So anyone else tired of grinding tomes weekly for gear?

I'm only getting sick of it because of the pace of the two expert dungeons, too many walls and doors that dont open til you kill stuff for my taste.

But then again, I do a bit of everything and normally only need 3-4 DR runs a week to cap (done with friends messing around so its not too bad)

They will never change this system as they do not want the gap between top and average to grow to quick at each patch. The only change I can ever see is making it become a cap on how much you can spend a week per job rather then just a single weekly cap so those who play a ton could do more and gear more then 1 job.

Its the XIV way, and in truth the way of most MMO these days, it really is a deal with it or dont MMO issue. MMOs are not for everyone, and many who dont like them keep playing them and cry about it everyday rather then finding a game type more suitable to them

I left FFXIV 6 months ago and started to play ffxi again, i made a mythic(relic++) for my smn with unique stats and i really had fun all the time i was playing it, i had many things to do and i was only focusing on one job. Now, after 4 free days in FFXIV i decided to reactivate it for 1 month to get done with story missions and do new trials/instances/pvp, im having fun but i know that it will only be 1 month since nothing has been changed. With every patch they make irrelevant previous released content. So thats it, ffxiv is a game that you can play casually for only one month every six(or more) to dont get burned with it.

Its sad to see that with all the effort and love they put with every patch they are forgetting to hear some advices of their custumers. I dont know if we will have to wait for 4.0 to see some real changes into ffxiv system that make its fun without burn.

Hunts feel like a missed opportunity. As I suggested in another thread, importing the ZNM system into XIV would be a perfect infrastructure to use for revamping hunts into endgame content that serves players on the casual to hardcore spectrum. Farm pop items, pop Hunt, Hunt is claimed by the group similar to a leve or treasure map. This ensures that the difficulty and mechanics of the Hunts are retained(did you know Hunts had mechanics?) while also keeping it open world, which I believe to be very important.

I'm already bored with it, didn't bother hitting the cap last week, probably won't this week.

The dungeons are too easy and too long - you can beat the bosses with your eyes closed and you're literally just fighting your way through wave after wave of trash mobs with endless HP they put in to pad the dungeon out for half an hour. As a healer I nearly fall asleep.

The last boss in Amdapor is so anti-climatic it annoys me.

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Originally Posted by Lunaxia

The dungeons are too easy and too long - you can beat the bosses with your eyes closed and you're literally just fighting your way through wave after wave of trash mobs with endless HP they put in to pad the dungeon out for half an hour. As a healer I nearly fall asleep.

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Funny story. I queued Expert with a couple of FC mates the other day. Upon entering, we realized that no one had queued as a healer. Being the silly people that we are, we decided to just try the dungeon with our setup as it was (SMN, BLM, MCH, WAR).

...and we beat it with very little difficulty.

There is some kind of commentary to be made there.

i cancelled my account yesterday for lots of reasons, including this. the constant tredmill is needlessly frustrating. The only thing that really interests me anymore is the story.

As I outlined on on page 5, the tome grind is pretty pointless after 5 weeks; you get either your tome pants/chest, midas chest/pants, a tome accessory then save for the wep. Utilizing midas weekly will fill out the rest of your slots so you can challenge the patches savage/ex fights. I haven't done an expert roulette since 3.0 law grind, and still cap weekly by doing what my Alex floors early, then doing what I love: PVP.

Anyway, Vertical progression can be easily manipulated if you're a filthy casual like me and don't care about "World Firsts". While I love this game, gearing my avatar doesn't matter as much or fill me with the same feeling of accomplishment as it did in FFXI.

I've never felt the same way about any gear in this game as I did when I completed my Warrior AF1, my Bravura, or getting my Thief Knife.

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Originally Posted by missybee

Psst. You can edit your first post to bypass the 1000 character limit! :D

Also...did you play XI on Phoenix? <_<

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This is useful information. Thank you.

And yes I was Myriads on Phoenix in XI. Beastmaster and Blue Mage and headed up Cactuar Express. LS

after I'm done with Alex normal and did a little bird farm I'm capped and only play my miner until the reset.
This and some Seph learning party every now and then.

