Blurple Behemoths. Why is the mogogle scolding me?

[bungiefanNA]

Trying to do the first part of the event, the moogle scolds me to remember my elements, when there is absolutely no in-game indicator of what elements correspond to which weaponskills. How are we supposed to understand how they interact without looking outside of the game? If he's scolding me, there must be some simple way to learn these. The unofficial skillchain charts on the internet are huge and complex. Something needs to simplify this system. Can you add a color to the icons in the menu that says what element is associated for skillchain purposes? This is the most infurioating event ever, because the event expects you to understand an original game mechanic that has never been explained simply in-game, beyond that certain elements combine if you do the weaponskils with a slight delay between them, and you threw a time limit in to the mix to make reading the chart even harder. How much of the population can reasonably be expected to memorize this thing? In real parties when we use skillchains and magic burst, we plan them out ahead of time, not on the fly out of random skills.

Thank goodness you didn't force mage jobs to do Magic Bursts on reflex instead. The naming of the skillchain effects (at least in English) aren't very indicative of the elements either, and you've got about 20 of those to memorize.

13 years, and nobody has been able to explain to me why the system works in a way that I can recognize without a multipage guide in front of me. Seeing it in-game live gives no idea to a new player what is going on and why. Friends used to joke they didn't play MMORPGs because they didn't want a doctorate in EverQuest or whatever the popular game was at the time, and this is definitely a mechanic that feels like it needs a college degree in mystic arts to understand.

[Raydeus]

Git gud.


/10char




PS > Although to be fair I struggled at first to even remember how WS elements worked until I gave the SC chart a good look. But I really liked that the Mog didn't pull any punches and punished you for failing both with his words and with a nice pan to the head that made you lose even more time.

Not much of that in games anymore these days.

[bungiefanNA]

The problem is the chart is cluttered with every type, and the event gives you just 5 weapons to work with, one being Blue Magic. The chart is cluttered to work out which types are where, and you have to prine it yourself, which takes a lot of time. If the moogle can say something simple about needing to remember the elements, then they could at least give a simple way to understand what the elements attached even are.

The 1 minute time limit is just crazy when trying to learn this. Before Abyssea, I only ever got BLM and WHM to cap, I never had to use weaponskills in combat, just spells, and they would call out what they were using beforehand for me to burst on, so I just had to time the spell. Turning it into a reflex game with over 100 WS in it is insane to memorize, for an event that lasts 2 weeks or so.

[Isal]

I just blunted my way through it until I hit 100 points, took about 20-30 minutes.

I agree though, the "fast track" really was just a reward for people who have that stuff memorized.

[Shirai]

I just blunted my way through it until I hit 100 points, took about 20-30 minutes.

Same here, although due to a fluke of sheer luck I managed to get a 28 point perfect last round which also pushed me over the 100 points.
That said, if you manage to get 10 points in a round and have not made any mistake, stop right there and let the clock run out! A perfect round doubles your points putting you at the necessary 20.

[Alhanelem]

Trying to do the first part of the event, the moogle scolds me to remember my elements, when there is absolutely no in-game indicator of what elements correspond to which weaponskills.It's a quiz, essentially. Why would they give you the answers?
If you need the answers, that's what the practice mode is for.

[Idleness]

I liked it. Reminded me of the time when people knew what WS worked together (Pre Aht-Urghan). Though even then, no-one WS with a staff, Blue Magic wasn't a thing, and half the WS in the event didn't exist. But still.

/I'm ashamed to say it took me like 30 mins. In my defence, some of the WS were added *after* I left the game and before I came back.

[bazookatooth]

I liked it. Reminded me of the time when people knew what WS worked together (Pre Aht-Urghan). Though even then, no-one WS with a staff, Blue Magic wasn't a thing, and half the WS in the event didn't exist. But still.

/I'm ashamed to say it took me like 30 mins. In my defence, some of the WS were added *after* I left the game and before I came back.

That was what bothered me. The event is all about weapon skills that no one ever used / uses. I could understand if the weapon skills were all ones that people would typically use in a party at 75+, but there's no real reason to know most of these skill chains.

[Alhanelem]

The only really cheap part of this is the addition of the Goblin. Neither of the "WS" he uses are actual WS. "Goblin Rush" does not SC the same as the BLU spell in this event- Bomb Toss is magical and shouldn't skillchain at all.

[bungiefanNA]

It's a quiz, essentially. Why would they give you the answers?
If you need the answers, that's what the practice mode is for.

A quiz where the rules aren't clearly explained for why anything works. Practice mode would make it take even longer, as the weaponskills are picked 2 at a time randomly out of the pool. There's so many for each weapon, that the number of combinations is huge.

[Alhanelem]

A quiz where the rules aren't clearly explained for why anything works. Practice mode would make it take even longer, as the weaponskills are picked 2 at a time randomly out of the pool. There's so many for each weapon, that the number of combinations is huge.
If you really know your skillchain chart, it's not that hard. Hopefully unless you're a brand new player you know how skillchains work, they shouldn't need to put in a detailed explanation.

Also, the three cities each have different NPCs in the mock battle, so if you know certain weapons better than others, you will have better luck in a different location.

If you search around, some people have made modified skillchain charts that only show the weapon types used in a particular city's BBB event.

[detlef]

If you really know your SC chart... No. It's hard for anybody. There is very little reason for the average player to know the absolute ins and outs of skillchaining. And with a 1 minute time limit it's not practical to look things up on the fly. I'm sure I'm like a lot of people who guessed 80% of the time and eventually managed to accumulate 100 pity points. The event is a nice try but it's probably too demanding for the average player to be played the way it was intended to be played.

