[dev1047] Thoughts/Feedback on "Legion"

[Alhanelem]

I would hope that players get a better feel for each stage of battle as they attempt this content.

In case it gives you some insight, I think when people say they want more "exhilaration", I tihnk it is because they expected this content to be more akin to The Swarm event assault- bashing down as many monsters as possible in a time limit. But instead, it's more just a big battlefield with a bunch of HNMs thrown in. I think people expected this to be something more akin to that or maybe Campaign, where any job can participate effectively and just bash stuff to a pulp. As it is, only the jobs normally used for HNMs will get used in Legion.

[Greatguardian]

In case it gives you some insight, I think when people say they want more "exhilaration", I tihnk it is because they expected this content to be more akin to The Swarm event assault- bashing down as many monsters as possible in a time limit. But instead, it's more just a big battlefield with a bunch of HNMs thrown in. I think people expected this to be something more akin to that or maybe Campaign, where any job can participate effectively and just bash stuff to a pulp. As it is, only the jobs normally used for HNMs will get used in Legion.

To expand upon this, the monsters themselves are just not very exciting.

Straight up. You can take that right to the devs. They're going about this whole "hard monster" thing backwards and, for some reason, seem completely dumbfounded when people just zerg them or don't fight them the way they want them to be fought.

If the FFXI Dev team wants to make interesting, engaging fights, they need to throw away their current AIs and read this shit right here:

1) Stop making everything have stupidly powerful AoE. All it does is encourage zerging. Focus on single-target attacks and then allow monsters to cast AoE spells.

2) Severely decrease monster Attack. Severely increase monster Base Damage. This allows for monsters to be tanked by players with high-defense and not by random DDs without the aid of Temp items.

3) Severely decrease monster HP. Severely increase monster Defense. Add -90% MDT. Do not modify Evasion. This prevents DDs from Hulk-Smashing things into oblivion, equalizes fight times, and increases the relative effects of non-damage Enmity abilities/spells.

4) Implement dynamic reaction-based AI. No, it's not too hard to do. If there's a problem coding it, ask one of the thousands of Sysadmins and programmers playing your game for help like every other successful gaming company in the world. That is to say, give players a reason to time their skills. Give players something to react to rather than auto-attacking giant Fortifications and pressing their WS macro when it's up.

4a) Use the battlefield. Diabolos is a good example of doing this right. Ifrit from FFXIV is a good example of doing this right. Force players to pay attention to their surroundings. Floor tiles may randomly change colors and have various buff/debuff effects attached to them, or straight up explode.

4b) NM Pets. We don't need them to be mage-killers that need to be held or kited. That's dumb. Give us a reason to kill these by making their presence power up the main NM. Have them cast buffs and cures on the NM if we leave them alive too long. Give them interesting kill conditions. For example: Elemental pets that have infinite HP, but instantly die if hit by a skillchain of the element that they are weak to.

4c) Shifting elemental/damage vulnerability types. Give us a visible indicator that tells us which of the 4 damage types (Blunt, H2H, Piercing, Slashing) and which of the 8 elements the monster is weak to (+50%-100% damage) at any given time. Randomly Cycle this indicator at random times or after using certain TP moves.

4d) Allow us to cripple the monsters if we're good enough. AV's 2hour mechanic was poorly implemented but well designed. Don't force us to use our 2-hours, but allow us to lock monster abilities or spells by reacting in a particular way that is non-random and is not job-specific within a certain window after ability usage. For example, lock BIGMONSTER_A from using Thunder Breath if the team fighting it initiates an Impaction or Fragmentation skillchain within 10 seconds of the move's completion.

5) When the players tell you (the Devs) a fight is boring, it's not because we don't know how to play the game. It's because the fight is bloody boring.

[SpankWustler]

The sad thing is, they're totally capable of many if not all of those things (maybe not the AI, but there's one example that at least approaches everything else). This means they either implement a bunch of HP-sacks with horrible AoEs over and over due to limited manpower, or because they earnestly enjoy making HP-sacks with horrible AoEs on some level.

I'm imagining it now. A middle-aged Japanese programmer at the height of euphoria while fine-tuning exactly how many too many HP something should, and exactly how potent the Area-of-Effect attack that inflicts Amnesia and Poison and Doom and Low Self-Esteem should be compared to the Area-of-Effect attack that inflicts Silence and Petrification and Bind and Seasonal Depression.

In the end, he decides on "a lot" and "the same but with different graphics". We can not imagine the satisfaction he feels.

[Greatguardian]

1) I like my attitude.

2) Your level 50 Summoner solo'd Ouryu? Solo'd Snoll while capped? Solo'd Promyvions at level 30/50? Prove it.

3) Nothing required alliances at 75 aside from AV and PW.

4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTTPwvGC0rY

5) Makes sense, considering gear does so very little for Summoner. Yet another reason why it has practically zero potential for growth beyond mediocrity.

[Yygdrasil]

After I correct you this last time... I'm not going to bother with you.

I said I solod most of CoP on my own. Obviously there are missions that required help. Plenty of it can be done... and really quite easily using a kite method or by sneak-popping various NMs from the missions. I never said I did the WHOLE THING. You're reaching.

I wasn't limiting my examples of group play to alliances exclusively. You're reaching again.

Thanks to websense here where I work, I cant view the video you posted, but with a title like "TaruTaru can do anything" I'm sure it was pretty funny but completely off topic. I'll have to pull it up on my phone to accurately comment on that.

