,000, to 100,000 players, making an overall estimated guess becomes even much more difficult since these estimates do not conclude to just 1 server. But all servers with various amounts of people.

Whose to say an estimated guess is easy when the amount of time a person obtains a Nakuul weapon could vary at any given moment based on random chance?

Simply releasing stats on REM and waiting up to that point changes everything because how the difficulty of the overall server evolved makes it harder for them to just throw out a simple answer only for that answer to become irrelevant.

Statistics of the server and the content also is not an overnight observation. You can simply complain that they need to inform us but at any given moment certain conditions changes that answer.

Which all comes back to "Balance is not easy."

[Stompa]

The game is evolving everyday

Or devolving.

Please compare battlefields. Campaign battles ; NPC troops and Heroes that use /say with their own unique chat styles and their own unique WS, enemy troops that have names for all the units and enemy Generals that look uber and are fun to battle, mobs that arrive in waves storming across the map toward the ruined castle on the hilltop in a very atmospheric way. Lots of room to spread out and fight the enemies in groups away from the main force, so no Lag problems, and fun solo heroism moments like kiting the Bosses while you waited for more Heroes to arrive etc. And there were medals awarded with a CS that made you feel you were a brave soldier in an immersive and atmospheric storyline. Then you /check map and see every campaign battle going on around the world and warp to it, instead of standing around waiting for the rieve lump of wood to appear. This existed 5+ years ago.
Now fast forward five years to colonisation rieves where you bash the same four boring rabbits/raptors/etc. (in small, crammed and laggy space) over and over, then enjoy the thrill of hitting a lump of wood for a few minutes until the "battle" ends, where you run across the map hoping you've guessed where the next lump of wood will be, and repeat the process. And then spending the 60k+ bayld you earn from grinding those lumps of wood for whole entire Earth days, on the new and powerful Karieyh armor set [aug] which you are totally happy with and put it in your ws macro, only to be told by a friend two weeks later that this brand new armor set is now worthless junk because they just released a different colored version that has like +8 to most stats and extra haste etc. So its back to hitting those lumps of wood for you, and toss that set you just farmed.
If you seriously call the the change from campaign to rieve, which took them five years to think up, is "evolution" then <I don't have anything to give you>. I was really happy to login for campaign battles around 2008, even though I would die twenty times a day in campaign it was fun and excitement, and rieves aren't.
Gear isn't evolving either, Magian Weapons had better job specific bonuses than SoA weaps, with pet-PDT, Store TP, TP Bonus +100, things that you could use to improve your game in subtle but useful ways. SoA weaps are just Tarzan going wild with mega DMG and no finesse. Hardly evolution.

[OmnysValefor]

Incredibly sensible post. I've compared reives and campaign before, but ever with such description.

That was great.

And yeah, I was a campaign junky.

[Daemon]

Personally I'm on the same boat as you guys with a paddle in hand. I mean It had more meaning earning items so hard to obtain something that not everybody has the drive to earn like REM. you actually felt like you put effort into earning something that could last. And yes I come to FFXI for that.

The power you earned was effort seen by such an accomplish that took so much effort.

But that never addressed inventory issues, solo capabilities, and takes too long to get things done when its hard to find people to help you.

So in a way this trade off doesn't leave much room for options the way I see it.

[Daemon]

Or devolving.

Please compare battlefields. Campaign battles ; NPC troops and Heroes that use /say with their own unique chat styles and their own unique WS, enemy troops that have names for all the units and enemy Generals that look uber and are fun to battle, mobs that arrive in waves storming across the map toward the ruined castle on the hilltop in a very atmospheric way. Lots of room to spread out and fight the enemies in groups away from the main force, so no Lag problems, and fun solo heroism moments like kiting the Bosses while you waited for more Heroes to arrive etc. And there were medals awarded with a CS that made you feel you were a brave soldier in an immersive and atmospheric storyline. Then you /check map and see every campaign battle going on around the world and warp to it, instead of standing around waiting for the rieve lump of wood to appear. This existed 5+ years ago.
Now fast forward five years to colonisation rieves where you bash the same four boring rabbits/raptors/etc. (in small, crammed and laggy space) over and over, then enjoy the thrill of hitting a lump of wood for a few minutes until the "battle" ends, where you run across the map hoping you've guessed where the next lump of wood will be, and repeat the process. And then spending the 60k+ bayld you earn from grinding those lumps of wood for whole entire Earth days, on the new and powerful Karieyh armor set [aug] which you are totally happy with and put it in your ws macro, only to be told by a friend two weeks later that this brand new armor set is now worthless junk because they just released a different colored version that has like +8 to most stats and extra haste etc. So its back to hitting those lumps of wood for you, and toss that set you just farmed.
If you seriously call the the change from campaign to rieve, which took them five years to think up, is "evolution" then <I don't have anything to give you>. I was really happy to login for campaign battles around 2008, even though I would die twenty times a day in campaign it was fun and excitement, and rieves aren't.
Gear isn't evolving either, Magian Weapons had better job specific bonuses than SoA weaps, with pet-PDT, Store TP, TP Bonus +100, things that you could use to improve your game in subtle but useful ways. SoA weaps are just Tarzan going wild with mega DMG and no finesse. Hardly evolution.


Yeah I miss those days where kiting bosses were possible. When job such as RDM had its own unique abilities no other jobs could use. I miss those days where you actually spent time with people for long hours rather than a temporary quick moment to get something done. When you actually made friends and could talk for hours end getting to know people on a more personal level.

When people didnt care about items and no one was so fixated on statistics and ignore you based on snap judgments of what you have and what you don't.

A time where we could sit outside town on the grass with others and chill. Explore different areas of every map together. When you got lost or needed help, people were all around willing to walk you there.

