New Jobs Gated Behind Completion of 2.0 Story?

[StouterTaru]

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You are basically suggesting getting carried by duty finder. That works fine for one person, but when you have half the party with 3.5k HP in titan, not so much. Plus no levi weapons at ~ilvl60, they drop from EX. And when all the geared players are doing fun new expansion content, you end up with 2-3 people trying to carry 5-6.

If you're going into 2.4 content with a weapon below 90, and 2.5 content with a weapon below 100, you are getting carried. Try a crystalis some time with all dps weapons below 90, see how well that goes.

You can have an average ilvl of 100 and be less useful to your party than someone with an average ilvl of 40 (130 weapon/body/pants). Hitting the minimum ilvl with the weakest slots leaves your party better off with you getting locked out of the fight.

Plus with expansion, there likely will be no soldiery tomes, and poetic tomes will likely be significantly decreased from where soldiery tomes are now for a month or two.

[Viridiana]

You are basically suggesting getting carried by duty finder. That works fine for one person, but when you have half the party with 3.5k HP in titan, not so much.

How much HP do you think people had when we were clearing Titan? If you've got an i55 or better weapon (GC, any Primal) and pretty much anything more than "base AF gear and fresh 50 jewelry", you're geared enough to clear Titan. An i120 belt and jewelry plus an i55 weapon is enough.

Plus no levi weapons at ~ilvl60, they drop from EX.

My mistake.

And when all the geared players are doing fun new expansion content, you end up with 2-3 people trying to carry 5-6.

Which, for most of the primals, is enough. And that's if the 5-6 new people all die.

If you're going into 2.4 content with a weapon below 90, and 2.5 content with a weapon below 100, you are getting carried. Try a crystalis some time with all dps weapons below 90, see how well that goes.

By the time you get to Chrysalis, you can for a minor detour have gotten your Zenith. I left it out of my earlier post, but it's not much of a detour at all.

You can have an average ilvl of 100 and be less useful to your party than someone with an average ilvl of 40 (130 weapon/body/pants). Hitting the minimum ilvl with the weakest slots leaves your party better off with you getting locked out of the fight.

That's hyperbole and you know it. I know that the ilvl algorithm needs a lot of work, but a half-competent but undergeared person does not put out *negative* numbers, which is what would be required for your last sentence to be true.

Plus with expansion, there likely will be no soldiery tomes, and poetic tomes will likely be significantly decreased from where soldiery tomes are now for a month or two.

We don't actually know what will happen to poetics. It's an expansion, not just another patch, so we don't know what their plans are. *If* the pattern holds, you're right that tomes will be harder to come by. If the pattern does not hold, there's no telling what they'll do.

And my earlier post almost entirely ignored hunts, which are also a valid method of getting gear. Even with no S ranks, a few hours of hunting can get you an i100 chest piece. And that's if they don't move the i120 pieces to the hunt vendor. And if 3.0 lowers hunt participation, that makes it even easier for a fresh 50 to hunt. Especially since hunts don't require good gear as long as you have some tanks and healers for aggro.

And that's *still* ignoring cheap crafted gear.

Face it, when you add all the ways to get gear easily in this game, there's no reason it should take long to hit i90.

[Voltyblast]

I'd like to share also my opinion about the lock out of jobs, as well as for the rest of the game, behind these story content. And all I can say is that I truely feel depressed that such choice was taken for the expansion.

Don't take me wrong here: I wouldn't mind if the story quests were simpler and quicker to do, with possible "solo modes" to do and basically quick content that wouldn't last a day or two, but requiring to finish the entire 2.0 game content just for unlocking the new jobs? And quests? And even duties, eventually? I'm sorry but I really don't like this decision, especially if a new player wants to join in and simply want to have fun: I wanted to invite my sister to play with me again and she has not completed any 2.0 content yet. Meaning, she is stuck at doing the old content until she can finally reach the expansion, which will require a whole lot of dungeons and trials to do and gear to actually "enter" those dungeons and trials. Oh and it will also require people to do that content, which may or may not be present since I assume most of them will be doing the actual endgame content of the expansion.


And all for what? The "story"? Does it mean that the story is more important than the game itself? Whether I like it or not, locking content behind a story "because it makes sense" doesn't make sense to me in terms of fun factor: if I was a new player I don't know If I'd stay until the end, since I'm forced to do old content (with old gear, most likely) before even reaching the expansion landscape. It's not fun.

Granted, fun is highly subjective here and what's fun for me MIGHT not be for someone else, but this is flatout "locked out content" for the sake of the story: as a new player I want to play the new class, I want to play the new quests, I want to play the new zone. And if I didn't follow the previous story? Well so be it, but at least I'm having fun and if you really want to follow the story from the previous content, why not making it optional?

