Your opinion on the level cap being raised/Abyssea

[Vincento]

He said drops figured gear because most people are done with seals and you generally bring a specific group for KI.

[Neisan]

well his 4k WS was a bit exaggerated, but he stated right after 'you still haven't proc'd grellow or Red'.

I think atmas made it possible for mnk+whm or rdm to kill 90% of the stuff in abyssea, but why the hell would you want to other than the challenge of the fight itself? your sure as shit not getting any drops with that setup unless you get stupid lucky.

...

hell yeah you can drop a 4k nuke or Weapon skill! Awesome! ....guess what we still didn't fucking proc red or yellow, so were back to square fucking one. or you killed that ephermeral with ruby light.

[Vincento]

Ah, both portions of that would be an exaggeration as you would still be getting drops. The ephermals portion threw me off of his intention with that line, my mistake. Mnk, Whm is a potent combo as many equipment related NM's can be easily handled as such. For instance he brings up Caturae mobs, there are testimonials of people duoing as Whm, Mnk.

[Xantavia]

Then they need to actually make an attempt at letting casual players have more information on their game (derp derp how much accuracy do I have vs. this and that, lemme break out the calculator.) Evolution! DO IT FAGGOT!

As a casual player myself, I'm sure most of us don't care about this kind of information. High evasion/low evasion works good enough.

I've been thinking about this too, lately. What exactly is the progression for a new player? Assuming they rough it out to 75+, what then? They just start grinding out Abyssea with the rest of us? Do they never get to participate in Sky or Sea or Limbus or Dynamis or any of ToAU's content? That seems quite sad to me, and is at the heart of my major gripe with Abyssea - all those events and NMs and places, they've essentially just been wiped out in one fell swoop. Yeah, those of us that have been playing for years might be sick of them, but that doesn't mean they were bad. It's disappointing that no one else will ever be able to properly experience everything we have.

I'm basically in this boat, and I do feel like I missed out on a lot of this stuff. I've played about 3 1/2 years, but BLU and BST were my jobs, so its not like I was sought out to participate. Sky access I actually had when BLU was my only 75, but only went there for leveling BST. Didn't get Sea access until latest CoP nerf. Never been in a dynamis. And ToAU? Only done missions I could solo (no Salvage access), and a single assault.

Maybe some newer people don't care about any of that stuff, and at times I think it would be better that way. But I am saddened to know that events many people got burned out on are going to be harder for newer players to even know they exist.

[Neisan]

And that is what makes you casual.

[Sepukku]

My primary concern is the lack of incoming Dynamis currency/Dynamis groups. As it was discussed during the initial pages of the thread, MMORPGs are goal-oriented. Despite Lv51 HQ Staves being trumped now by the Affinity staves, I still wanted to complete my goal of having a complete set of 8 HQ Ele Staves signed by myself via woodworking, and Ive completed this.

Another goal is to have a relic weapon, and the massive abandonment of Dynamis is an obstacle to this goal. As Dynamis participation was already declining in the past couple years, Campaign introduced ancient currency as well to help keep a comparable rate of currency entering the system. Now with Campaign and Dynamis plummeting to nearly zero participation its an actual challenge to find any currency for sale in bazaars. With the level cap raise people will be able to potentially solo (or duo/trio) inside of Dynamis for a respectable amount of currency, but the Hourglasses are still 500,000 gil and there is still a time limit for re-entry, making that an agonizing prospect to try to farm one's own currency entirely. A recommended fix in my mind to overcome this obstacle would be to lower the cooldown to a once-per-RL-day entry system with 75-100k hourglasses.

Still, however, a secondary concern is that people may get rusty at Dynamis and forget all the little intricacies of a fragment or attestion NM run, although I think this will largely be overcome by the increase in level and consequently power (being able to just plow through sloppy mistakes). The time limit and entry cost remain the largest obstacles towards any players hoping to begin to make a serious push for a relic weapon.

Largely, however, Abyssea and the level cap have been a positive increase to the game. I don't like the lack of quest options to build initial reputation in every new zone but everytime I'm tediously repeating an Abyssea quest 10-15x I would think of how bad some other quests were pre-Abyssea...

[Isiolia]

A recommended fix in my mind to overcome this obstacle would be to lower the cooldown to a once-per-RL-day entry system with 75-100k hourglasses.

Wouldn't you then run into possible issues with congestion? Depends on the server... I know last I was doing Dynamis (granted, prior to Abyssea really taking off) there were still issues with that, with SE obviously not giving two shits about making it instanced/fake instanced.


More generally, I like Abyssea as an event/activity in general, but I think that SE has basically gotten to the "oh screw it" phase of FFXI development. As has been mentioned, for better or worse, the vast majority of old content is rendered (or is in process of becoming) irrelevant. While that might be a simple fact of life with most MMOs, it's a drastic turn for FFXI.

