Trials of the Magians and casual players.

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Originally Posted by Zagen

I'm sorry are you all the way up to date on the previous stuff already? I mean if you are then how aren't you able to clear the new stuff. Did you miss the part where I mentioned the group I did the matamata with was compromised of people who are far from "well geared" (far from caught up). It really just takes some research, planning, and getting people together to get the new content done it isn't actually that hard. Everyday it gets less hard as those hardcore players figure out how exactly the new gimmicks work and they aren't even jerks about it they make their knowledge free for all to read.

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Case by case this isn't the average community response. You're still basing the direction on the hardcore (bolded in your quote) audience and neglecting the casuals completely. All players started with the older content standard when new content came out. In this case most players started on even ground.

Eventually players will set new high standards for what is acceptable setups. Right now you can allow those people in the near future if you do the same events people won't be so accepting of those setups. Casual players can't keep up and this is where the trial weapons would allow them some way to move forward. Since these will become inferior junk the only alternatives result in no progression or hardcore dedication for the NEW IMPROVED gear standards.

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Originally Posted by Sarick

Case by case this isn't the average community response. You're still basing the direction on the hardcore (bolded in your quote) audience and neglecting the casuals completely. All players started with the older content standard when new content came out. In this case most players started on even ground.

Eventually players will set new high standards for what is acceptable setups. Right now you can allow those people in the near future if you do the same events people won't be so accepting of those setups. Casual players can't keep up and this is where the trial weapons would allow them some way to move forward. Since these will become inferior junk the only alternatives result in no progression or hardcore dedication for the NEW IMPROVED gear standards.

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If "casual" players need TotM to remain relevant to participate in new fresh content how exactly are they helping discover the tips and tricks to new content? The context I used hardcore that you quoted was as in the players who explore new content without knowing how it works and then talk about it in a public manner and then create wiki pages for said info.

As to players who set "high standards" when exactly was TotM ever part of that? I mean it was R/E/M when VW/NNI/Salvage2 was new and before that was Abyssea where you were expected to have relevant proc spells/weapon skills which had nothing to do with TotM weapons.

I do have a genuine question for those who call themselves "casual players". If you have reduced play time and are doing things at your own pace why are you trying to take on the newest content when you haven't cleared the past content?

I ask because if you have cleared the older content you'd have more than adequate gear to take on the new stuff. As SE has stated that's how they want you to progress through the game.

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Originally Posted by Zagen

I do have a genuine question for those who call themselves "casual players". If you have reduced play time and are doing things at your own pace why are you trying to take on the newest content when you haven't cleared the past content?

I ask because if you have cleared the older content you'd have more than adequate gear to take on the new stuff. As SE has stated that's how they want you to progress through the game.

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Because you don't just start out with the best gear or even decent gear you have to work your way up to a minimum set. If those minimum sets aren't even minimal you can't reach the next step without somehow making 3-4 jumps.

Look at it like this most people who level these days don't even bother with most gear ranges 1-80ish. The reason is not only because you level fast but also because the broad range of in between gear isn't available. With the trial weapons you start out with a FREE BASE weapon and build it over time in a casual fashion.

It's like trying to fish Lik with a Cloth pole. You need to at least get a Lu first or you'll never catch a single fish. The rod will snap like a twig every time because the equipment is inferior. The newer gear is just that much better. The standard is set high for most of the community you might give allowance for casuals but the majority are only in it for #1.

Unlike fishing or building crafting skills you need to be accepted, have a reputation and/or minimal gear. With trials casuals didn't need any of that for the most part. In fishing/crafting you can skill up at your own pace. There are no other players holding you back outside the amount of resources you can come by.

To get the new gear you just can't jump into the events as a casual player. Players are being forced into new content or GTFO. There aren't alternative routes created for casuals everyone has to follow the same path to get anything decent. By design this one sided. This frustration doesn't make people stay long.

Casual isn't the case with the new expansion. There is a minimum requirement to team up with others. The new content is brutal for casual players. You need the better gear to survive at a minimal level. What I see is something along the lines of at level 99 you should already have decent gear. That first step isn't enough of a starting point with the vast jump in gear quality. The recent changes have created a void that leaves casuals alienated from participating in events geared toward their type of growth.

Have you noticed where are the new players? Both my social linkshells broke after the new expansion one of which was casual and in good standing membership of well over 50 players. The leader was very active and suddenly people started disappearing until only a few where left then the shell died.

This game desperately needs more casual content from the new expansion. The casual players I know aren't staying because most of them hate the expansion. The unbalanced content is so extreme that anything based on older casual content even the level 99 stuff is gutter trash. Ding.. there's your answer.