As of now I don't know if I will continue, nor I know if I will be able to recommend the game to those who I hoped to play with: how am I supposed to tell my sister (or my friends) that "you must complete the original content before entering the new zone and unlock the new jobs"? It's not a good incentive to buy the game nor the expansion, and that is why I don't agree with such decision.

I apologize, but I really had to tell what I thought about this.

[Lorielle]

And all I can say is that I truely feel depressed that such choice was taken for the expansion..

I apologize you do feel that way about it. My only thing is that as the "Veterans" we are supposed to be helping the new people get through. But a lot of people are very selfish and only care about getting through themselves. I personally don't mind helping people get through something, you just need to ask. I've had fun being silly in older content and I try to make the experience fun if the group allows me to(I like to tank with tanks in Titan as a Healer for lols). The case for your sister falls upon her enjoyment on the game as well your assistance with getting her through things. You can make that experience fun for her if you want with in mind, "I'll earn the right to finally get into Ishgard and everything", you can simply take the neutral route and go along with it, or be upset and discontinue while the game pushes forward. The game and story is both important. But everyone wants to toss away the "Meaningful Journey" for "Convenience".

Now I don't mean this to say this is your case. I understand that you would want to play these jobs. So why not give it everything you can so you can just play those jobs? That's the issue I see. A lot of people wish for it to be given to them and not earned.

[Firepower]

In fairness I don't think gearing to i90 will be too difficult simply because doing the main quests from 1-50 does net you around 200k which should allow you to gear up with crafted gear, not to mention if you buy a set of i49 accessories for cheap and then spritbind them while working through castrum and praetorium you could net a bundle too. That's assuming that the prices of crafted gear go down or a whole bunch of new sets appear and the materials needed to make them are not so rare.

[StouterTaru]

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You skipped the main point, which is that it requires being carried while having an effective ilvl 10 levels below the minimum, while the people that would be doing the carrying are enjoying the new content.

An undergeared person can definitely have a negative helpfulness in an instance, when they are sucking up so much healer mp/time from being kept alive and raised. Many fights have a dps and HP check, that you won't meet at the minimum ilvl met by high level accessories. Zenith at crystalis is still being carried.

And this is still 200+ hours to reach the content that you bought the game to play when you have to grind hunts/dungeons/relic to reach that point.

The "cheap" ilvl90 crafted gear is going for 300k+ per piece on my server. The also cheap 110 gear is closer to 1.5M per piece.

[Viridiana]

You skipped the main point, which is that it requires being carried while having an effective ilvl 10 levels below the minimum, while the people that would be doing the carrying are enjoying the new content.

The only way you can be 10 ilvl below the minimum even as a fresh 50 is if you're talking about Leviathan onward. And if you're keeping up with your weapon, not even Levi.

An undergeared person can definitely have a negative helpfulness in an instance, when they are sucking up so much healer mp/time from being kept alive and raised. Many fights have a dps and HP check, that you won't meet at the minimum ilvl met by high level accessories.

I focused more on the accessories for a number of reasons. Yes, it's the biggest ilvl increase for most fresh 50s. It's also (on Balmung anyway) the most gil-friendly way to level up.

Zenith at crystalis is still being carried.

No. Having a weapon that is the same as the required ilvl average is not being carried.

And this is still 200+ hours to reach the content that you bought the game to play when you have to grind hunts/dungeons/relic to reach that point.

You bought the game only to play the expansion? You dropped $40 or more on the base game with no intention of playing it at all? Because that seems like a waste of money.

The "cheap" ilvl90 crafted gear is going for 300k+ per piece on my server. The also cheap 110 gear is closer to 1.5M per piece.

For NQ? And how much are the mats? And how much is it to buy NQ and meld it to have the same primary stats as the HQ? Because these are all valid options that I somehow doubt you looked into.

[Verdan]

Has it occurred to you that people might join this game on hearing about being, say, a dude with a gun or a guy with a big sword that uses DARK MAGICK and then want to play that through all this stuff post 50? Cause that's what's being talked about here.

[magni321]

I agree completely I don't want to see something like what wow did with their asks. Always thought it was so dumb that they just started at 50

[magni321]

I honestly think they are doing the right thing here. I mean if you look at other mmos they are now making it where you get a max lvl or just under when you buy their expansions. Which the cause There to be a massive influx of people playing content that they don't know the story or the mechanics for which in turn makes it where we have tons of people complaining that the content is to hard and in the end cause the game to get watered down. Personally I like the feeling when I have to work to win and not having the fight nerffed to the ground a week after it comes out.