If I was able to equip multiple classes at once I would spend more time in this game.

We need Aurum Vale EX for lvl 60 that starts at ilvl 210 and instapoison the whole party and can't be esuna'ed. Then every two minutes everyone gets a stack of vulnerability that can only be healed once in the middle of the dungeon, and you also have a 5% chance to spawn a deadly Tornberry that drops unique rare gear. The last boss' poison causes allucination and swaps teammates hotbars/class/appearence with each other randomly for 8 seconds and healing is 50% less effective. As for the drops, whatever tastes the community.


... that sounds fun in my head. ):

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Originally Posted by Myriads

This is useful information. Thank you.

And yes I was Myriads on Phoenix in XI. Beastmaster and Blue Mage and headed up Cactuar Express. LS

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Ha! I knew it.

I went out to Movapolos to solo gob pets on BLM, and I saw you on Blue Mage at the one at the entrance.

.__. I occasionally remember oddly specific events.

(Sorry for the brief unrelated aside, OF-sempai)

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Originally Posted by missybee

Funny story. I queued Expert with a couple of FC mates the other day. Upon entering, we realized that no one had queued as a healer. Being the silly people that we are, we decided to just try the dungeon with our setup as it was (SMN, BLM, DRG, WAR).

...and we beat it with very little difficulty.

There is some kind of commentary to be made there.

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I'm not surprised. As a WHM, I've never felt so superfluous in a dungeon as I do in the new ones. I can stand there and only have to cast a single Cure over five minutes, which is pretty frustrating when you've got a kit primarily geared towards big heals and not much else. I don't mind DPSing now and then but I'm a healer, I didn't roll WHM to spend the entire dungeon spamming Stone III on the latest content.

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Originally Posted by OmegaStrongtan

If I was able to equip multiple classes at once I would spend more time in this game.

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This has been one of my biggest gripes about this game as well. I would love to branch out and pick up some of my old jobs, but ages ago I realized that I really don't enjoy spending months fully gearing them up only to have that gear tossed aside when the new patch hits. Because of this, I pretty much only play with my WHM these days.

As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, and in previous threads on the same topic, I think changing the cap to be PER JOB vs. per character would be a huge perk for a lot of people.

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Originally Posted by missybee

Funny story. I queued Expert with a couple of FC mates the other day. Upon entering, we realized that no one had queued as a healer. Being the silly people that we are, we decided to just try the dungeon with our setup as it was (SMN, BLM, DRG, WAR).

...and we beat it with very little difficulty.

There is some kind of commentary to be made there.

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Yes, but "Content doesn't require a healer when you're more than 40 item levels (over 20%) beyond the required minimum" isn't particularly interesting or surprising commentary.

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Originally Posted by Iagainsti

I've never felt the same way about any gear in this game as I did when I completed my Warrior AF1, my Bravura, or getting my Thief Knife.

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But to put this into perspective, how many hours did you (and, in the case of your Bravura if you did it at 75 cap, your linkshell) have to invest into each of those?

A relic at the 75 cap, if a linkshell was farming all the currency (rather than someone purchasing currency with gil earned through other methods), could represent literally thousands of man-hours invested.

Even a thief's knife, back before Sozu Rogberry was a force-pop, could easily involve an investment of tens or hundreds of hours.

I'm sick of having to keep track of currency. I use to always spend my tomes, never let them go to "waste" then my inventory fills with gear I'll never get to use because by the time I gear my main job, a patch is released, and everything I have earned is outdated and I'm left trashing my gear for Grand Company seals to buy ventures which I already have 300+ of... ~_~

Now I log in 1-2 times a week and do a few dungeons. I don't really bother getting upgrades right away because often I take long breaks from the game and when I come back my gear is already outdated. I went back to FFXI this past November. I plan to let my FFXIV subscription expire (but why should SE care? They make more money off my FFXI sub $15.00/month)

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Originally Posted by missybee

Funny story. I queued Expert with a couple of FC mates the other day. Upon entering, we realized that no one had queued as a healer. Being the silly people that we are, we decided to just try the dungeon with our setup as it was (SMN, BLM, DRG, WAR).