This whole topic is about upgrading casual alternative weapons to be decent for the new expansion areas. NOT THE BEST but decent. When you point out how lazy the players are for not being dedicated you've neglected the fact that the programmers haven't updated the old content. My guess is they don't plan on rebalencing the mog trial gear. Clearly it's too much work to update only that content when they can just create new content for the hardcore players.

Okay so it looks like we are in agreement to a degree when it comes to the progress, now here's how I see it:

1) Abyssea Cruor Gear, TotM Elemental/WS paths, and 75 content gear (sky/sea/af/relic/etc.)
2) Emp armor/weapons
3) VW armor and weapons (I guess imo weapons are too situational)
4) Neo Salvage/Limbus
5) Bayld Peacekeeper gear
6) Neo Nyzul
7) SoA Craftables
8) Wildskeeper armor/weapons
9) Delve Plasm armor/weapons
10) Delve Boss armor/weapons

Now some can be skipped/ignored/done in different order whatever you want to call it but I mean if you as a player see there is an order of progression as existing and you're at step 1 why should you expect to compete with players at step 6-9 before getting closer to that point?

I understand at one point SE said TotM would always remain relevant but they also said BST would get the pet with the most votes when asked about new pets or how SMN were supposed to get new Avatars over a year ago. SE never goes back on their word nope not ever.

As to new players not staying that's simple, the MMORPG model "pay 2 play" is dead. WoW is feeling it and Blizzard has already admitted they expect to keep losing players. I sure hope 14 is prepared to switch models but that's a whole other topic all together.

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Originally Posted by Zagen

Okay so it looks like we are in agreement to a degree when it comes to the progress, now here's how I see it:

1) Abyssea Cruor Gear, TotM Elemental/WS paths, and 75 content gear (sky/sea/af/relic/etc.)
2) Emp armor/weapons
3) VW armor and weapons (I guess imo weapons are too situational)
4) Neo Salvage/Limbus
5) Bayld Peacekeeper gear
6) Neo Nyzul
7) SoA Craftables
8) Wildskeeper armor/weapons
9) Delve Plasm armor/weapons
10) Delve Boss armor/weapons

Now some can be skipped/ignored/done in different order whatever you want to call it but I mean if you as a player see there is an order of progression as existing and you're at step 1 why should you expect to compete with players at step 6-9 before getting closer to that point?

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What people want is alternative gear that is a casual path. It doesn't need to be the best. This gear is in the form of older content growth not the new shoved in your face content. Plain and simple. As I stated before the best games the have multiple paths toward development. These excel because players aren't restricted to one path.The ones that are inflexible (forced as to hard or to easy) fail the hardest. This game is after all a glorified chat room where people come to enjoy a game not work a second job.


Before this expansion a player could choose any RME or trial and build them up. All these gears scaled nearly identical and remained powerful. Even the trial gear was comparable to the uber gear for casual player. Now you see in this new content the only RME are relevant to the new content in the FINAL stage.

Mog trial type casual weapons are extremely inferior and not even worth creating. Wrose the FINAL stage RME are ludicrous to create outside cheating, exploitation or absurd dedication.

In your quote gil farming to get stage 7 gear just proves how broken everything 1-6 is. This is the Jump that makes all content below 7 a joke. No onein their right mind would want to work for that content when they can power gear themselves like cleave parties with stage 7 gear.

The new content wasn't shoved in your face. I still see players shouting for seal/+2 farming and they do just fine so I just don't get it. It's not like SoA came out and now you can't do old stuff you're still on.

After the expansion you can still pick R/E/M/TotM to work on in order to better take on the next step in progression, you know just like how years ago we used to buy armor and weapons while leveling up.

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Originally Posted by Zagen

The new content wasn't shoved in your face. I still see players shouting for seal/+2 farming and they do just fine so I just don't get it. It's not like SoA came out and now you can't do old stuff you're still on.

After the expansion you can still pick R/E/M/TotM to work on in order to better take on the next step in progression, you know just like how years ago we used to buy armor and weapons while leveling up.

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I think you're missing the point.

That older content is a waste of time because it caps out. Without paths to make it compatible you need to eventually get the new content and throw out the old content. Gear isn't scaled it pushes forward towards new content. This smoke screen that RME will always be relevant is a joke when the gear is only relevant in it's final forum. Like I said everything below step 7 on your list is gutter trash (most of it). It's more adventitious to farm gil and buy the flippen crafted gear then to develop those old obsolete gear paths. Even the new content gear listed in #5 is more or less a an improved version of the pink armors bought in abbysea.

The new casual is farming gil for AH crafted gear because other content doesn't compete.

This argument is ridiculous. So let me get this straight: even though SE has explicitly stated that not all gear is designed to be acquired by all players, you're basically saying you want SE to reward casual play in the form of you getting gear that is on par with Delve equipment by....

not only doing something that will literally take you longer real life time (TotM),
but that doesn't involve new content?

