Is anyone particularly happy with the new gear from New Salvage?

[Demon6324236]

Also I never said people stop complaining because they can't find people, that's fair enough, I said stop complaining because the gear isn't game breaking like neo nyzul isle (which btw is a lot harder so it makes a lot of sense to be better, even if it can be obtained in 1 day).

I would like to argue the fact that NNI is not hard to reach floor 80 for a decent group, it takes 5 days to do 5 runs of floor 80, give or take a few fails along the way. A single piece of Salvage +1 gear is at least 40 plans. 40 plans are 8~10 runs at best, assuming you get 4~5 plans every single run, also you must kill the boss which drops the piece you want, and do old Salvage for the NQ piece. Add together this work and you find yourself much more time and effort poured into a piece of gear that is in many cases worse than the piece you could have gotten for less time. Let me be more specific, I want the Skadi +1 Body/Hands/Legs/Feet, and the fake set Feet. Thats more than 180 plans. Now assuming I get 5 plans every single run of Zhayolm I do, I will walk away with 180 plans after 36 runs, and then I must start on the pieces of gear. Zhayolm drops Body, Legs, and Feet, I believe. So I still need the hands from somewhere else, and I need the original pieces, at very least a total of another 4 to 5 runs I believe. So at best, I am taking 40 days for these 5 pieces of gear, and that is highly unlikely in and of itself.

Now, NNI offers 1 piece of gear every 5 days, no need to redo the original Nyzul, no need to get my gear AND items along with it as I only need the items, and if my group is good enough, we can just flat out go to floor 100, putting me at 5 pieces in only 5 days. If my group can not hit 100 however, I am sure we can hit 80, and at 80 we only need 5 wins, so 1 piece of gear in 5 days, that means 5 pieces in 25 days if everything goes well.

Both of these are unlikely, the chances of getting all 5 possible Umbrage plans to drop in every single run for Zhayolm is very, very, very, unlikely. The chances of getting floor 80 every single run without a single fail is again, unlikely because its luck based just like the Umbrage drops. But at their best, you will end up with better gear faster by doing NNI it would seem. Take into account fails at both events, bad drops in Salvage, bad jumps in Nyzul, the time you need for all of the extra items for Salvage gear, and overall I think NNI gear is honestly easier in the long run.

I know this post seems a bit big for what I am quoting but my point is that Salvage actually asks a lot more of you than NNI, however gives you seemingly less. It seems like if this is meant to be the casual event it is comparable to Mythics in my opinion. They said NNI is for the hardcores, and Salvage is for the casuals, then gave NNI a fairly straight forward way to get your things, and made Salvage a massive run around to get a lot more things for the final piece. It reminds me of how Relics are very simple and straight forward, however Mythics take much more work and running around, yet SE announced them as the 'Casual's Relic' line of weapons. At the same time, the ones with more work, are often underwhelming and not as good as the simpler and faster alternative.

That comparison may not be the best, but to me it seems to be somewhat the same case. I think some of the Salvage +1 gear is amazing, Skadi body is great for BST, Morrigan's has given us new nuking gear that blows away the old as well as weapon skill gear, Usu has given us some great gear for SAM, MNK, and PUP. But in the end, is the gear worth the effort they ask of us, and is it on par? Well, for Usu, NIN does not seem to get much use, Thaumas basically covered all of NIN's needs, and is still its best, other jobs like WAR, or DRK, got little as well, Skadi is beaten for almost all of its jobs by a range of gear, from Thaumas, to Athos, to Fajin Boots.

I agree with you that people should not have the stupid 'good gear or gtfo' mentality, but thats a problem with the players, not the content. The problems with requiring it at times is because SE has failed to balance things correctly, look at some of the mobs, their attacks, and their damage, the balance does not exist. Statics still work today, people take statics to NNI, shout groups often fail, people make statics for Meebles, Salvage, Limbus, and a few others, but in reality picking up a group is easier now because you can normally get people with decent gear, and so long as they pay attention, things are not hard to explain.

[detlef]

Nyzul is currently in a transitional stage where it's easier than ever but will likely become more difficult in the near future. So the present conditions probably aren't the best way to judge the event's intended difficulty.

That said, Salvage drops are pretty tough compared to Nyzul. The best thing Nyzul has going for it is both direct drops and a ki redeemable for the armor of your choice. When you are fortunate enough to win, you are guaranteed to get something you are after. And everybody in the group gets something guaranteed. Of course, this impacts the event's longevity, but I have enjoyed doing Nyzul on both my main and mule. I would also argue that it's more fun.

Salvage really requires a lot of grinding and is slow even under the best conditions if you are splitting drops with at least one other person. You're making guaranteed progress with each run, which is something people were clamoring for during VW's peak. But you're still restricted by the bosses which drop the 45's. Also I think the grind is a little too much effort for the rewards. Rather than 40-50 plans needed for +1's, something like 20-25 would be much more reasonable. Given the quality of the NQ gear (overall pretty meh), 5-10 plans is justified. For all the straight grinding you have to do (and it does get quite repetitive), rewards either need to come more frequently or be better to keep people interested.

[Zhronne]

FFXI has never been this bad for good gear or gtfo.

Uhmm in a way it is, and then again in a way it's not.
"good gear" in end-game communities was probably more enforced way back then (and it was much harder to obtain as well, imho, way less options, each and everyone requiring very large groups)
But the end game community as a whole was much smaller back then, there were way more casuals or people doing random stuff, in a way that if you didn't want to do endgame you'd still have a spot for something else.


This is the way I remember at least.
About nowadays more than just "good gear" it's about "good weapons" imho. Relic/Empy became so strong and so "easy to obtain" that in return they also became insanely common, and this made people expect and demand that you have one to be invited into a pt.
How many shouts you see with "need DRK/WAR/MNK, full Nyzul gear only plz"?
And how many do you see with "need DRK/WAR/MNK, R/E/M only plz"?
There you have it, this is the big difference.