...and we beat it with very little difficulty.

There is some kind of commentary to be made there.

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We used to challenge a lot of runs without a healer before Unsynced dropped. DD and Brayflox hm come to mind. Warrior self healing is OP with great Dps, and the old Bard LB helped .

My pc literally just died this morning while playing left4dead2. I have to build a new one. This is VERY ironic timing. I pretty much already canceled sub since i cant play anyway till a new build. Atleast the video card is salvageable. Pretty sure my motherboard/cpu is toast... i blame the OC.
At any rate, i probably wont be rejoining till 4.0 now unless some content update releases something interesting. Its gonna suck falling behind again but whatever. Ill be on forums till sub expires i guess. Gott make a parts list and get to it... back to console gaming for now. :(

Not so much...I like grinds so.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

Yes, but "Content doesn't require a healer when you're more than 40 item levels (over 20%) beyond the required minimum" isn't particularly interesting or surprising commentary.

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But expert mode is giving players the very latest dungeon experience. It shouldn't be an absolute snooze fest at this point.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

But to put this into perspective, how many hours did you (and, in the case of your Bravura if you did it at 75 cap, your linkshell) have to invest into each of those?

A relic at the 75 cap, if a linkshell was farming all the currency (rather than someone purchasing currency with gil earned through other methods), could represent literally thousands of man-hours invested.

Even a thief's knife, back before Sozu Rogberry was a force-pop, could easily involve an investment of tens or hundreds of hours.

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I'm not entirely sure of the point you're trying to make here :X While a lot of gear/items in XI did take a good chunk of time, it was still incredibly worthwhile because those items were still used for endgame. With XIV, you get spend months gearing your character, and then in about 6 months, you get to do it all again! There is no real substance there, and no real character growth or improvement. Stats and ilvl are artificially inflated to keep people busy.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

But to put this into perspective, how many hours did you (and, in the case of your Bravura if you did it at 75 cap, your linkshell) have to invest into each of those?

A relic at the 75 cap, if a linkshell was farming all the currency (rather than someone purchasing currency with gil earned through other methods), could represent literally thousands of man-hours invested.
Even a thief's knife, back before Sozu Rogberry was a force-pop, could easily involve an investment of tens or hundreds of hours.

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You're correct, I was in University, and had the time to invest over the course of many years to get my avatar geared and relevant (camping HNMs while writing term papers comes to mind; hours spent waiting for 15 mins of actual gameplay xD). Nowadays, I wouldn't be able to even scratch the surface of everything I did in FFXI; hence why I love how casual this game can be. I might be able to get in 10-15 hours of gametime in a week, usually 2 hours a night on weekdays being a homebody and primetime tv is lame. This game suits my lifestyle. Those that have the time to invest but do not feel the rewards are sufficient I can sympathize with. I probably would be playing something other than FFXIV if this was 10 years ago.

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Originally Posted by Mycow8me

probably wont be rejoining till 4.0 now unless some content update releases something interesting. Its gonna suck falling behind again but whatever. Ill be on forums till sub expires i guess. :(

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Ouch, sorry to hear that; Go PS4! anyway, outside of leveling, you'll be caught up gear wise in 3 weeks tops no matter the patch ;D

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Originally Posted by Ibi

Yes, but "Content doesn't require a healer when you're more than 40 item levels (over 20%) beyond the required minimum" isn't particularly interesting or surprising commentary.

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The content was released in 3.2, and our gear is about par for the course for 3.2. Considering those things, I think it's a little too early for a healer to feel superfluous.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As an aside, I am an idiot and gave the wrong setup. We were SMN, BLM, MCH, WAR. Both the BLM and the MCH were sitting at about ilvl198.

