Questionable decisions on patch 2.35

[Xellos2099]

There is ZERO reason why the sb change in overworld. NONE beside to control the supply. By remove the method of sbing i49 stuff for expert roulette and lower the chance of i70 and i90 convert rate, they effect;y lower the chance of getting the right tier iv by 50%. People LOVE multtask, what is better than, farming for vanity, daily alexnder, and sb at the same time.

[SulwynCaliope]

There is ZERO reason why the sb change in overworld. NONE beside to control the supply. By remove the method of sbing i49 stuff for expert roulette and lower the chance of i70 and i90 convert rate, they effect;y lower the chance of getting the right tier iv by 50%. People LOVE multtask, what is better than, farming for vanity, daily alexnder, and sb at the same time.

Actually there was a VERY good reason why SE made the change they did. It was to stop people from running into dungeons WAY UNDERgeared and then expecting the rest of the party to carry them. I will admit that I used to SB job appropriate i50 gear in i70+ dungeons while doing roulettes. Since the change I actually find that as a serial SBer, I have BENEFITED greatly. The increased SB rate has actually helped me SB way more than I have before. The ones who have been inconvenienced are the casual SBers. Since the change was targeted towards them in the first place, I will say that SE has achieved its goal.

[Miakisaki]

stop people from running into dungeons WAY UNDERgeared

This part will not change. The fastest way to bond i45-49 gear now is to get into a dungeon that drops i55-i60 gear and then bond there. This was the wrong way to achieve that goal.

The method that should have used was to simply make it impossible to fall under a certain ilvl with armor changes once you are inside a dungeon. Meaning people have to mix and match and choose what they bond in order to meet the minimium ilvl requirements of the dungeon, because with this fix trying to equip anything that drops you under the ilvll limit will return "Cannot equip. Item level will drop below the minimum." Which would have achieved everything needed to keep people equipped with their gear but still allow some casual spiritbonding.

Now the open world change was absolute garbage, pure SB groups at Urth's Fount bothered absolutely nobody. There is no reasonable argument for that.

[SulwynCaliope]

This part will not change. The fastest way to bond i45-49 gear now is to get into a dungeon that drops i55-i60 gear and then bond there.

Actually you're wrong about this. The closer your item is to the level of the dungeon, the more SB you get. i48 gear in an i55 dungeon will bond slower than in an i50 dungeon like castrum. Take a look at the tests people have run in the different threads about SBing. You'll see that your best SB rate will come from dungeons that are level appropriate. And no, even though I'm running through castrum is full left and right job appropriate SB gear, I'm technically not leeching or undergeared for the dungeon because it is level appropriate for the gear I'm wearing.

[Miakisaki]

Actually you're wrong about this.

I had been reading that the sweet spot for SB now was +10 levels over the ilvl of the item in question. In reading some of what people have done they said that the bond rate matches the gear level of the dropped items in the dungeon. If I am wrong about this, then I apologize.

Regardless, my proposed fix would cover that much the same way in that you wouldn't be able to drop under the minimum in Castrum but could still SB i35-49 gear in something like ST as long as you don't fall under the minimum ilvl of the dungeon. Still like that fix better than the one we got.

[Xellos2099]

Actually there was a VERY good reason why SE made the change they did. It was to stop people from running into dungeons WAY UNDERgeared and then expecting the rest of the party to carry them. I will admit that I used to SB job appropriate i50 gear in i70+ dungeons while doing roulettes. Since the change I actually find that as a serial SBer, I have BENEFITED greatly. The increased SB rate has actually helped me SB way more than I have before. The ones who have been inconvenienced are the casual SBers. Since the change was targeted towards them in the first place, I will say that SE has achieved its goal.

You say that yet there was no reason to mess with Sbing on overworld.... is there? As if SA4 and SM iv are not expensive enough. According to report, the SB rate of the i49 gear(where most of the tier iv materia come from) is around the same at Urth from before the patch. Now here is the next question, if this is target for the causal sber, they are doing it WRONG. A causal sber is not going to urth to sb, nor will they queue up Castrum only for sb, they mainly just buy a few cheap of cheap i49 stuff on mb and go sb at either expert routtle/ST and use it to work on novus on the side or sell for allowance. Now if they are using i100 stuff on the left side and us i49 stuff on right side they should still be around i70, which is within the entry ilvl for ST and the expert routtle. No real harm is done as long as they got good weapon but now the casual can't even sb casually. This will decrease the supply t4 of the materia.

I truly feel sorry for those people who are stuill working on novus and want SA/SM build. It is as if SE do not want us to stabilize the price of the tier 4 materia.

[Ultimatecalibur]

You say that yet there was no reason to mess with Sbing on overworld.... is there? As if SA4 and SM iv are not expensive enough

All i45 to i49 gear bonds roughly three times faster at Urth's Gift now while maintaining there Tier IV conversion rate. SMIV, SAIV and all other Tier IV materia quantities should increase.

[IamBenpi]

All i45 to i49 gear bonds roughly three times faster at Urth's Gift now while maintaining there Tier IV conversion rate. SMIV, SAIV and all other Tier IV materia quantities should increase.

I don't know where you're getting this info from, but that's not my experience so far, nor is it the experience of those in the SB testing threads. The sweet spot for SB gain is on mobs approx. 10 levels higher than the gear you are SBing. I think people just read SB rates increased for using level appropriate gear means if gear=mob level you SB faster, which isn't true.

I used to SB open world, now I'll be SBing in dungeons. Will I be so under geared people will have to carry me? No, but then I never did that, and very rarely saw it either. I will however be less able to carry the newer players who I am usually DFed with in the dungeons.

[StouterTaru]

There is ZERO reason why the sb change in overworld. NONE beside to control the supply. By remove the method of sbing i49 stuff for expert roulette and lower the chance of i70 and i90 convert rate, they effect;y lower the chance of getting the right tier iv by 50%. People LOVE multtask, what is better than, farming for vanity, daily alexnder, and sb at the same time.

And you can still do that, you just can't do that in a dungeon with gear outside the range of what you should be wearing in there. You just can't farm stuff that is horribly out of range of your gear, but you can with other gear, or on other mobs.

Lower rate for IVs off 2-3 star gear per piece, but it SBs at a highly accelerated rate. All of a sudden crafters have something to do again instead of making trivial lowbie gear.

[Canadane]

There is ZERO reason why the sb change in overworld. NONE beside to control the supply. By remove the method of sbing i49 stuff for expert roulette and lower the chance of i70 and i90 convert rate, they effect;y lower the chance of getting the right tier iv by 50%. People LOVE multtask, what is better than, farming for vanity, daily alexnder, and sb at the same time.

Aside from no longer carrying spiritbonders through dungeons, actual spiritbonding, using proper ilvl gear on proper level targets has a faster SB rate than it did before this update.
But disregarding that, controlling the supply of items and currency in the world is something SE has done, is doing, and will continue to do. It's needed for a game of this scale to remain fun for everyone.