Bayld Needed to Obtain the Wildskeeper Reive Key Item

Greetings everyone!

During the version update scheduled to take place at the end of the month, we will be making an adjustment so that the Bayld cost for the Wildskeeper Reive key items are reduced based on your rank with each Coalition. (We're currently finalizing development and testing on this.)

We’ll be sure to let you know additional details in the coming days!

This is a really good idea. Aside from fixing the steep price take on the Wildkeeper reives, it'll encourage people to do stuff for the shunned Coalitions (Inventors/Mummers) so we'll have more balanced growth in the colonization. Looking forward to it.

Not to be a negative nancy but it wouldnt be much of an issue if they made the content you used to gain bayld a little more interesting. So far the expansion has been pretty lackluster and mind-numbing. Reives were exciting at first but that excitement wained fast. There are a select few players who seem to be doing the quests and reives, and while there are always groups out there doing them, its mostly always the same people.

When you release a new expansion and after the first week there are only maybe 100 people participating in that expansions new content while 2k are doing what they did before release, you may wanna take a good look at whats going on

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When you release a new expansion and after the first week there are only maybe 100 people participating in that expansions new content while 2k are doing what they did before release, you may wanna take a good look at whats going on

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While I agree that the expansion content is far from finished and could use ongoing tweaks, I don't think it's fair to judge it based on the reason you're mentioning. People aren't going to drop everything they've been doing to dive into the new content, especially when it is rather unforgiving, making it essential to put together basic gear sets beforehand.

Besides, if everyone jumped ship during the first few weeks of the expansion, wouldn't that say more about the weakness of the previous content rather than the strength of the expansion?

The problem with Adoulin content isn't that it's "challenging", but rather that it's boring. I'd like to think I have at least basic gear sets and I deal with Adoulin content just fine- killing roots for hours so I can either get a Skirmish piece or grind out enough for 1 wildskeeper reive isn't very fun, though. I didn't expect to drop all the old content but I really didn't expect that I'd actually prefer running old content to doing colonization.

I'm honestly not sure how they can fix it at this point. Maybe they'll surprise me, but it seems like Colonization Reives are the "basic content" of this expansion and if you want to get anywhere you'll be expecting to have to whack rocks and roots for hours. Lowering the Wildskeeper Reive cost will be a good start...I guess I just find it dumb I have to farm for 5+ hours just so I can get to the "real content" or whatever. I mean, MMOs are always a grind, sure, but I don't want to grind just so I can play the game.

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Originally Posted by Fermion

While I agree that the expansion content is far from finished and could use ongoing tweaks, I don't think it's fair to judge it based on the reason you're mentioning. People aren't going to drop everything they've been doing to dive into the new content, especially when it is rather unforgiving, making it essential to put together basic gear sets beforehand.

Besides, if everyone jumped ship during the first few weeks of the expansion, wouldn't that say more about the weakness of the previous content rather than the strength of the expansion?

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Not necessarily. When a game as old as ffxi with such a huge gap between full blown expansions finally releases a new one you would expect ppl to be crawling all over it. Esp when such a large percentage of the playerbase already has more than just basic gear sets.

But when people flood the new areas and after a week decide that none of it is interesting or worth doing then you know its the new content that is weak, not the old.

Totally agree, if Reives is the main bread and butter of SoA - we can pretty much say this expansion is the worst ever to be released. It sucks beyond belief and utterly boring if players are stuck with reives, and unable to progress anywhere. None of the previous expansions have this type of "walled" progression, not even WoTG which is considered one of the worst. You can almost see - a new players returning a year from now, getting stuck on SoA content not able to progress rankwise due to no one doing reives. They better fix this atrocious game mechanic or it would be very hard for returning players or new players to complete this once the novelty wore off and very few people bother to do it.

People are so impatient. Seekers of Adoulin is in its basic form, and I have enjoyed it so far to be honest. Reives are a bit repetitive, but I know they will release missions and the more fun content will unlock over time.

Is Skirmish fun? I have not done one yet, but would very much like too.

I think the issue right now is I feel more like a gardener and an exterminator than an adventurer. Reives make your average Campaign battle seem downright compelling by comparison.

Whack the roots and kill the bugs, that sounds awesome!! They really should rethink this whole reive battle thing, it is clearly that it was not designed well and rather lackluster. I really hope this is not the key thing to progress in SoA, I can see a year from now the whole zone is emptied and if you returning, you can't progress much. The same problem that is plaguing WoTG areas - and Walk of Echoes. And pretty much city clear Voidwatch and lower tier Jeuno and Zilart. No one bother to do these anymore and it is taking a long time and generate very low interest.

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Originally Posted by Camiie

I think the issue right now is I feel more like a gardener and an exterminator than an adventurer. Reives make your average Campaign battle seem downright compelling by comparison.

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I feel exactly the same. On the positive side, I actually like the pace of Reives compared to campaign battles. I like the predictable battle times, the smaller fight area, the auto-evals, and the Reive unity bonuses. The mechanics to me are fine. It's a little odd having to aggro mobs on SCH on purpose just so I can get points for curing myself, but whatever.

However, as a person trying to be a hero in a fantasy land, whacking trees, rocks, grasshoppers, bunnies and butterflies is... I don't know what to call it. Boring? That doesn't quite cover it. I have to keep reminding myself it's fun for logistical reasons while I nuke another ladybug.

My guess is people will say it's not much different than old xp parties fighting crabs and birds. Those always seemed like player choices to me though due to ease and xp chains. But when SE puts the group battles out there explicitly, they're usually more compelling mobs - beast men in Campaign and the hordes of nasties in Besieged are pretty cool.