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Originally Posted by Ibi

But to put this into perspective, how many hours did you (and, in the case of your Bravura if you did it at 75 cap, your linkshell) have to invest into each of those?

A relic at the 75 cap, if a linkshell was farming all the currency (rather than someone purchasing currency with gil earned through other methods), could represent literally thousands of man-hours invested.

Even a thief's knife, back before Sozu Rogberry was a force-pop, could easily involve an investment of tens or hundreds of hours.

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That's a bit of a stretch.

Yes we put hundreds of hours into some things. But when we got it...Yay! And we could use it the next 5 years and work on other things.

The XIV treadmill, you work on something, get it and redo it again and again and again the next month. So while there is a goal to XI things, there is no real goal in XIV and that means you will sink endless hours into something that has no tangible reward. I mean, who cares if you have the latest weapon, its going to be obsolete in a few weeks anyway. They are all just stop gaps until the next update. Which also means you cannot utilize the armory system to its full advantage because it is difficult to gear multiple jobs. Why even give us the option if they are going to artificially limit our ability to use the various jobs anyway?

That's why I am not forcing myself to do a relic. I made 5 zeta on one char and 3 on my now cancelled alt account. Yoshi said they would remain relevant, but that was a flat out lie unless you count glamour (which I do not).

So while you can be excited and proud of your achievements in XI, because you worked hard for them and got a reward worthy of your effort, who really cares about what you have in XIV. It's just a temporary reward with little to no worth.

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Originally Posted by Myriads

This is useful information. Thank you.

And yes I was Myriads on Phoenix in XI. Beastmaster and Blue Mage and headed up Cactuar Express. LS

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Were you ever in the all BST LS on Phoenix?

Nope not quite tired of it...but I am tired of the annoying bad I have to deal with every third run of the day >.>

Oh and now we have to meld everything which means a non stop materia treadmill too. Thanks SE

my main issue is forcing ppl to do 4 easy mans to cap it ....gez now we only have 2 dungeons ....so boring....alex savage needs to give like 100 lore tomes , VA 50 at least....alex normal more 25 each or something like that

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Originally Posted by MicahZerrshia

Oh and now we have to meld everything which means a non stop materia treadmill too. Thanks SE

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Not as bad as it sounds, If you have been playing long enough, the 2.0 Beast tribes hook you up with 12 Grade IVs daily, which are on par for your 220 midas loot. The Grade V weekly from Void lines up time wise well enough for any 230 tome pieces you get.

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Originally Posted by Canadane

That's pretty much exactly the point.
There's limited amount of stuff to do, in a completely vertical progression path. The only way to somewhat mitigate this is by placing limits on what a player can earn.
This isn't XI where certain content lasts forever and ever. I would love it if that were the case, but sadly, that probably wouldn't go over well with the large amount of silent casuals that probably don't even know the Lodestone exists.

Also, let me add, thanks for your first post on the lodestone! I'm glad you take issue with this seriously enough to actually speak up.
Hopefully more will do so and we may see some change.

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Good ol' Canadane! Have you ever watched that show "Absolutely Fabulous" I recommended to you when we ran that raid awhile back?

XI was a different beast compared to XIV. I get where a lot of people are not happy with always hitting the endgame ceiling as well. I feel it too.

What I've been doing in between is finding things to do in the meantime. I do pace myself.

Recently I took up the Manderville sidestory and I am laughing my collective ass off.

I was able to move my FC into a large house - which proved to be big and void of life with just three of us - so I promoted the FC for other members to join our like minded, laid back style - and I've been privileged to of made friends in the process as our FC did get a small amount of newcomers. We're looking to keep member count small so everyone can interact with one another. There's still some room for a couple of wayward souls =p

I took up crafting - I like/hate it. I ended up specializing LTW and that's been a decent way to make money in game but alas, my gear still needs major improvement despite my over melding. (Need a new Awl... that is expensive to make/buy 0_0) I'm working on a Blacksmith and I am considering adding mining for my 2nd gathering class.

I took up religion (rolled a WHM) and I was able to heal my first Void Ark run - I felt I did pretty good.

