[dev1047] Thoughts/Feedback on "Legion"

[Arcari]

I could have sworn this was a thread about Legion and not the same old tired Pre vs during vs Post Abyssea debate.

[Arcon]

I could have sworn this was a thread about Legion and not the same old tired Pre vs during vs Post Abyssea debate.

Abyssea white knights are everywhere. Always watching. Always commenting.

[Dazusu]

By your own admission Ravenmore, you think content should last a year - however, Abyssea was stale and inappropriate after 3 months. Is that good game design?

[saevel]

By your own admission Ravenmore, you think content should last a year - however, Abyssea was stale and inappropriate after 3 months. Is that good game design?

What are you smoking, and could you please share some.

Vision of Abyssea (Release date: June 21, 2010).
Scars of Abyssea (Release date: September 8, 2010).
Heroes of Abyssea (Release date: December 6, 2010).

That's longer then three months.

Actually it didn't get "Stale" till half way through 2011. There was so much to do that people initially couldn't keep up and SE outpaced everyone with the updates. Until I joined my LS I was slogging along grabbing shouts for whatever and trying to put together +1 sets of things, that was in December 2010 right after Hero's was released. We really didn't pick up steam until May 2011 when we started cranking out Emp's for our members.

People think Abyssea was "fast" because SE released everything quickly and it all blurred by. It wasn't till people started killing Shinryu and getting Atmacite of Discernment that Abyssea become easy. Of course everyone forgets that part, they somehow assume everyone started off with Atmacite of Discernment, 200K brews, Apoc atma, RR and MM atma. That people started off with Ukon WAR's and VS Monks. And then they complain when their memory impaired revised history was somehow "stale after 3 months".

[Arcon]

Vision of Abyssea (Release date: June 21, 2010).
Scars of Abyssea (Release date: September 8, 2010).
Heroes of Abyssea (Release date: December 6, 2010).

That's longer then three months.

No it's not. Each of those lasted a few weeks plus the time to initially figure out how to do it properly. Just because they were released three months apart doesn't mean they contained nine months of content.

[Sparthos]

No it's not. Each of those lasted a few weeks plus the time to initially figure out how to do it properly. Just because they were released three months apart doesn't mean they contained nine months of content.

Content only started to become trivial because of Heroes of Abyssea and the brews/Apoc atma within. Prior to that release, Scars and Vision definitely were worth at least 3 months of content. You couldn't just zerg through everything, even RR/MM wasn't enough for the average player to zoom through content and EXP was fast but not Heroes fast.

I get you hate Abyssea and think it was bad for XI but the fact is instead of SE learning what worked (good time/reward ratios, lights, KI farming, responsiveness to player concerns, constant job improvements) and what didn't (job-specific procs, too many buffs, infinite-RR/brews) they've elected to return the game to the status it held before this expansion took hold.

Funny, if SE released an Abyssea-style expansion without the buffs/procs but with the same system of collecting many items to complete weapons and armor it'd be universally praised because at least when you logged in you'd feel like you're going somewhere. Instant gratification is one helluva drug.

They've announced Legion will have a point system but we'll have to see whats fundamentally wrong with it because SE isn't keen on releasing anything people have to work for - it must be random lotteries where the new guy goes 1/1 and the dude chipping away at the boulder finally stumbles in at 1/105. Heavy Metal Plates is like a huge middle finger to the playerbase, ADL will be a monumental grind for anyone without old-school LS connections, the Voidwatch fix will just remove the need for certain classes completely and the 'token' system is a waste of developer resources.

Btw, Tanaka does not get universal praise on the XIV forums, Yoshida does and for good reason. Yoshida plays his creation, he shares his vision, he understands the changing market of MMO is in players who play in short bursts rather than marathons and content is being made to reflect that. Do you really think Tanaka plays this game? Ito? Perhaps Yoshida is just pandering to his base because XIV is in the toilet and needs all the good PR it can muster but that is irrelevant because his actions will win over the minds of players.

Praise. You're a funny guy given Tanaka was the one yelling at the base to shut up about his brilliant fatigue system that was universally loathed. There is a reason he was yanked off the project and it wasn't because he was being praised too much.

[Greatguardian]

Razed Ruins and Minikin Monstrosity made Abyssea easy-mode as soon as Scars came out, and Visions didn't really contain enough "Good" gear to acquire for it to have a long life. Apoc only affected scrubs who didn't carry RR items to begin with or know how to lock their ear slots when they needed to chain-raise for who knows what reason. Net effect on good players? Saving 40k a week or so.

Scars EXP is also significantly better than Heroes across the board. The only reason people seem to prefer Heroes is BNS (Big number syndrome). Dominion Ops are retarded and only slow exp down. A good Bluffalo/Doll party can hit 250k-300k/hr. A pickup party on Bugards can hit 500k/hr pretty easily. Expwatch not working with Abyssea and Attainment not being a default plugin probably helped contribute to the ignorance in this case, though.