And imho it's logic for things to be this way.
Relics/Mythics more common > More people have them > you're required to have one
For gear honestly there still are a lot of gear that range from decent to very good that you can obtain in abyssea or AH for cheap. Is it the best? No it's not, but it works, and for some jobs there are actually still pretty good combinations which are easy to obtain.


So yeah, imho it's more about the weapon elitism than generic gear elitism.
But in the end, can you blame it? It's something I don't like, but at the same time it doesn't seem something that can be avoided for the state the game (and the community) rightfully are in as of today.



Anyway, this sounds a bit off topic inside a Salvo discussion >___>
Altough it started pretty IT.
I'm with Demon on this thing, Salvo is great and fun, but as an event it's in a much different spot than it was 4 years ago, game is too different and gear is not good enough (while not bad, of course, some pieces are ossom) to stimulate enough people to do it.
Hope things will change over time, but I think it will require a couple tweaks.

[Zhronne]

Nyzul is currently in a transitional stage where it's easier than ever but will likely become more difficult in the near future. So the present conditions probably aren't the best way to judge the event's intended difficulty.

Which makes the whole situation even more ironic if you think about it.
By the time embrava will be nerfed in Nyzul like... 80% of the people who were interested in its gear will be capped, and only fools and noobs (and then again only a small % of them) will be left without of gear.
Some of these actually won't even care.

So yeah, it's preposterous, and ironic ^^'

[Jaall]

Yea salvage gear does seem worse for what it is but you also have to realise that they fill spots that NNI gear doesn't and give more options to different sets of gear. People don't seem to realise that a single piece of the new sets or +1 can replace a single other piece and give say 3-4 more gear options. I also agree that obtaining the gear isn't casual, but they might just mean that the difficulty is for the casual player as the mobs are fairly weak, especially compared to NNI. It might take a lot to get these new pieces of gear but at least it stops everyone being the same and gives a little bit of variety. I would even argue that I could make a better TP set replacing some phorcys with Ares+1 but I want to keep my plans secret so not gonna give out anything on that. I'd rather be wrong by a small margin and different than be the same as everyone else.

I think SE are doing the right thing for once, but it seems they cannot win until they break the game, and even then people will complain for it being broken. I feel, and a lot of people I talk to and do salvage with agree, that Salvage II is the bet endgame remake simply for the fact that you can play for the whole 100 mins inside salvage and never get bored. Also there are "ohshi...." moments, and laughs, as well as times where you have to work through mistakes and take them and learn from them. It's brought back the fun and the fact you can enter once a day gives me a whole new reason to keep playing. It's not all about what you get at the end of the run.

[Jaall]

I do agree with you all about the rewards being meh, I'm just asking, why cant a game just be about the content and not being the best? I got my relic just before christmas and really, it's made me realise... We all work towards having the best gear, but when we all have the best, what do we do with that? My answer... solo sky etc but that can get very boring. What else do I do? Stand around in port Jeuno doing nothing all day waiting for something interesting to happen which it rarely does in shouts. Point is, there's more to a game than just being the best and showing off, it's about fun or at least for me.

[Zagen]

I do agree with you all about the rewards being meh, I'm just asking, why cant a game just be about the content and not being the best? I got my relic just before christmas and really, it's made me realise... We all work towards having the best gear, but when we all have the best, what do we do with that? My answer... solo sky etc but that can get very boring. What else do I do? Stand around in port Jeuno doing nothing all day waiting for something interesting to happen which it rarely does in shouts. Point is, there's more to a game than just being the best and showing off, it's about fun or at least for me.

Because you play with other humans. It's a natural feeling in humans to want the best how strong that feeling is varies and what is defined as the "best" also varies.

Take away "best gear" from the game how much fun would you have fighting a monster or doing an event after the first time, the tenth time, or the hundredth time?

[Jaall]

Never said take away all the good gear, there was never any suggestion to take away NNI, legion etc. All I was saying is why can't people be happy with salvage being based on entertainment and not rewards? The game needs variety and I'm not slating the events which give great gear, but imo it's just not as fun because it's all about what you get at the end of the run. It's still alright and I never said it wasn't fun but salvage just has a whole lot more to offer in that respect. And while I agree some gear sucks from salvage, others are brilliant, so I don't see why people can't stop moaning about everything SE does just because it's not overpowered and some gear is better.

[Zagen]

Never said take away all the good gear, there was never any suggestion to take away NNI, legion etc. All I was saying is why can't people be happy with salvage being based on entertainment and not rewards? The game needs variety and I'm not slating the events which give great gear, but imo it's just not as fun because it's all about what you get at the end of the run. It's still alright and I never said it wasn't fun but salvage just has a whole lot more to offer in that respect. And while I agree some gear sucks from salvage, others are brilliant, so I don't see why people can't stop moaning about everything SE does just because it's not overpowered and some gear is better.

It's a catch 22. Without better gear there is no reason for people to do an event that isn't unique on the game play side. That is why I worded my question the way I did.

Don't get me wrong there are some gear options in Salvage 2 that are better than NNI but not in all cases. While Salvage 2 is easier and more forgiving than NNI, without the gear being much better someone who has neither gear will go after the event with overall better gear and potentially faster rewards.

Thus people complain.

[detlef]

Never said take away all the good gear, there was never any suggestion to take away NNI, legion etc. All I was saying is why can't people be happy with salvage being based on entertainment and not rewards?

I think one issue is that neo-Salvage is a true grind-fest. You go in there, do the same path over and over, and collect plans. I enjoy doing neo-Salvage with friends but the event itself can get very monotonous.