I want to do BizEx/RavanaEx farming for the weapons and a bird. Too many people want to cut Ravana down without taking the adds which is new to me. I've done multiple runs where the adds got cleaved down.

Given my mindset, I want the new SephEX weapons, but no one will take me because I've never run it before - so I'll assume much later I'll run it in some months down the road.

Anima weapon - still a struggle to get the unidentified items needed. No one's running Alex regular anymore so I find myself having to make nice with Beast tribes.

The new tomestone caps.. 230 gear is nice.. but I'm not going to push myself hard for it. Slowly but surely I'll get to it as I clear my weekly dose of Alexander Midas runs. I'll be as content with 220 gear that's crafted (another thing I can't afford...)

There's other things... but it's too long to list. I just don't push myself. I find new avenues and have fun doing them =)

I am content with Ilvl 210. I don't really see any reason to get any new gear right now and I see the fancy new Ilvl 230 gear, but .. honestly its too grindy I will just wait until they release ilvl 250 gear and get the 230 gear easy! :)

Now if they actually brought in an Epic Weapon Questline with weapons like this..?


http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Category:E...apon_Timelines

24 unique stories, 24 unique weapons that have you traveling all over the world; and 24 unique class effects; literally makes your class stronger; WORKS in all gameplay and not affected by mentoring!


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Example of a weapon:

Kirā
Rogue - Ninja Weapon
Physical Damage: 90
Auto-attack: 55
Delay: 1.0

Dexterity +170
Vitality +170
Critical Hit Rate +100
Determination +100
Accuracy +50

Thirsty Blades:
Goad is now a group buff that applies to everyone and also regenerates MP.
Critical attacks reduce the cooldown of Goad by 3 seconds.

Kirā's Focus
Increases base Critical Chance of Caster by 10%.
Increases damage from critical attacks by 10%.

________________________

These effects stay with the caster; even when in lower level dungeons. This means your character will be stronger then the typical person; but the group members should tell that as well; it gives them something to work for.

They can only be gotten by raiding; questing. There are multiple versions ect ect.

I think it needs to be switched up from time to time, maybe tomes one patch, RNG another, crafting the next. Or have all 3 together some how to give players options because the tome system is getting old fast. I feel they're too scared to add anything new.

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Originally Posted by Lemuria

...The problem now is that SE are a bit set in their ways. We already know EXACTLY how each major update will play out for the next year. Each update will contain: Two new expert roulette dungeons, a new tombstone currency, the removal of the oldest tombstones, and more story missions. It used to be three dungeons, but I guess SE decided less is more.

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Well, I think people forget to understand that the people who make these games are mostly IT guys; IT guys like to put everything in processes and automate a lot of work. Working in an IT field myself, we have our daily, weekly, and monthly processes. Sound familiar? In FFXIV we got our dailies... weeklies... just can't escape that IT environment/mindset! As soon as we complete a project, we make a process for it. Sure, people may come up with new ideas every now and then but even so, we need to create a process. After all, what if that guy gets hit by a truck and doesn't show up the next day? ... so come up with a system and make it a routine process that any new guy can pick up. This system they got in place is probably just a bunch of daily, weekly, and monthly processes. The guys who created the processes (the actual talent) are probably doing other things (expansion... other games... maybe even left the company). Therefore, you will probably see "new" and "creative" things only so often.

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Originally Posted by Terribad

I think it needs to be switched up from time to time, maybe tomes one patch, RNG another, crafting the next. Or have all 3 together some how to give players options because the tome system is getting old fast. I feel they're too scared to add anything new.

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That would be complicated because some aren't even crafters.

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Originally Posted by UnstablePersonality

That would be complicated because some aren't even crafters.

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That was just random suggestions and people don't have to be crafters. People can just buy the gear or provide the mats, etc. Or like I said also, having options, I think the main thing is too just have options.

Having more options would indeed be nice.

Part of the probelm is how fast gear expires though. Its sad when they are using timegated upgrades to timegated gear, or atleast i think so. It was the case their for a while with eso gear.