It only took a couple weeks to get the 3-4 Visions items/Atmas that were actually good, and another couple weeks to get your AF3+2 from Scars once you had RR/MM. Rani and Pantokrator might have extended the lifetime of Heroes, but they added 200k Brews in the same patch so, again, the content lasted a couple weeks tops.

We could talk about "average" players all day, but we both know the truly average player wears 4/5 Perle and a Walahra turban so they'll never finish Abyssea no matter how long they have. The average endgamer probably got a couple weeks in cumulative content from each Abyssea expansion, bar Empyrean weapons which would add 3-5 days (if you count all the NM trials) per weapon. Some people took longer, but this was more a matter of playing less often than anything else. If you added up your actual playtime used to complete each expansion, it's probably just a couple weeks.

[Sparthos]

Razed Ruins and Minikin Monstrosity made Abyssea easy-mode as soon as Scars came out, and Visions didn't really contain enough "Good" gear to acquire for it to have a long life. Apoc only affected scrubs who didn't carry RR items to begin with or know how to lock their ear slots when they needed to chain-raise for who knows what reason. Net effect on good players? Saving 40k a week or so.

For skilled players perhaps but with individuals still wiping Sobek, Gukumatz, Tunga, Amun, Varney and Bhukis at the Heroes phase and beyond, it's safe to say most people weren't breezing. I do agree that MM/RR were both completely broken in the hands of people who actually know how to play but content is designed for the average player according to our overlords at SE.

Apoc didn't have a cooldown and that's what made it so broken. Even if you have RR items the time it takes to reapply the effect could still mean a scenario where everyone is dead and the zombie halts. With Apoc? No such thing. Coupled with a 3rd atma slot begging for Apoc to be used, the game quickly became 'zombie all the things!'.

Shinryu would have qualified as long-term content had brews not been made trivial in addition to Rani/Pantokrator in addition to Emps taking far longer to complete than a couple of days.

Scars EXP is also significantly better than Heroes across the board. The only reason people seem to prefer Heroes is BNS (Big number syndrome). Dominion Ops are retarded and only slow exp down. A good Bluffalo/Doll party can hit 250k-300k/hr. A pickup party on Bugards can hit 500k/hr pretty easily. Expwatch not working with Abyssea and Attainment not being a default plugin probably helped contribute to the ignorance in this case, though.

Scars vs Heroes EXP? While it's absolutely true that Scars puts out better EXP, that hinges on people being active. Heroes lights are pathetically easy to cap (because you don't need to cap them), you can AFK at the Tactician and collect EXP and even the slowest parties can still break 75k-150k/hr. The whole thing encouraged leeching that was already happening and simply exacerbated the problem. Any semblance of strategy in capping lights was tossed out the window when you could just zone in and get high tier chests.

It only took a couple weeks to get the 3-4 Visions items/Atmas that were actually good, and another couple weeks to get your AF3+2 from Scars once you had RR/MM. Rani and Pantokrator might have extended the lifetime of Heroes, but they added 200k Brews in the same patch so, again, the content lasted a couple weeks tops.

Again, for a skilled player or one with the connections. If you lack either, it's going to take you a good while to cap your jobs out and then even more time to finish Emp items especially if you go about it solo like some individuals have. People don't solo Emp items on BST because they want to, they do so because they have to.

It's really ultimately irrelevant because Abyssea was designed to be short term content so 3 weeks or 3 months, it was still meant to be followed up by something significant. Abyssea had strong pros and strong cons but what followed took procs, spread it around and recycled the ANNM system to spawn Voidwatch. For all the cries of Abyssea being too easy in the right hands Voidwatch is equally trivial with the only difference being the microscopic rates on some gear.

While SE rectified this issue in the most recent Voidwatch release, the system is still Abyssea-level easy for skilled players and can be finished in a day or never finished at all depending on your dices roll.

[Theytak]

c'mon now people, how many times do you need to have this stupid argument about abyssea before you realize that neither side is ever going to budge on their opinion of the matter? Stop wasting everyone's time. The pet derail got snuffed for the same reason, it's pointless, repetitive, and this isn't the place for it.

Seriously. Legion. That's what this thread is for. You lose all right to complain about the devs not listening to us when you take a thread we know for a fact they're watching based on their responses to it, and totally derail it for your own pathetic soap box agendas. Cut it out.

[Ravenmore]

For the hardcore players content has never lasted more then a couple months. How easy was sky, srea, limbus, einj, salvage only thing that slowed you down was the the drop rates and long cool downs. The game dosn't need content that last for months for the hardcore it needs to keep the people with out the means to blow though content happy. Its only hard for the people that go though first once the trick is known it all becomes LOLfarming.