All you have to do is kill 1-4 NM's in a pick up group and you can be as casual as you wanna be.
Delve is a 45min event. If that's not casual I don't know what is.

Am I saying to do this 10x a day? No.
Am I saying to stop holding onto the past? Absolutely

There is literally no mental effort required to get this gear. You can be a complete idiot that has absolutely no idea what you're doing, and all you have to do is wait for a shout, join it, and do what someone says. If that's not casual enough, I can't help you anymore.

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Originally Posted by Gippo

This argument is ridiculous. So let me get this straight: even though SE has explicitly stated that not all gear is designed to be acquired by all players, you're basically saying you want SE to reward casual play in the form of you getting gear that is on par with Delve equipment

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No I'm saying the old system worked. You also had more growth options that don't exist in the new system. I never once said make them BEST I said decent. On a scale of 1-5 decent is average or 3 where best would be a 5. If you score the new gear and relate them to old casual content you have stuff that was decent being 1 or below with the other new content being rated at a 10. I made this by looking at the different from near final gear of RME weapons in comparison to the new tiers.

If best was 5 and new content is double that then they must be a 10! That makes the trial weapons scale 3 out of 10. where they should be scaled to at least a 5 and RME should be scaled to at least an 8. If these numbers where simplified back to the 1/5 scale trials would be 1 or 2 RMEs would be 4 and new content would be a 5. Like I told the other guy the new casual is gil farming for AH crafted gear because the other stuff isn't worth the effort if you don't already have it.

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Originally Posted by Gippo

all you have to do is wait for a shout, join it, and do what someone says.

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I bolded the statement you made to clarify what you just said: "wait join and do what someone says" exactly what I expect. This is easier said then done it's also not casual play. It's just another rat race for better gear when the designers could've further developed the activities that actually worked.

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Originally Posted by Zagen

Okay so it looks like we are in agreement to a degree when it comes to the progress, now here's how I see it:

1) Abyssea Cruor Gear, TotM Elemental/WS paths, and 75 content gear (sky/sea/af/relic/etc.)
2) Emp armor/weapons
3) VW armor and weapons (I guess imo weapons are too situational)
4) Neo Salvage/Limbus
5) Bayld Peacekeeper gear
6) Neo Nyzul
7) SoA Craftables
8) Wildskeeper armor/weapons
9) Delve Plasm armor/weapons
10) Delve Boss armor/weapons

Now some can be skipped/ignored/done in different order whatever you want to call it but I mean if you as a player see there is an order of progression as existing and you're at step 1 why should you expect to compete with players at step 6-9 before getting closer to that point?

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Just want to chime in on this as a returning player, as been having fun with this gear struggle. Getting from 0 to 1 is very easy seeing as the cruor equip is dirt cheep on the AH and not that hard to fill in the gaps with cost effective gear. Gear from 2-4, and 6, good luck getting people to help on that stuff anymore. Been stuck trying to get some of the gear in those areas for a while. I have not really dabbled with 5 yet, as beating on a rock or root does not seem all that fun especially when some gear from the other areas seem to be more useful than most of the gear obtained via bayld, and have limited time as well.

Now 7 would be a nice alternative, if they were more affordable, but alas not everyone has a million plus gil to throw at a single gear slot.

As for 8,9, and 10, good luck on doing those on anything but a support job unless you are already decently geared.

Now, I get that different content favors different jobs, but one should not be forced to level a job they have no desire to play just to get gear for the one they do want to play. This means either via playing a support job to participate in end game stuff, or leveling one of few jobs that can solo that earlier content. Zagen, you mentioned earlier that you know what its like not being able to do content you want on a job you like. Consider being forced to do that from level 1-99, because of how hard it is to get assistance on old content now. People are already advised to level WHM first for a few reasons, one is easy Maat fight, and 2nd is can use it to gear what ever else one wants to play.

I don't consider myself a casual or hardcore player, partly because I do try and put in the effort to excel at the jobs I really enjoy, but never had the time to do the big endgame events. So here I am stuck not being able to really progress, because it would be easier to take a little kid to the dentist then it is to get help on non-SoA content currently. With being a returning player, I know how much reputation can mean in this game, so really don't want to be showing up to these more end game like events with the more newbish gear even if could do so.

Now as to the arguments about seeing people shouting for groups to do seal/+2 farming, or join in a delve group that is shouting. For the first one, they likely have to resort to shouting because their linkshell(if they have one) is not helping them out with it, plus shouts I kinda see as a last resort as it has one sitting in town likely doing nothing for who knows how long. And as to the delve stuff, right now you might be able to sneak in a cruor geared non-support, but that is getting harder to do.