Seriously devs - the balance

[Hayward]

They didn't want the best gear to be so easily obtainable by 'casual' players, whereas the old way of Einherjar/HNM dropped all the more exclusive gear that not everyone was able to get by joining a random shout group.

This pretty much sums up the "hardcore" players' definition of balance and it is simply mind-numbing why S-E insists on catering to these folks' every whim (see: any Empyrean weapon trial) after they wailed and gnashed their teeth after Visions and Scars were released. Heaven help us all if someone who doesn't have a clique of yes-men and behind-kissers wants to have a set of armor that doesn't require waiting years for imaginary points to build up (provided the linkshell remains intact).

The armor Magian trials, while a bit too biased toward having to fight NMs for my liking on certain jobs, certainly was something S-E got as close to right as they possibly could. I sincerely hope that Empyrean Armor +1 and +2 sets do remain a viable choice for people who don't care for the obscene drop rates of Voidwatch, if only to instill something foreign to the so-called hardcore players: humility.

[Dreamin]

Rie: I agreed with you just about on everything except that you're wrong, leeches are still there, just now they have no impact directly on your loot pool via a better "random lot". See all those lolDD's who just engaged->die->raise -> repeat in flux 9 or 11 or even 7 (7 trends to go too fast to get them enough points but 9 and 11 works prefectly fine). I know some who has done enough on many runs where some has picked up scrolls which others are getting our favorite items: "Logs and Ores". [From my tracking on several ppl that I know who done WoE regularly, scroll appears to always only drop if your point total is within 6-9k range, any higher or lower you wont get scrolls. At least I dont know anyone personally who has gotten one of the rare scroll drop when they're outside that range. Now, my sample is small, 3 for myself (2 comet and 1 thunder 5) and 6 other scrolls total from others that I know.

But yeah, overall, I think everyone here are all on the same boat here. We're all tired of SE's way on forcing things on us and would not listen or acknowledge when there are problems and we are their paying customers. Sad ways to handle business. I know some people who are so sick of these logs and ores now that they're not even playing as often as they used to. Wake up SE before you wake up one day and find out all your loyal customers have left you.

[Varlan]

The goal for any game should be to get as many people as possible to see content. Putting crazy barriers up so that everyone can't enjoy what they've done is crazy at best. They always seem to be thinking about the hardest of hardcore players. Who the hell cares if other people have the same gear? I see more people running around in their set stuff than anything else. The more barriers of entry they make the harder it becomes for people to actually do the content they're trying to use to keep people playing in the first place.

I just don't understand the developers for this game. Sometimes I think they either don't play their game, or really don't understand anything about making games. Maybe they just hate their players.

[OgreBattle]

The strange thing is that Final Fantasy isn't really a hardcore RPG either. My comment before was joking, but it was mostly about how XI does very little to give a FF pacing.

When I was restarting and punching rabbits in Ronfaure, a friend came by and asked. "Is this actually an FF game?"
"Yeah, it's XI"
"Then why are you punching rodents" One at a time too. Two rabbits and I might die.

Every other FF title starts you off fighting goblins, ahirman, soldiers, and then a giant robot scorpion wanders in.


That's my main criticism with XI. It's not "Final Fantasy as an MMO" as it is "Warped Japanese perspective on trying to make a 90's western MMO's"
Sort of like how the Final Fantasy: Spirits Within was a Warped Japanese Attempt at making a Hollywood movie.

The grind of the game has been greatly alleviated since though, but still FF staples like "enter dungeon->fight multiple enemies at once->fight boss" aren't the intended way of play. I love fighting through for Ghelsba, but there's no gameplay benefits for doing that over grinding a tome.

I have hopes for XIV 2.0 to fix this, but then that dev just talks about how he's got experience with a bunch of wRPGs... I just want to play an FF title y'know?

[Catsby]

Guild Wars 2

[Dazusu]

Like we asked for popped HNMs or something to ease the spawn conditions. The dev team trolled us with a 99 kindred seal requirement. That was pretty unnecessary.

I thought that was genius. I thought it would teach people to stop crying for easymode on absolutely everything. I thought wrong.

[Hayward]

I thought that was genius. I thought it would teach people to stop crying for easymode on absolutely everything. I thought wrong.

