Delve

[Fake]

- Lower Bayld cost for Naakual KIs based off of increasing rank in coalitions (I think this is an idea they are already toying with). Something like lowering the cost by 2k for every rank gained in a coalition. Completionists get a worthwhile reward, and entry is still sufficiently expensive for the majority of casual players.

They already confirmed they were doing this in the end of April update so Bayld really doesn't need adjusting. It already has an extremely high reward:time ratio compared to even abyssea.

We also only have the first 4 coalition ranks available and the general trend (not every case) is you can earn more bayld per tag by getting a higher ranking in a given coalition.

SE has plotted it so that in time bayld will become easier to come by as new content is introduced (making access the older content less time consuming) but the way people are bitching over it they want to be able to complete everything 5mins after its released.

[Jeryhn]

Vicious monsters of every shape and size have taken root in various fractures, led by five NMs of particular ferocity. Atop this dastardly chain of command sits a villain of incomparable power. Your goal is to vanquish these five NMs and their leader.
- In the field, you can use special items known as yggrete shards to call forth the lesser NMs from a fracture and try your might against their terrible forms.
- Battles in the fractures consist of vanquishing the five NMs to earn the privilege of taking aim at the most fearsome beast residing within.
- NMs defeated in the field will not make a second appearance within the fracture, and up to three may be defeated in advance.
- Whether you choose to divide and conquer or barge in and face the evils all at once is your decision. Choose wisely based on your strength, confidence, and cunning.

The pictures also show one of the NMs being found in Ceizak... Overall it sounds like the area will have a time limit like any other instanced event, so taking the time to defeat enemies on the outside area gives you more time to deal with the Naakual at the end. Normally, there will be 5 lesser NMs and the Naakual boss inside. The yggrite shards are used to fight the lesser NMs outside, and when defeated award a crystal that you attach to the board you trade for fracture entry. Depending on the crystals you trade with your board, those mobs do not pop on the isnide.

[ronin sparthos]

Add bayld to Ionis kills already.

[Fwahm]

I'm a little confused about the event structure though. When they say "field NMs," are they referring to NMs you spawn just out in the normal areas somewhere? That's the impression I get... Like you pop and fight some of the NMs outside of the Delve "fracture," to make the time you have inside easier.

Let's say that when you enter a fracture battlefield, you have say, 30 minutes to kill 5 NMs. By using the mentioned yggrete shards, you can pull say, 3 of the NMs to outside the entry point, so you can fight them in the field. That way, when you enter the fracture, you only have to kill 2 NMs in 30 minutes to complete the battlefield and get the spoils.

It'd be like, if in Hall of Mul, you could pull the first 4 NMs outside to kill, so that you could spend the whole 30 minutes inside fighting the 6 Paramount monsters for an easier clear.

[NynJa]

Even in the worst Reive zone you're looking at 7-10 hours of grinding for a guaranteed Naakual item which for the most part are pretty good.

Theres a guaranteed drop slot, but if it picks an item you have, u get nothing

[dasva]

Except profit should be replaced with "Get drops that no one wants and then be forced to do the whole process over again."

Well I suppose if you don't have anyone who doesn't want strong weapons it doesn't work for you but for most the player base easily obtainable weapons that are around and sometimes greater strength then r/e/m that are much more time and gil costly then it's nice. And for the few like you that are completely uninterested you can just skip straight to sell and profit lol

[dasva]

Add bayld to Ionis kills already.

Yes this so much. Even if it's only like 5-10% of xp still should get something like you do for signet/sanction. Not doing it for sigil didn't matter as much because of just how much you could get from campaign battles completely solo (not to mention that was actually a decent way to lvl up at the time). And you could check ahead of time where one was going on and well you didn't have 100k AN stuff to get lol. Let alone full armor sets that are actually good

[Eanae]

SE should fire their artists because that's the ugliest armor they've come up with in a long time.

[Prothescar]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...286#post424286

This must be dealt with

[Gwynplaine]

lmao, well the Robocop armor isn't so awful. The pink vest thing looks like something the foppish sex slaves wear who are chained up in Prince's basement.

[TummieGaruda]

Let's say that when you enter a fracture battlefield, you have say, 30 minutes to kill 5 NMs. By using the mentioned yggrete shards, you can pull say, 3 of the NMs to outside the entry point, so you can fight them in the field. That way, when you enter the fracture, you only have to kill 2 NMs in 30 minutes to complete the battlefield and get the spoils.

It'd be like, if in Hall of Mul, you could pull the first 4 NMs outside to kill, so that you could spend the whole 30 minutes inside fighting the 6 Paramount monsters for an easier clear.

It sounded like they said that you would get some kind of item from defeating the 3 NM's you pull out into the field and then trade them to the fracture to prevent them from spawning inside. That could have some serious potential because you can spend time farming multiple items ahead of time and then do pops for the 2 NM only fracture.