Gear does plenty for SMN. Gear allows you to reduce your perp cost, your BP timer, MP management and the effectiveness of your avatar in general. That being said, a naked SMN can do half decently for himself until his/her MP becomes an issue. Gear that helps mitigate that burden makes an enormous difference in longevity and DoT if nothing else.

Anyway, spew all you want. I didn't pick a fight with anyone. You attacking me for my opinions and misquoting me time and time again isn't worth the effort past this point.

I keep subscribed to this in order to stay updated with the forthcoming End Game event I'm looking forward to, not to argue with you. This thread has derailed enough.

[Greatguardian]

@Arcon, So we agree that they're trash in large-group situations. I'll concede exempting the situation where the entire group is pet jobs, though to say that those groups do things efficiently is a joke. They can get the job done, sure. They can throw an infinite number of disposable pokemon at things. That doesn't make them efficient. It makes them mildly viable in large numbers. Kinda like Battlecruisers. I mean, seriously, who masses Battlecruisers? A couple of Wraiths or Valkyries can obliterate them. But hey, get enough together and they can Yamato all ur base.

@Ygg, oh I have nothing to do with this derail. I saw a little pet pity party going on and thought I'd bring up a little thing I like to call reality. Pets are woefully unimpressive and suffer from fundamentally crippling weaknesses, most important the inability to benefit from player buffs like Haste and Berserk. Being content with mediocrity does not make something less mediocre.

[Yygdrasil]

Echo... Echo... Echo...

[Glamdring]

1st, for pup it was voidwatch, but I find the entire system of voidwatch to be like masturbation-all the work of sex with none of the enjoyment and no payoff- so I don't go anymore, but yes, we did win. As to beast and my pup, mostly I stay in GoV, the level 100 mobs because I like the fight and I hate Aby easy-mode. As to aby, I mostly solo seal mobs, it's easy enough that I don't worry about procs since I can beat the seal/+2 mobs I need for my AF3 with only moderate effort, so just repeating for the random 1 drop doesn't bother me. WoE, this place is made for pets, and with the devs looking at toning down the insty-kill AoE crap (which, let's face it, is offing anything but paladins in 1 shot) we'll only be getting better. I have to admit, I'm looking forward to WoE on ranger though, just because I like the play style. Legion looks like it's going to work fine with a well-played pet from the bits and pieces I've read about so far, since I have yet to see one of those asinine proc systems being implemented, and the new Nyzul, and the reworked Salvage I haven't seen anything to crush my hopes yet.

This game for me isn't about being able to say "I beat Mob X in 45 seconds", or even that I beat anything at all. I don't brag, I simply get things done. THAT I find fun. That isn't to say there aren't things I don't complain about and try to get changed; I was a huge proponent of the "pupdate" and probably the most vocal on the forum about getting the stormwalker auto spells beyond level 74, it happened, I'm quiet now. My current bitch is the TH ability, I'm more than a bit discontent that rather than fix the ability so that it's worth building above TH3 the plan is to nerf it on everything else, and my reading of the complaints seems to indicate that I'm in the majority, in fact the only people in the minority are the Devs.

Summoner as a job needs work, I'll concede that, but good summoners do just fine. In many ways their the polar opposite of beasts in how their job works, but they DO work. Basically, anything my beast can't handle a summoner can, and vice-versa. The main reason I never levelled summoner was my crappy elvan MP pool, but with end-game gear out now it's on my to-do list, although way down that list since I have 2 good 99 pet jobs already; dark is probably next simply because I have a truckload of gear/seals in storage for it. Even if SE doesn't rework summoner at all I'd be happy to play it now, but I understand a summoner overhaul is in the works anyway.

All the pet AI has it's advantages and disadvantages. I can take my beast and use a pet that will fight the target and any adds all at once. If I prefer control I take my pup since it will stay on what I tell it to, AND I can choose the damage type/defense while I EVA tank the adds. If I need the ability to replace pets at full strength in a relative hurry, that's summoner, the king of zombie pet kills; it may not be glamorous, but it IS effective. If I just want it to support me as a general DD melee, bring on the dragoon. No pet job is perfect, which puts them perfectly in line with the 16 non-pet jobs that aren't perfect either.

I actually use my pets in large-scale activities quite a bit, unless we're short on thief, ranger or dancer, or I just feel like bringing the bard. The usual role is crowd control (when we decide to kill rather than sleep), soloing adds so the rest of the group can deal with the target, but I do just fine when there are no adds and I get to fight the target. The main difference is that I can't use my pet to tank, but if I'm not there for crowd control I'm a DD, so I don't EXPECT my pets to tank (the exception being a whm auto, then I'm DD, my auto back-up healer/enfeebler).

My bard, ranger, thief and dancer all get their uses too, based on a combination of what I want to do and what I'm in the mood to play. I expect the same will hold true as I get around to leveling the other jobs. My pet jobs will always shine though as the jobs I go to when I just need to get things done... because using them I can.

Andon that note, I'm done with this thread, until more information comes out.

[Runespider]

I keep hearing people say it's hard to test legion on the test server and the reps are having to step in to organise them for any testing to happen at all, didn't they say Legion would scale to the number of participants? I'm guessing they either scrapped that idea or it sucks as bad as the other scalable stuff they tried to add over the years.

36 players or nothing?

[Arcon]

I keep hearing people say it's hard to test legion on the test server and the reps are having to step in to organise them for any testing to happen at all, didn't they say Legion would scale to the number of participants?

It does. People have already finished successful runs (as in, defeated 1-2 NMs) duo. Also, the final release will allow 3-36 participants, currently there's only 1-2 players allowed in (unless they changed that by now), so it's hard to judge the actual challenge, but it's apparently doable. Doesn't say much about the final release, though.