OK, this quote cannot go unanswered. "Easy Mode", my behind. Contrary to the mindless talking points your kind repeat like sheep, no one wanted the Black Belt handed to us on a silver platter. We simply wanted realistic access to the quest items needed. No more of this waiting for 1 spawn every 24 hours only to see some clown with a bot program claim it so he can charge ridiculous amounts of gil for the item. What S-E did in response was simply absurd and had no logical basis at all except for those who watch far too many karate movies and believe every player should climb Mount Everest, swim across the Atlantic, and run across the Sahara in order to get a small chance at these quest items.

I make no apologies for calling on S-E to make these quests and trials a lot more realistic. Abyssea killed off HNM linkshells and the politics that made them infamous. I am in no hurry to see them revived.

[OgreBattle]

Guild Wars 2

I've played Guild Wars 1 and it's basically an MMO overlayed over the format of a Japanese RPG. Story and quests drive you forward through the wilderness and dungeons, completing a quest brings you to a new area to get more quests, that kind of FF pacing.

Square-Enix is entirely capable of making an online game like Guild Wars, it's just taking from what they already do offline. Look at the new Final Fantasy Type-0, it uses a combat system derived from Crisis Core (the furthest evolution of FF's ATB system) and has ad-hoc multiplayer.
(It's also on the PSP and likely to never come out in English...)

I'm enjoying XI, I really love the lore and look of the world, but I enjoy other S-E title's gameplay even more. All of XI's flaws are carried over from copying western MMO design, they don't exist in Square-Enix's offline titles.

[Concerned4FFxi]

If the content is so hard why is that, since empyreans have been released theres what? 20,000 level 85 empyrean weapons or something? Check the last census, it was crazy. Empyrean weapons have already outpaced relics and mythics combined for total numbers owned. So yea, while I agree some things can change, balance is important. 3-5 man team will get you any empyrean weapon in the game. I personally dual box many of the easier ones. Grab a friend or two, set dates and times, and go work for what you want.

I don't have an e-body but would love one, that's why I'm intereested in doing einherjar. But to just give out this gear or vw drops to everyone thats wants it is not really rewarding at all. Theres many content now that is very easy to do and low manable, what is the point of me working towards it if I can just go buy it with points? I understand the whole ls point system bs, but theres got to be another way of doing it then just having it available for purchase that is no fun at all. Wheres the excitement of killing odin and the rare drop and winning a lot or something? If anything, the game has changed to serve the majority of player base which is the casual player.

As it stands right now there is NO ENDGAME. But I still play, I'm doing the grind thing too, and getting stuff out the way that I can do now, while leveling jobs and getting gear that I have access to and am waiting to see the new endgame. All the content is getting redone, and it makes total sense to do so. Not everyone has abyssea and at 99 why wouldn't older content be made somewhat useful again?

As for VW i agree the drops are bad, perhaps upping the amount of single heavy metal plates to the loot pool instead of ores and logs would do something for VW. By increasing singles, it still preserves the balance of making a 95 empyrean insanely hard to get, but also rewards everyone doing the run by at least getting something decent for their 3-4hours of time that was invested in said event/shout. I have yet to see a plate, and the only rare/ex i got was a mask off the sandy t4 months again, which I muled. I've do jueno t3's alot and havent recieved anything but logs and ores.

As for the 3 kings being KS99, I like the idea floating in this thread where the nq is a a time spawned HNM and has the same drop rate for the hq pop as the ksnm99. Personally, I'd probably not camp it but it should be available to those who want to do so.

As for WOE, the spells where said to not be that easy to get, I seen a Dev response. And it makes sense, that not all your 91+ spells would NOT be hand outs or easily attainable. I like seeing a blm that's not me casting comet/thunder V/blizzaja and me saying to myself, that <bastard sword>. I have none of the 91+ spells for blm or whm, and you know what? I'm fine with that, I bought a Saevus Pendant when it was dirt cheap, and a wizzan strap as well. Now that the prices went up, I'll have to wait on replacing my witch stone. You know why? I still do insane damage with blizzard V/Fire V/thunder IV and there magian staves. It will be very rewarding to me once I have all spelss again, but that's a day in the future that I'm looking forward to and working towards. I dont have to have everything right now.

[Kaizersan]

Yea I am sure everyone here has noticed that most of the dev responses we get are just copy and paste translations from JP asked question so really unless you can write japanese and post in the JP section your calls fall on deaf ears.