Trials of the Magians and casual players.

[darkhorror]

I would love to see more new trials, when TotM were updated every update I really looked forward to what I could do and what I would get from it. Once they stopped, I really didn't play much any more and I eventually quit for quite a while. It was great because you would always have something you could go do while you were waiting for end game type events to happen.

[RAIST]

umm.. think we need to clear a few things up here. I apologize in advance Zagen, not really trying to pick on you or anything, it's just that your posts seem to be so indicative of the mentality we are at odds with on this issue, and it's just easier to focus on your posts simply because they give so much to work with from a debate perspective. Sorry if it seems to ramble a bit...there's just so much messed up in the game right now, and there has been a lot of chatter over it amongst friends, so I have a lot going on in my head when it comes to this issue.

And now, for the great wall of text...probly going to be a lot of editing after I upload this, seeing as my html skills are sorely lacking:

As to RAIST I only caught 2 major points that sort of explain a few things as to where my disconnect is:

Originally Posted by RAIST
predictable schedule

This is the issue, the reason for that is when I had a limited play time I found myself being able to log on at random times in other words having a predictable (day of the week) schedule didn't mean anything to me I couldn't plan accordingly.

Not sure you're fully grasping the concept. It's not just DAYS that are predictable. Weather is predictable too. So, in this case, you may have been shooting yourself in the foot by just focusing on days only. the point is, you can know in advance if your next session will be a good day to try to advance your trial or not, and plan accordingly. For example, I already know, right now, at roughly 6PM Eastern, on May 20, 2013 that I can expect to catch fire weather in Kuzots tomorrow between 4:45PM and 5:43PM. If it were my half day tomorrow (unfortunately, it's next week), I already know that I can plan to catch the weather in that window if I have viable targets in that zone. I also know from past experience that fire weather can pop with some consistency in some years from Nov. 7-16 in game, which falls later that evening, so there is a possibility I may still be able to catch it after diner as well. I can check the weather report before I log on at the website, or with the NPC when I do log in, and head out if it's a good window.

The point is, I can know all of this well enough ahead of time to plan my gaming session according to what I know is going to be available when I expect to be in game (or at least reasonably expect to happen during that time frame), and plan my gaming activities according to whether those opportunities will exist or not. It's not about planning my life around the game, which you seemed to be hinting at in a more recent post.

Again TotM actually caters to the player who can dedicate more time to the game and/or move real life things around to make "predictable" requirements as RAIST put it. In either case you're completely missing the point.

You actually appear to be missing the point. It isn't about moving your life around the game, it's about moving the game activities around to make better use of your in-game time without having to move around your life.

This is something I disagree with, if you're up to date on previous content then taking on SoA content before acquiring SoA gear isn't a problem (I'm not talking having a R/E/M either). I get that the difference from pre-SoA gear and SoA gear is huge but unless you're in SoA high end you don't need SoA gear. Oh and at the moment "SoA high end" is Delve Fracture Bosses.

This and several other posts seem to indicate you have an even bigger disconnect with what the problem is when it comes to the magian paths.

The issue I see here is these players you mention aren't ready for SoA. Once they are ready for SoA they can begin progressing through SoA steps.

That is the point....the nature of the playerbase is more or less denying them a reasonable expectation of reaching that so called "level of preparedness". By the way, this is not an actual level of preparedness as dictated necessarily by game design, it is a level of preparedness as dictated by the playerbase. It is basically, "if you don't have this and that in your repertoire, you can't attend the event". The problem is, in order to meet the player demanded requirements to be invited, one needs help from players that have already surpassed that level, moved on, and have little to no interest in helping them get up to spec. So...once again, those players are being left to fend for themselves. A lot of those top end gears needed for acceptance is only obtainable by participating in content that requires grouping by design.

Important note there...you can't even obtain some of the base gear that these casuals are expected to obtain without first being in a group to even enter the freaking battlefields just to obtain the base items, much less progrees them towards the finished product so that you can augment them further via Magians. Has that simple point managed to even register on the brain yet? We are talking about players that have virtually been relegated to soloing or possible dual-boxing in order to obtain reasonably powerful gear, and the player base is expecting them to have gear that REQUIRES group play for entry (that virtually no one has an interest in helping them with) to even stand a chance to obtain. whoah.. lost focus there for a bit....