[Alhanelem]

There is very little reason for the average player to know the absolute ins and outs of skillchaining.If you don't at least know skillchains that can be done with the weapon you use most, you've got some learning to do. The practice mode is just like the normal mode but it tells you what the answers are. Running through that a couple of times will teach you some of the combinations you may not know.

I used a modified chart while doing the event and got 100 points a lot quicker than i might have if I didn't. It's still enough to get at least 3-4 correct answers (and thereby get the bonus), since I only know well what chains I can start and finish with staff and HTH.

I won't say its not unforgiving, but it's something that can be learned and that people should learn. Educating people about the system, since the game ordinarily doesn't explain much of it, was probably one of the goals of the event. You'll eventually get through it even if you know nothing going in, so I really don't think it's a big deal.

[detlef]

If you don't at least know skillchains that can be done with the weapon you use most, you've got some learning to do.Sure, you should know this. But that knowledge doesn't really help you very much for this event does it? Then again, I think you're overestimating the average player, particularly one who players primarily healing or support.

Look, we know SE is crazy about skillchains right now, but the event doesn't really teach so much as it either encourages you to play through it the unintended way or quit without finishing. The inclusion of the goblin was also completely unnecessary.

[bungiefanNA]

I haven't had to learn skillchains because I've been a career BLM and WHM, without playing melee jobs. I only picked up SAM to do missions solo after the QOL updates, where my mage was too squishy, or a boss had magic resistance. BLM and WHM don't gain TP fast enough to self-skillchain, and SAM just spams one WS to keep doing Light, so I've never had to build one. Also, when I've been in a party, the leader has organized the WS< and I've just had to pick an element of magic to Burst with. The automated calculator on sites is easier to read than the chart, and the chart is huge to memorize, without understanding why the skills are grouped the way they are. If I was playing on PS2 before I had a dual-screen PC setup, I didn't even have the calculator or chart handy to work with, and the game gives no indication in-game.

I think skillchains are a nice system to have, to encourage player coordination, but the explanation for the mechanics of them is lacking. Blindly following the chart does not lead to understanding.

[dasva]

A quiz where the rules aren't clearly explained for why anything works. Practice mode would make it take even longer, as the weaponskills are picked 2 at a time randomly out of the pool. There's so many for each weapon, that the number of combinations is huge.

How isn't it explained? They tell you to perform skillchains and get points... it's asking you to remember things about how the game works (or be able to look them up real fast). And yes it's implies some memorization similar to how you memorized any number of things. This isn't a teaching game other than by general recognition thru repetition which is why it's scolding you like you are an adventurer why didn't you learn this kupo!?! In the end though it's a small little reward for people who learned in the form of being able to finish faster but anyone can still finish the event quite easily just takes a bit more time.


The automated calculator on sites is easier to read than the chart, and the chart is huge to memorize, without understanding why the skills are grouped the way they are.

I think skillchains are a nice system to have, to encourage player coordination, but the explanation for the mechanics of them is lacking. Blindly following the chart does not lead to understanding.
If you don't want to memorize the chart and want to understand why don't you learn the mechanics on how skillchain elements work together....? The chart is just a simple quick lookup tool. Which doesn't help as much when doing multistep. Then you'd just have to memorize ws elements (doubt there is a way to put an indication for that even if they wanted to given the amount) and how lvl 1 elements work since they are seminonsensical and you should already understand how lvl 2 and 3 work

[Karbuncle]

A quiz where the rules aren't clearly explained for why anything works. Practice mode would make it take even longer, as the weaponskills are picked 2 at a time randomly out of the pool. There's so many for each weapon, that the number of combinations is huge.

Rules are explained quite well actually. If you talk to the Moogle he'll give you a list of all the Skillchain elements of each weapon type and tell you how hey work together.

Don't get me wrong. Its a lot to take in and I hated it as well because its super f**king complex, like SUPER complex, I can barely remember my T3 Skillchains, let alone T2 and lower. But... lets be real, All the information is in the game, the exact same moogle you talk to to start the mini-game will spell out for you every elemental property and how they work if you just read the menu options.

[AyinDygra]

No, really, you shouldn't have to memorize a complex skill chain chart. They should make it clear in the menus, while selecting your weaponskills -- while you're playing the game -- how they interact.

I'd go so far as to add a contextual help box that takes into account the most recent weaponskill used in the battle, that says what skillchain will result if you use the weaponskill you have your cursor over in the weaponskill menu (and maybe what level the skillchain is, like Lv2 Fusion or Lv3 Light)

Clearly, the battle system and menu system are not built to receive this information (they already told us what information is streamed to the clients, and this stuff certainly isn't)... but It would be ideal for such a complex system as this.

Anyway, most actual usage of Skillchains is planned ahead of time by a party.

The event was a tedious bore to me, because I wasn't going to bother looking up all the skillchain possibilities just for this event, so I pushed through 1 to 10 points a shot. The Behemoth battles with groups and the NPCs interjecting weaponskills... yeah, gotta go with a party with pre-planned weaponskills to do it fast... or wait for the spammage objective and hope you have enough active participants to complete it.

I've never liked the implementation of skillchains... love the concept though.

[Alhanelem]

I'd go so far as to add a contextual help box that takes into account the most recent weaponskill used in the battle, that says what skillchain will result if you use the weaponskill you have your cursor over in the weaponskill menu (and maybe what level the skillchain is, like Lv2 Fusion or Lv3 Light)The server does the skillchain calculations. The client doesn't know if your weapon skill will cause a skillchain or not. Especially when people are spamming stuff, that information would be unreliable at best anyway. However, I would definitely support the notion of the help text for weaponskills stating their skillchain alignment in the help text.