I haven't done nearly enough exterminating and silly "surveying" yet to come close to a Wildskeeper Reive. Hopefully those will be a little more heroic, but I don't think I'll have the patience to get there :(

I have many problems with Reive that stop me from doing it, other than the lack of fun.
1. To the best of my knowledge there is no way to tell when one is going to pop other than watching for people gathering.
2. The reward for actions varies strictly on the type of job you play.
3. Layer Reives aren't worth doing at this point
4. The range in which you have to retain makes it impossible to pull a single monster and fight it without eventually linking all of the monsters.
5. The butterflies spam a silence move, assuming you don't want to waste 3 stacks of echo drops every run it really is a deterrent for playing a caster.

An example of the class imbalance can easily be pointed out here. A couple days ago I took a thf, my sch, and a brd to a layer Reive and super tanked the mobs with the thf. I spammed cure IVs and the brd kept buffs on both. As sch I don't think I stopped curing the whole fight, it was a 4-5 min fight so this was allot of curing. When the layer died the points had been distributed like this.

~800 for thf
~300 for sch
~90 for brd

All the thf did was auto attack and spam WS, my sch was non stop busy the whole fight and it got less than half the points, the the relic brd required to keep my sch's mp high enough to spam cure IV got nearly a 10th of what the thf did despite having performed its primary function.

If you consider the amount of damage players will be taking in normal settings, trying to get points as a caster is feudal, you cast the odd buff, you cast a cure here and there, but really you can't do enough work to even get half the points that a mele who just mindlessly smacked around some monster got.

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Originally Posted by Daniel

~800 for thf
~300 for sch
~90 for brd

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How much damage did each job do? Were the SCH and BRD meleeing the wasp nest while buffing and curing?
Honestly, I get more then that combined on PUP/DNC, and the only thing I have to do is keep hidden while my pet tears the wasp nest to pieces. (Which is harder then it sounds, since no spot is safe, and there's ALWAYS a damn bee looking at you when you need to get sneak and invis back up.)

Sometimes it can be surprisingly difficult to get your cure score up.

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Originally Posted by Kristal

How much damage did each job do? Were the SCH and BRD meleeing the wasp nest while buffing and curing?

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No the brd and I were not meleing, the mobs that were being super tanked were the mantis so getting anywhere close was not an option.

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Originally Posted by Merton9999

I feel exactly the same. On the positive side, I actually like the pace of Reives compared to campaign battles. I like the predictable battle times, the smaller fight area, the auto-evals, and the Reive unity bonuses. The mechanics to me are fine. It's a little odd having to aggro mobs on SCH on purpose just so I can get points for curing myself, but whatever.

However, as a person trying to be a hero in a fantasy land, whacking trees, rocks, grasshoppers, bunnies and butterflies is... I don't know what to call it. Boring? That doesn't quite cover it. I have to keep reminding myself it's fun for logistical reasons while I nuke another ladybug.

My guess is people will say it's not much different than old xp parties fighting crabs and birds. Those always seemed like player choices to me though due to ease and xp chains. But when SE puts the group battles out there explicitly, they're usually more compelling mobs - beast men in Campaign and the hordes of nasties in Besieged are pretty cool.

I haven't done nearly enough exterminating and silly "surveying" yet to come close to a Wildskeeper Reive. Hopefully those will be a little more heroic, but I don't think I'll have the patience to get there :(

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Well the flip side of that coin is you could be fighting dragons, demons and undead that do 9,001 damage per hit and spam aoe's that inflict any combination of Death, Doom, Petrify, Zombie, Charm, 75% HP down or full dispel.

Be very VERY careful what you wish for, this is SE we're talking about not a competent developer. They see "challange" and immediately go into Killer Game Master mode where they think of the most unbalanced impossible and utterly ridiculous way to kill players. Given the choice between Monty Haul and Killer GM, Monty Haul wins every time.

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Originally Posted by detlef

Sometimes it can be surprisingly difficult to get your cure score up.

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I've devised a fix for that. I go BLU to Reives and bring my WHM dual box. On BLU I rotate the following while smacking the roots

BA + GoH
CA + Efflux WoR

Occasionally using

Demoralizing Roar
Actinic Burst

And whenever it's up I use WoR just for good measure. I keep cocoon up at all times along with Pro / Shell V from my WHM. This results in everything nearby trying very very hard to kill me while my WHM spams Cure IV / III on me to keep me alive. I typically get 3.5~4K from the Yahse and battlegrounds with my WHM getting 2~3K.

As a Game Master myself on occasion, I feel success lies somewhere between Monty and the Killer. Players should be rewarded for heroic deeds, but they should also be careful not to get too cocky. I know some guys who will get pissy when a group goes in the opposite direction of the planned storyline so their immediate response is violence, but personally I prefer to allow the players to go on a tangent until they get bored and ask for some direction. It's also hilarious to me when an adventurer decides to go off by themselves and get into a ridiculous situation, because then I can have fun and not have to kill them. Destroying PCs is boring, Polymorphing them into a Goose that can only speak common with a french accent is fun for everybody.

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Originally Posted by Caketime

As a Game Master myself on occasion, I feel success lies somewhere between Monty and the Killer. Players should be rewarded for heroic deeds, but they should also be careful not to get too cocky. I know some guys who will get pissy when a group goes in the opposite direction of the planned storyline so their immediate response is violence, but personally I prefer to allow the players to go on a tangent until they get bored and ask for some direction. It's also hilarious to me when an adventurer decides to go off by themselves and get into a ridiculous situation, because then I can have fun and not have to kill them. Destroying PCs is boring, Polymorphing them into a Goose that can only speak common with a french accent is fun for everybody.

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Or getting a high-level barbarian resurrected as an eagle ;) Can't use weapons or armor, but who cares about that when you got a pair of talons, barbarian rage and a death-from-above cry that causes weaker ground dwellers to run in fear :D