The issue I see here is these players you mention aren't ready for SoA. Once they are ready for SoA they can begin progressing through SoA steps.

Oh here we go again.

What? You're creating situations where that's the answer.

Umm.. no.. those situations actually DO exist already. We'res just using them to try to make a point.

Okay so you want casual players to partake in content designed to challenge the hardcore? It doesn't work that way.

If you want that to happen one of 2 things has to happen:
1) Gear up to relevant levels to take on said content. R/E/M/D isn't required unless talking about the final bosses in fractures (they are just more helpful despite people requiring them).
2) Wait until new hardcore content is released and the current hardcore content gets toned down to become easier.

I don't get your problem to be honest. These slow and steady paths you want are already in game and as mentioned in #2 even more will get added when the difficulty level gets toned down.

Again, you seem to be missing the mark. Guess we're going to have to try to break this down into even more detail to try to make it more clear.

Up until SOA, when newer, harder content was added, SE added new tiers to Magians to help bring everyone up to a newer level of gearing so that they could remain relevant enough to participate in the new content with a reasonable level of success. This maintained the balance of the higher quality player with their top-end gears that would accell at content clears much faster, but still maintained a reasonable enough opportunity for the less fortunate players to get the clears. Granted, some may fall on their face repeatedly until they found a way, but there was a close enough expectation for them to keep trying. For instance, let's examine the NIN katanas.

There was a reasonably attainable weapon that could be completed within just a few weeks by a more dedicated casual player, (perhaps a month or so by the more laid back player) Despite the ease of the DA Katan's upgrade paths, this weapon could actually hold it's own against a level 90 Kannagi in terms of potential DPS. And yes, that was comparing raw numbers for Jin with the DA compared against Hi with the Empy. If you compare Jin with both weapons, the DA yielded potentially more DPS over time. Plug them into one of the Excel spreadsheets and see for yourself--the numbers showed them to be fairly balanced. They would come within 1 DPS of each other under normal, static conditions when all other gearing and such was constant. Yet, they had vastly different paths, requiring vastly differrent levels of dedication.

That Kannaghi required you to progress all the way through the same starter NM's, then a host of other NM's including repeated killings of Briarius, Sobek, and Apademak to make. Not exactly a fun path for the casual player most often left to their own devices. In contrast, that Majimum could be COMPLETELY soloed by a casual player. No day/weather requirements... no screwy mechanincs outside of ToD/Respawn timers for the early NM's, and having to either attend events to farm the end items, or simply purchasing them with currencies earned from playing the game from either NPC's or other player's bazaars (and rather cheaply, I might add once prices settled down). Now, getting past that level 90 Kannagi required a little more chutzpah than the typical casual player may have, and as such appropriately rewards that dedication with about a 7.6% increase in DPS over the level 90---but it was only about a 6.66% increase over a Majimun with Jin (all things being equal).

So, up until SOA, BOTH camps had highly sought after weapons, that were fairly close in expected output. Basically, it kept the bar for gear acquisition well enough in balance with the content that all could contribute reasonably enough to foster inclusion in events, even though the casual player may not have had the best weapon. What we have now is a giant leap to where that bar has been moved. The analgy of the cups put it quite nicely, and fairly accurately (but actually, it was 12-16oz then vs 12-32oz now). What needs to happen is we need a way to basically go from a 12-24 oz for the casual, seeing as the hardcores got to go from 16 to 32 in the span of just one month. Keep in mind, that all these previous advancements to magians from the entry level to the current top were broken out over what... 12 times that time frame? Forget the exact time line, but it was a loooong time frame--and yet, during that whole time, they managed to keep things in check. With what they've been doing in SoA, they have CLEARLY advanced the top tier players, while leaving everyone one else behind. All we're asking for is for them to maintain the balance.

We are simply asking for them to continue what has become the norm for the system since it's addition, especially in light of evidence that it is still not complete and there is clearly a pattern that can be followed to potentially extend the system further to better balance the disparity. As mentioned earlier, it is pretty evident that some of those tiers were unfinished. Go back and look at the two weapons I referenced earlier in the thread.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...l=1#post434472



Those stats are clearly not finalized, and every weapon class has multiple examples like this--it isn't just a couple here and there, and not for irrelevant weapons either, I might add. So it would appear that SE intened to add at LEAST one more tier to the system.