If you gonna do something like that why not just offer another optionable gear set that you can slowly upgrade and customize, like relic armor pieces. Most people dont care to max out more than one class anymore anyways. This would allow them to relic their favorite class out armorwise while lore/midas others.

The relic armor can be grindy, AS LONG AS ITS CREATIVE DANGIT.

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Originally Posted by Terribad

That was just random suggestions and people don't have to be crafters. People can just buy the gear or provide the mats, etc. Or like I said also, having options, I think the main thing is too just have options.

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something like DR trials give 50lore tome extra this week , and next Guildhest , next another....at least we arent repeating the same 2 instances in order to cap ....yeah i know there is other content to cap ....but come on DR expert reward are 75 tomes ....do that x5 every week and done...i would love to spam Trials ,at least there are more than 2 trials to choose from...

i remember when i didnt capped esoterics for weeks , because there was no point outside gearing alts u never play , had time to level BLM and Drk to 60 :)

in other games the "tomes" are capped doing even solo quests (slow but doable ) , group quests faster , dungeons (20 to choose from) , and raids caped u after 6~ bosses..... GL with that in FFXIV since we only have 4 bosses in raids :/ and even killing a savage boss is what 25 lore? what a joke

It's one way to get sick of doing dungeons that are released every patch
"But there's more ways to grind tomes!" Says the apologists
yes, but EX roulette and the EX dungeons give out the most lore so it makes sense to just spam those, literally no reason to go into Alexander when you've got your loot lately I find myself just doing Ex and 60, logging off and playing another FF game or Dark Souls either one feels more rewarding.

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Originally Posted by Adire

Lots of complaining, yet the same people complaining continue to subscribe and cap tomestones anyways.

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So you're not allowed to complain or say you dislike something because they play it? Ohkay
oh wait its another balmung player says something crazy again post, never mind.

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Originally Posted by Melondra

One of the nice thing about final fantasy XI online is it seemed like a real adventure. Getting from Point A-B actually felt like a journey especially with death lurking around every corner. In this game it pretty much jumping from aether crystal to aether crystal. The community today would never survive that game because it actually took a strong sense of community and friendship. If you made enemys in Final Fantasy XI you might as well cancel your subscription. The game required having a strong and social community and you needed the ability to help others without any personal gain for your-self. But you made really good friendships in that game and the community there was outstanding.

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I'm new to Final Fantasy XI only FF I've not finished, would stuff like "Read a guide" fly in that game if someone asked a question about a boss? anyways I don't even think people who had XIV as their first and only FF game could even survive a single player Final Fantasy game since those games have you travel the world map on an adventure with danger lurking in higher level areas if you get curious.

On another note and somewhat related does anyone remember Yoshida saying Heavensward will change the game in new and exciting ways?
Did he just mean flight because HW feels like 2.x just with less content each patch.

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

Snip

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I was talking more so of different ways to get the gear. This is the first game I've ever played with such a strict tome system and it's not all that fun. But I do agree with the amount being low. I think that's to keep people playing since once the smoke and mirrors are gone, there's really nothing to do in this game.

A really simple thing that WoW did to extend the lifespan of its dungeons was to add challenge achievements. These were special achievements that required you to either clear content in unorthodox ways or clear it flawlessly. For example: kill X boss without ever failing Y mechanic; or clear Z dungeon with no armour equipped. Sometimes there were more interesting ones such as having a boss get killed by its own attack, killing an exceedingly large number of adds (required you to kill the boss very slowly to get more adds to spawn) or kill the boss so fast adds never show up.

I'm not really doing it justice; there were a lot of very cool challenge achievements for WoW's dungeons. Stuff like that can add a lot of replayability to otherwise repetitive content.

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Originally Posted by Yasuhiro

So you're not allowed to complain or say you dislike something because they play it? Ohkay
oh wait its another balmung player says something crazy again post, never mind.

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Oh wait, it's another Tonberry player with a false sense of superiority.

See, I can be narrowminded too.