Seriously devs - the balance

[Greatguardian]

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Greatguardian]

The essence of a challenge is giving it your best and struggling to come out on top.

If you won't give it your all, then it's not something worth doing to begin with.

[Alhanelem]

while I understand and agree with parts of Mala's sentiment, there still needs to be something to provide some kind of challenge to the people who have the best.

They shouldn't be FORCED to weaken themselves just to make the game more fun.

[Chriscoffey]

while I understand and agree with parts of Mala's sentiment, there still needs to be something to provide some kind of challenge to the people who have the best.

They shouldn't be FORCED to weaken themselves just to make the game more fun.

Most of this non-challenge has came because of too many great job abilities and adjustments. I wish someone could have played most of these jobs before all the updates like warrior and samurai. SE went and got crazy with adjustments after the 2 handed update and it has yet to stop so anything added after this fact has been quite easy to beat.

The HNM before were easy to some people but by a comparative measure nothing how they are today. I saw linkshells still taking an hour before abyssea came out to beat Fafnir when most linkshells I knew of could do it in a few minutes tops. That is the underlying problem where people who just don't educate themselves to understand their teamwork and game play bitch rage because they can't do something others do quite easily.

[OgreBattle]

You could have new challenge in simply having another format to approach the battle. Characters are pretty optimized to crush single, tough bosses. Do something different (say, multiple enemies that cannot be disabled you fight at once, the whole dungeon being the challenge and involving a split up alliance cooperating, etc.) and you'll get, at the very least, a different feeling of challenge.

[Greatguardian]

That's basically Einherjar. It's not really hard, especially since each foe has to have their strength scaled down in order to make it viable to split up. Make foes too strong, and we'll just sac them. Honestly, it's our job as players to figure out how to beat whatever the Devs come up with. We're going to do it. It's their job as Devs, then, to provide us with new challenges to overcome.

And, of course, it's SE's job to provide the Devs with the personnel and funding necessary to do that if they want to keep the game running.

[Chriscoffey]

I know exactly how to help in the all out zerg type battles. The concept is to go back to doing skill chains again. The mobs are strong to both physical and magical but not to the point they are immune just enough you do damage. You then have to skill chain to open them up to certain magic abilities or physical damage. During this variable window you could zerg or to add even farther progression the more links in the skill chain you do the more damage and increase the window timeframe is added.

There could exist easier 1 skill chain type mobs to the more extreme 4+ skill chain link type based mobs. This could pose some challenge to people as I know most of these new players fail at skill chains now lol. I don't find them hard but it does put a pause in between zerg fested playing.

I also believe end game HNM should be longer periods of time than the said 30 minutes VW are now. I would like for it to be an increased time but not like an 18 hour pandy/AV fight either. I believe they can make us a good challenge in FFXI if they just put their energy into FFXI and not FF14 for more people to /facepalm quit.

[Juri_Licious]

Make a new Absolute Zero type NM for the 99 cap. (Not to break the cap)

[Alhanelem]

Most of this non-challenge has came because of too many great job abilities and adjustments. I wish someone could have played most of these jobs before all the updates like warrior and samurai. SE went and got crazy with adjustments after the 2 handed update and it has yet to stop so anything added after this fact has been quite easy to beat.

The HNM before were easy to some people but by a comparative measure nothing how they are today. I saw linkshells still taking an hour before abyssea came out to beat Fafnir when most linkshells I knew of could do it in a few minutes tops. That is the underlying problem where people who just don't educate themselves to understand their teamwork and game play bitch rage because they can't do something others do quite easily.

You have to add and change features of classes peroidcally or things get stale. This means old challenges get easier and room is made for new challenges. If you leave the old challenges hard, it gets harder and harder for newer players to play catch up. Part of the reason newer players can get into things and be up with us so quickly is they don't have to spend as much time on the older stuff. It's good for the existing players too because they get fresh blood infused more quickly. Basically, leaving everything like the good old days means things just get boring. Of course, not everything has to be changed, nor does it all have to be changed constantly.

By the way, the famous HNMs were never all that hard. The only real challenge was beating claim bots to the punch. The monsters themselves have not changed (much), we've simply gotten higher levels and new abilities that make them easier. In exchange, we get new stuff to challenge us. That's just how most MMOs work. Your "underlying problem" isn't really the underlying problem. The real problem is when we don't get new challenges or those challenges are too inaccessible or not rewarding enough to get enough of a following (e.g. voidwatch).

[Chriscoffey]

You have to add and change features of classes peroidcally or things get stale. This means old challenges get easier and room is made for new challenges. If you leave the old challenges hard, it gets harder and harder for newer players to play catch up. Part of the reason newer players can get into things and be up with us so quickly is they don't have to spend as much time on the older stuff. It's good for the existing players too because they get fresh blood infused more quickly. Basically, leaving everything like the good old days means things just get boring. Of course, not everything has to be changed, nor does it all have to be changed constantly.

By the way, the famous HNMs were never all that hard. The only real challenge was beating claim bots to the punch. The monsters themselves have not changed (much), we've simply gotten higher levels and new abilities that make them easier. In exchange, we get new stuff to challenge us. That's just how most MMOs work. Your "underlying problem" isn't really the underlying problem. The real problem is when we don't get new challenges or those challenges are too inaccessible or not rewarding enough to get enough of a following (e.g. voidwatch).

I think you would be incorrect in your comparison to say jobs (I.E. warrior/samurai) of 03 is anything even remotely close to those of today with all the changes. This in turn made the HNM a harder challenge in itself because they were never really adjusted other than rage mode for all those years. The wyrms were always causing problems with people on all levels of playing unless you had the best teamwork available before.

I agree with you on some points but if there wasn't a huge difference in educating how one plays to say they are "easy" then you shouldn't have had people still taking an hour to beat "easy" mobs like Fafnir before abyssea came out. I just don't agree that people who complain from that group determine what "end game" is for someone like me who did FFXI end game with ease and wanted an update to this. I saw no reason for the ones taking longer to beat mobs not to "learn" to be more efficient in a team like the rest of us did so they could be more effective in a group alliance.

I am not stipulating there should be no updates and we are fighting the same HNM for years and years with stagnation occuring. I am saying that as far as a challenge goes they got progressively easier to the point that they weren't anything close to something i would consider end game anymore. There wasn't anything really added after to give a fresh outlook on the end game scene either other than Einherjar/Salvage. I did enjoy Einherjar before it was crapped on with new content.