[Chamaan]

I've always thought that 70% of the heavy armor helmets in the game were ugly, but the Mikinaak helm is just a straight up salad bowl. And the introduction of more poofy director pants is taking away from Pup's shine and I cannot abide it.

[Malithar]

No matter how I look at the Mikinaak set, I'm reminded of the oldschool blue crab armor but worse. Think its just the viser look to the helm and the color in general that sets it up for me. Guess the detail and spiffiness of VW, Salvage, NNI, and empy sets have spoiled us. <.<

With this set only coming out a month after the expansion launch, while they may keep it relevant for the foreseeable future with lots of ranks or ways to upgrade it, I'm sure it won't be the top crop of armor outta Adoulin.

[noodles355]

The heavy armor helmet looks like a recoloured anwig salade

[Therin]

The Makinaak gear looks good except the helmet, but SE has designed about 4 decent looking helmets in the entire history of FFXI so that doesn't surprise me.

[chichicha]

SE should fire their artists because that's the ugliest armor they've come up with in a long time.

I couldn't agree more.
If these are low level gears, ok, I can take it for a short time...

But now looking at Delve system, I need to look at it longer and work it out to be the good piece.. I am not sure I want this...

[Kincard]

The appearance of these sets actually kind reminds me of the base Synergy sets. I'm kinda wondering if at some point they'll expand on Delve and the armor sets will split in paths for different jobs and become more elaborate, just like the synergy sets did. It would be consistent with that whole "level up your armor" thing they're doing, and it'll mean you'll need to level up multiple sets of the armor for different jobs so it'll make a huge timesink.

[Malithar]

The appearance of these sets actually kind reminds me of the base Synergy sets. I'm kinda wondering if at some point they'll expand on Delve and the armor sets will split in paths for different jobs and become more elaborate, just like the synergy sets did. It would be consistent with that whole "level up your armor" thing they're doing, and it'll mean you'll need to level up multiple sets of the armor for different jobs so it'll make a huge timesink.

This is very possible if you consider what we'll have at launch, and what we know of current intended upgrades to the system. At launch, we'll have a total of 18 NMs minimum (3 areas, 5 base NMs and 1 mega boss each), as well as assumed upgrades in the future once the other 3 named Naakuals are added, and perhaps a 7th if they add it as another mob, besides a storyline one. Hard to say how elaborate the system will be concerning gear, but if even at launch every NM only drops a single piece of gear, that's 18 pieces, when we know of only 15.

I've been looking at Delve as a refinement on the VW system for the most part. They've handled the near retarded drop rates by allowing you to buy all gear that the NM drops after you've defeated it and collected enough currency, they kept around the whole "you don't have to be flagged to participate, only someone has to be flagged to pop" system which is great for increasing the participation of players at these events, and they've included job category based armor sets just as VW did, but making them all upgradable in different directions to suite the job you'll be using them on.

Unless down the road they follow this tier progression system they've mentioned to a point of ridiculousness and outdate previous Delve armor with the next set of 3 Naakual's Delve's armor sets, I could see further upgrades and branching being a very legitimate possibility. Not to mention how popular it will be to run. It'll be spammed just as much, if not more then VW so people can progress their pieces. Here's hoping that they keep the KI bonuses that VW had. I felt those really added a sense of character development and progression that gear alone couldn't do.

Although there's been no mention of a proc system, I wonder if they will dip into that area any to give all jobs a reason to come. If not, I could see Legion like setups prevailing, or even zerg minded tactics that create a cruise control experience. Can't wait to see what direction they're taking it, cause as much as SE has fucked up, I've gotta say, I've got faith in Matsui.

[Slycer]

Although there's been no mention of a proc system, I wonder if they will dip into that area any to give all jobs a reason to come. If not, I could see Legion like setups prevailing, or even zerg minded tactics that create a cruise control experience. Can't wait to see what direction they're taking it, cause as much as SE has fucked up, I've gotta say, I've got faith in Matsui.

No. No no no no no no no. There are other ways to do this, proper ways like adjusting enemies to be weak (or strong) to certain types of damage, creating enemies where you need to stay at a distance, creating enemies where staying at a distance is discouraged somehow, etc. It should be part of the monster or system AI.

Also, this:

As the new jobs will increase the total by another two, it will become increasingly difficult to tweak jobs in such a way that all jobs can deal damage in the same way to any enemy or to adjust content so that all jobs can handle the same content with the same strategies. These aren't suitable adjustments for a game with 22 different classes.

...

For group content to be implemented, we will pay close attention to be sure that it is open to all jobs, and we will continue to share information regarding content implementation. While I'm aware that there is a need to look at individual jobs for adjustments, tweaking the parameters of individual jobs is not enough, and this must be coordinated with content adjustments as well.

[Gwynplaine]

Yeah pretty much I've been a career RDM but I know it's useless so I'm just going to play another job. It's asking a lot to think all jobs will always be equally desirable.