Its fun when everyone was on the same level and when not too many others were far apart and rather than focus on playing events for items, we all played together to accomplish different missions, do stuff together. Learn the game together, leveling in areas unknown. Sometimes do silly things like dying next to each other and take snapshots in a line.

When I came back to FFXI all that was gone, a world that has died out and now doing speed runs to accomplish moderate goals.

Then of course FFXI has evolved to playing the game for items rather than play the game with each other caring about the group rather than caring about yourself and how you can hurry up and grab the cookie before the event evolves and the crowd shifts to the next area of the game.

FFXI has changed, and times have evolved and although I miss the old days. There's nothing much of that left but to ride it out the way it is now.

[Zohno]

The problem is that they scaled this vertically instead of horizontally and there is no other objective ahead.
They already released Delve and we know that it will be the top drops event. Meanwhile they are releasing Skirmish to reduce the gap between the events waiting for the last 2 Delve bosses to be added.
And that's the main issue!
Why should I waste my time with Skirmish to get equip that will get replaced right after from a Delve drop, with the same stats as the previous item, lightly boosted, plus some new ones added to it. Hell, I'll just go for the Delve drop and equip myself with Bayld gear until i get it.
They are not giving you an alternative event. Delve is not on par with Skirmish, neither for difficulty nor drops quality. Delve won't require something that you find only on Skirmish's equip to be won, and viceversa since Skirmish is doable with lower quality equip.
By Matsui idea, it's mandatory to follow a predefined track just for god knows why, because it's there. But it has no reason to be there and it's boring. Simply, painfully, boring.

Before we had:
1. levelling in gusgen up to 30
2. levelling in abyssea up to 99
3. build your emp equip
4. REMs, VW, NNI, Salvage, Legion and ya, Skirmish when was worth it

Now you can replace 3. and up with:
3. AFK in Reive to buy Bayld gear
4. Reive, Delve

Have fun.

[Daemon]

I just think making such powerful items easy to obtain so the majority can grasp hold of them is like a quick fix for a junkie. The thing about making things like REM separated everyone in a controlled way. What do I mean?

People at end game with nothing else to do or players who are at the level or moment of the game had such difficult objectives to do on their own.

Which drove attention of others not on the same level to do other parts of the game.

But since Voidwatch to SoA the direction is forcing players to step all over and kill each other over who has a spot to play events to get these items. Which making these events easy seem to draw too much focus on these events than everyone being open to doing stuff that's moderate to the level of the player.

Long quests like REM separated serious players from everyone else.

This is not about elitism by no means. It just had a more sense of control over who's ready to earn certain items over others.

It took gear to earn gear making all content relevant. Now it barely takes effort to earn certain gear to make all other gear irrelevant in order to go for higher gear that requires less effort.

Which is speeding up the gameplay too fast. In a way I think its a lazy approach or a desperate one to keep people interested.

[OmnysValefor]

For the record, we don't know whether new skirmish augments that have been shown are best, worst, or average.

Even still, some of the new skirmish pieces are very attractive to delved out players. I'm not a samurai, but I know every sam I know is drooling over the new gloves.

New Delve's armor will be higher item level, but there may not be plate hands, or it might not have store tp, or haste, or whatever and may not be ideal in sets.

The new delve stuff is also very attractive to paladins in DT sets.

Also, all of it seems to have -DT as augments making it very attractive hybrid gear. If SE releases this tier properly, new skirmish may have plenty of life.

[Kriegsgott]

Or devolving.

Please compare battlefields. Campaign battles ; NPC troops and Heroes that use /say with their own unique chat styles and their own unique WS, enemy troops that have names for all the units and enemy Generals that look uber and are fun to battle, mobs that arrive in waves storming across the map toward the ruined castle on the hilltop in a very atmospheric way. Lots of room to spread out and fight the enemies in groups away from the main force, so no Lag problems, and fun solo heroism moments like kiting the Bosses while you waited for more Heroes to arrive etc. And there were medals awarded with a CS that made you feel you were a brave soldier in an immersive and atmospheric storyline. Then you /check map and see every campaign battle going on around the world and warp to it, instead of standing around waiting for the rieve lump of wood to appear. This existed 5+ years ago.
Now fast forward five years to colonisation rieves where you bash the same four boring rabbits/raptors/etc. (in small, crammed and laggy space) over and over, then enjoy the thrill of hitting a lump of wood for a few minutes until the "battle" ends, where you run across the map hoping you've guessed where the next lump of wood will be, and repeat the process. And then spending the 60k+ bayld you earn from grinding those lumps of wood for whole entire Earth days, on the new and powerful Karieyh armor set [aug] which you are totally happy with and put it in your ws macro, only to be told by a friend two weeks later that this brand new armor set is now worthless junk because they just released a different colored version that has like +8 to most stats and extra haste etc. So its back to hitting those lumps of wood for you, and toss that set you just farmed.
If you seriously call the the change from campaign to rieve, which took them five years to think up, is "evolution" then <I don't have anything to give you>. I was really happy to login for campaign battles around 2008, even though I would die twenty times a day in campaign it was fun and excitement, and rieves aren't.
Gear isn't evolving either, Magian Weapons had better job specific bonuses than SoA weaps, with pet-PDT, Store TP, TP Bonus +100, things that you could use to improve your game in subtle but useful ways. SoA weaps are just Tarzan going wild with mega DMG and no finesse. Hardly evolution.

i want to marry you for this !

[Glamdring]

Seeing how the gear treadmill is where they are heading in the game I doubt they will bother and at some point ilvl will leave even the NNI gear behind.

I gotta disagree. I mean really, a chance to make us grind for more stuff? SE will be all over that, the question is the timing.

[Stompa]

i want to marry you for this !

/blush

I wouldn't want to tie you down. But sometimes that can be fun too.