My main question, is why the h3ll haven't those tiers been added yet? They could have come out with Wildkeepers--at the very least when Delve was added. What gives?

[Zagen]

More or less this is all in response to RAIST:

Weather has never been 100% that's why I excluded it and only mentioned days as those are 100%. I've actually gone days when reports said X weather would happen with a chance of clear skies and all I got was clear skies.

TotM at least on my server has never been an acceptable alternative to R/E/M when we're talking elitism segregation.

I think you're missing par of my point because when I'm talking about a time issue I'm exclusively talking about the weather paths to be more specific weather paths besides dark and ice. NM path is a bit of a time issue but not as bad because it's rarely camped and even if it is there is 0 reason not to give info on ToD and team up. All other paths are time independent (besides the time wasted doing them).

I don't disagree the TotM weapons looking unfinished (yellow text). There's a catch 22 with that though, I mean if you look at delve and skirmish augments they are both yellow yet that only means they can be changed (not something that TotM can do) which makes even less sense when you try to rationalize text color defining anything.

I have a question that's sort of been running in the back of my head: What's the point of updating TotM if you don't plan to partake in the new SoA content? If you do plan on partaking then what's the problem with moving on past TotM (disregarding DWers)?

Edit: The only argument I can come up with for the second part of my question is that you can't/won't join/lead clear shouts.

[Osmond]

No one has any problem doing the new content, the problem is that who is gonna invite those who doesn't have basically endgame weaponry, a specific job that THEY don't want to play, and the time to do it?

[Zagen]

No one has any problem doing the new content, the problem is that who is gonna invite those who doesn't have basically endgame weaponry, a specific job that THEY don't want to play, and the time to do it?

TotM at current values are enough to do the introductory content (I'm including all delve besides the fracture bosses there). The issue there is elitism segregation. If TotM never prevented elitism segregation when R/E/M became the norm for shouts what makes you think that would change unless they were beefed up to the point they competed with mid/fully upgraded delve weapons? At which point begs the question what's the point of doing Delve.

[Osmond]

At which point begs the question what's the point of doing Delve.

I thought the whole point in Delve IS to abolish R/E/M/TotM weaponry altogether. To make it sound like not only your current gear is useless in the latest expansion, but to surpass it tenfold. I was wondering wth was SE thinking when I saw it on FFXIAH.com. I said to myself that surely they wouldn't do this, cause it would completely unbalance the game even more.

[Zagen]

I thought the whole point in Delve IS to abolish R/E/M/TotM weaponry altogether. To make it sound like not only your current gear is useless in the latest expansion, but to surpass it tenfold. I was wondering wth was SE thinking when I saw it on FFXIAH.com. I said to myself that surely they wouldn't do this, cause it would completely unbalance the game even more.

Haha maybe it is, at least they're saying they have plans to keep R/E/M from becoming useless. Though Emps lose a lot if coin weapons will allow the WS to be unlocked.

[RAIST]

More or less this is all in response to RAIST:

Weather has never been 100% that's why I excluded it and only mentioned days as those are 100%. I've actually gone days when reports said X weather would happen with a chance of clear skies and all I got was clear skies.

TotM at least on my server has never been an acceptable alternative to R/E/M when we're talking elitism segregation.

I think you're missing par of my point because when I'm talking about a time issue I'm exclusively talking about the weather paths to be more specific weather paths besides dark and ice. NM path is a bit of a time issue but not as bad because it's rarely camped and even if it is there is 0 reason not to give info on ToD and team up. All other paths are time independent (besides the time wasted doing them).

I don't disagree the TotM weapons looking unfinished (yellow text). There's a catch 22 with that though, I mean if you look at delve and skirmish augments they are both yellow yet that only means they can be changed (not something that TotM can do) which makes even less sense when you try to rationalize text color defining anything.

I have a question that's sort of been running in the back of my head: What's the point of updating TotM if you don't plan to partake in the new SoA content? If you do plan on partaking then what's the problem with moving on past TotM (disregarding DWers)?

