Lack of content and another level increase looming

[Francisco]

What ? Having the best gear at any given time has always been the goal in FFXI ; otherwise you can just quit once you reach level 90 seriously. Do you do MMM, do you do chocobo raising do you do pankration ? Nope ? k.

What I mean is, a lot of people think that once they have the best gear, they assume it'll stay the best forever.

Plenty of Usukane MNKs, for instance, flipped out at the introduction of Tantra +2.

[MarkovChain]

What I mean is, a lot of people think that once they have the best gear, they assume it'll stay the best forever.
Plenty of Usukane MNKs, for instance, flipped out at the introduction of Tantra +2.

Maybe because the best gear was too easy to obtain ? Full usu was not the best : you didn't see many complains when PW came out which made it possible for mix and match to beat full usu ?

[Hayward]

Maybe because the best gear was too easy to obtain ? Full usu was not the best : you didn't see many complains when PW came out which made it possible for mix and match to beat full usu ?

This statement, among others, doesn't make much sense. It seems some players are so addicted to status that anything that is easily accessible (e.g. Tantra Attire +1/+2) is dismissed out of hand regardless of quality. If nothing else, I am ecstatic that I don't need the drama/politics/a-hattery of most HNM shells from years back to get good gear for the jobs I have leveled to 90.

I haven't done Voidwatch yet, but I wouldn't mind trying it out once the bugs are ironed out and the concept is fleshed out a little more.

[Francisco]

Maybe because the best gear was too easy to obtain ? Full usu was not the best : you didn't see many complains when PW came out which made it possible for mix and match to beat full usu ?

They were flipping out before they even knew how to get it.

PW... really? How many monks had access to a Hachiryu body? My LS was the first and (I believe) only group to kill PW on Alexander. I know some shells on other servers killed it a few times - but it wasn't really going down very often.

Also, I remember a bunch of people demanding SE fix E.Body and Ridill...

[MarkovChain]

They were flipping out before they even knew how to get it.

PW... really? How many monks had access to a Hachiryu body? My LS was the first and (I believe) only group to kill PW on Alexander. I know some shells on other servers killed it a few times - but it wasn't really going down very often.

Also, I remember a bunch of people demanding SE fix E.Body and Ridill...

Preciely the amount of person having access to hachiryu body matters because it bring goals for the most dedicated players. The reason you didn't see many compaints is because the ratio difficulty/reward was acceptable compared to sky gear or salvage gear. Right now you don't have this. And the result is people crying about lack of content. And no JP always kill it first.

[Francisco]

Preciely the amount of person having access to hachiryu body matters because it bring goals for the most dedicated players. The reason you didn't see many compaints is because the ratio difficulty/reward was acceptable compared to sky gear or salvage gear. Right now you don't have this. And the result is people crying about lack of content. And no JP always kill it first.

Sky and salvage gear was never really hard to get, if you were dedicated to it.

Hachiryu body is completely irrelevant for the same reason Ninurta's Sash was for NIN. Great if you can get it - but no one expects it, and 99% of players had no chance of ever getting a sniff of either of those items. Basically for MNK, full Usukane with Black Belt was "top gear".

The only challenge to salvage gear was having a group, and having patience.

I'm not talking about people being mad that Tantra is too easy to obtain. I'm talking about people who went into the initial level cap raise (75-80) with the mindset of "they better not replace Usukane/E.Body/Byakko's"...

Heck, a lot of people were mad at the level increase to begin with because "I'm done leveling".

The level cap increase to 80 didn't change a lot about what equipment we wore... added some decent weapons (G.Axe from that sandworm), macro pieces (Heafoc), and a few miscellany pieces (Bullwhip, Owleyes)... but nothing groundbreaking.

Level 85 added the first significant changes in equipment with 85 Emps, some AF3+2 and some accessories. Most of the people were in awe over the gear - but some threw a temper tantrum over not being the best anymore. And this is all before we knew how to obtain the upgrade items, how many were needed, and how difficult they were.

[MarkovChain]

Level 85 added the first significant changes in equipment with 85 Emps, some AF3+2 and some accessories. Most of the people were in awe over the gear - but some threw a temper tantrum over not being the best anymore. And this is all before we knew how to obtain the upgrade items, how many were needed, and how difficult they were.

Don't be kidding. The first abyssea already gave the tempo on how easy to obtain the gear was. This time instead of having side grades to existing gear like in the first expansion, everyone saw that AF3+2 would be the new perle. This is why you saw many complaints. There is no balance, it's killing the game.

[Francisco]

Don't be kidding. The first abyssea already gave the tempo on how easy to obtain the gear was. This time instead of having side grades to existing gear like in the first expansion, everyone saw that AF3+2 would be the new perle. This is why you saw many complaints. There is no balance, it's killing the game.

Visions didn't really set much tempo for anything substantial. A chunk of the NMs didn't even appear until around the time Scars was released. A bunch of the VNMs had vague reports of difficulty (T3 VNM in La Theine does a TP move for 5000+, omg! Ovni gets like -95% PDT!) ...Glavoid, Briareus, Turul were all pretty hard, Iratham didn't show up forever, same with the Antlion... took people a long time to figure out how to pop Chloris...

Staggers were not figured out yet. There was no RR, SS, GH, or MM atma... Very few people had their abyssites... NMs were on long pop timers.

The only thing Visions set the tempo for was super fast XP. From the outset it did not offer any game changing equipment - just a few nice upgrades - and it didn't offer a large array of ease until the level cap was raised to 85 and people started getting atma, abyssites and more of a clue.

No one had any basis for complaining about the ease of item attainment, except "waaaaaah, my my full Usukane just got out-classed"...