But, weather IS predictable. The cycle repeats itself 100%, the trick is in understanding the pattern well enough to use it to your advantage. Otherwise, I would not have been able to finish my fire weapons in a span of around 2 weeks while working overtime each week. After my first week in SoA, I got to work on some new staves for my avatars for testing. In 2 1/2 weeks, I made both and ACC and ATT staff for my avatars to their final +2 stage (turned in 15 geodes) for testing in reives. Trust me, you can predict weather enough to use it to your advantage.

As to the point of advancing Magians to higher teirs....it's for the same purpose as I <thought> we've already explained. Groups are not open to including people with the current top level magian gears, simply because they are not deemed worthy. However, if they were to advance them in the same manner as before, keeping them close enough in spec so that they would be accepted into the fold, then they have a chance to obtain the gears while everyone is doing them.

Think this through withy me. What happens if they are excluded well past the point that they can get no help with the content? What if the decide they're going to finally bite the bullet and try to get those base items so they can get in the groups, only to find (again) no one will help them with the content--something that is required in order to obtain RME, mind you. Then how do they obtain better gear if they can't do it thorugh Magians? AH? For what, 6M+ a pop? So, now, they have to either RMT or bust their buts raising gil with all the limited time they have? OK, so they manage to get the gil for the AH gears.... guess what.... everyone is moved on , and they still can't solo the content to get the better gears. Now what? They're stuck until they can gather enough lost souls to muddle through it all.

Keep in mind, while all this is taking place, the world of Vanadiel has continued to move forward at an increasing pace. These players eventually come to the realization that they are just falling further and further behind and they just can't seem to get a leg up.

At what point do they finally just give up and quit? How many complaints from struggling players, or how much loss of revenue from exasperated players that quit does it take for SE to notice there is a problem? What does this say to potential players of SE's next big release if they are willing to just flat out ignore such a large portion of the playerbase? Just how much is REALLY at stake here over this situation, not just the here and now, but for the future as well?

This isn't about just you, me, or 90 other players on the forums that agree/disagree with our posts.

This is about SE's current direction for development...
how it affects their reputation, their revenues...
and ultimately, their future.

[Osmond]

Haha maybe it is, at least they're saying they have plans to keep R/E/M from becoming useless. Though Emps lose a lot if coin weapons will allow the WS to be unlocked.

They have no choice. U can't expect ppl to be happy w/ what they have after doing all this crap just to get it only to be obsolete by weapons that out dmg 3x even w/ TotM to reach 90+. The only thing that R/E/M weapons are good for is the WS imo, but I could be wrong. The other side is that other ppl want the rest of the TotM weapons to have the fair share, but it got thrown under the bus cause in SE's eyes they are irrelevant.

[Randnum]

TotM at current values are enough to do the introductory content (I'm including all delve besides the fracture bosses there). The issue there is elitism segregation. If TotM never prevented elitism segregation when R/E/M became the norm for shouts what makes you think that would change unless they were beefed up to the point they competed with mid/fully upgraded delve weapons? At which point begs the question what's the point of doing Delve.

And this is where Zagen's logic beats anything we can say, no sarcasm. The only flaw here is that the stick that dangles the carrot got further away and human nature wasn't taken into account.

Why do casual players want to participate in SoA content? Let's assume radically for a moment that they don't, but not all of them have large friend groups. Let's assume that they used to jump into Voidwatch shouts with the one or two friends they had that were online, and did other stuff during the downtime.

Stick got longer, Voidwatch shouts vanish, and they DID actually finish the 'other stuff' for the most part (assume Magian weapon level 99), now they have nothing to do.

However I'm willing to assume right now that Zagen is more right than that. As long as all early delve content can be beaten by a group of good players with ToTM weapons, then ToTM is no longer needed, it would just be really nice to have, as content to act as that alternative to endgame shout responding.

Note that this may just be bias on my part due to complete lack of interest in SoA. I can see up to a point, but I have to admit that I have nothing more than analysis to go on when it comes to 'what happens to a casual player's playtime'. I hope there's still stuff for them to do that a person with a few friends and only average organizational skill, can still get into, or I believe a lot of people will move on.

And on that note I'll continue to support ToTM expansion even if only because it will prevent those people from feeling excluded and moving on.