Another angle to look at it is that quite a lot of the good aspects of Abyssea could just as well have been applied to the game at large, but they haven't been. We basically now have a shell of a game that primarily exists to provide things to grind on for Magians (which, as implemented, sucks), and then smaller, relatively new, relavent "game" of Abyssea. It's obviously a whole lot easier to dump every new idea into a handful of reskinned zones than it is to revamp the entire game, but still, by doing so they've essentially made -an- event the majority of the game.
Personally, I think it's sloppy, not the product of careful design and consideration. It's easy to complain about the tedium of old content - and I'd agree to a point - but consider that Abyssea would really pan out to not be all that different. Only instead of a multitude of different events to rotate through, you have...Abyssea. If you get sick of that, there's not much else right now. Long-term, it's not a great plan, unless SE plans to soak us for $10 every update for a few new zones/drops/etc.

[Zubuis]

I feel that it was one of the best updates to ever come out. I enjoy abyssea, and like doing it. I like the XP part of it, because generally speaking I just wanna play jobs at 75+ not inbetween, and it has taken out the huge grind fest. It has a high reward/time ratio. The gear is good and for the most part it feels like you're progressing unlike the majority of events in the game.

The problem I really have with the system is everything else is useless or such a low time/reward ratio thats its not worth doing. On one hand I am happy I never really have to do events like Dynamis/Einherjar again because honestly its old and I've done enough of it. But one of the problems is when you're scheduling events for your linkshell, theres nothing else really to schedule in the game besides Abyssea and Walk of Echoes. Walk of Echoes, yeah the weapons are nice but its such a frustrating event because the way it was setup that the majority of the people in our linkshell cant stand doing it more than 1x a week. Abyssea is a great event, but doing it every day, tends to get old. Its just hard to really spice things up in the game anymore, theres not enough events that have a high enough reward/time ratio that are really diverse enough.

Maybe with the 3 new zones, abyssea will be even that more diverse where it addresses this problem for me. Hopefully they will make Walk of Echoes so its more fun. Would be nice if they would introduce another event that has a good time/reward ratio thats not abyssea (in future).

Overall though it is nice to see them at least trying new things and making events which are fun and reward you for doing them.

[ronin sparthos]

Wouldn't you then run into possible issues with congestion? Depends on the server... I know last I was doing Dynamis (granted, prior to Abyssea really taking off) there were still issues with that, with SE obviously not giving two shits about making it instanced/fake instanced.


More generally, I like Abyssea as an event/activity in general, but I think that SE has basically gotten to the "oh screw it" phase of FFXI development. As has been mentioned, for better or worse, the vast majority of old content is rendered (or is in process of becoming) irrelevant. While that might be a simple fact of life with most MMOs, it's a drastic turn for FFXI.

Another angle to look at it is that quite a lot of the good aspects of Abyssea could just as well have been applied to the game at large, but they haven't been. We basically now have a shell of a game that primarily exists to provide things to grind on for Magians (which, as implemented, sucks), and then smaller, relatively new, relavent "game" of Abyssea. It's obviously a whole lot easier to dump every new idea into a handful of reskinned zones than it is to revamp the entire game, but still, by doing so they've essentially made -an- event the majority of the game.
Personally, I think it's sloppy, not the product of careful design and consideration. It's easy to complain about the tedium of old content - and I'd agree to a point - but consider that Abyssea would really pan out to not be all that different. Only instead of a multitude of different events to rotate through, you have...Abyssea. If you get sick of that, there's not much else right now. Long-term, it's not a great plan, unless SE plans to soak us for $10 every update for a few new zones/drops/etc.

Really, SE should have gotten to the "oh screw it" phase of development sooner because this might be the only phase of FFXI where the game is open to casuals and hardcores alike. Barring the current problem with "breaking in" for new players, the patch quality has gone up since the days of mid '09. I guess no one remembers the horrible evolith patch that came with Fomor NMs.

Abyssea being the center of the world is a result of SE changing the game over from horizontal to vertical progression. Like I suggested earlier, it'd only take a new arm of Magian trials to make those beloved events like Dynamis/Limbus/ANNM/Garrisons useful again. Be careful what you wish for.

Whats with the bum rap everyone gives TOTM anyway? It probably is one of the best things SE did to the game.

I don't like grinding as much as the next guy but are we really gonna bitch about grinding in an MMO? Especially one dominated by sit in a zone and spam like a bitch for 3hours for so long? When those Magian weapons came out, for once you felt you were making progress with every mob killed.

Yes, fire/light paths are horribly flawed, relic trials are beyond retarded with the number of killshots required and weather camping can get grindy but again Salvage QQs were fucking stupid, Einherjar was shit on short term rewards, Dynamis drags on for what seems like forever, VNMs shadow system suck and Yilbegan defines what HNMs shouldn't be etc etc.

The real question is what SE has planned after Heroes. If they expect players to go back systems designed like the old events (shit like Sandworm, SCNMs etc) then players are going to be rightfully pissed. Abyssea is working, continue with systems like it. It doesn't mean you cant refold old content into the mixture but XI players are now spoiled on short investment/high reward scenarios... and it's fun to boot.

[shepardG]

Ah, both portions of that would be an exaggeration as you would still be getting drops. The ephermals portion threw me off of his intention with that line, my mistake. Mnk, Whm is a potent combo as many equipment related NM's can be easily handled as such. For instance he brings up Caturae mobs, there are testimonials of people duoing as Whm, Mnk.

Yeah I was exaggerating a bit, no doubt, but the general ideal remains.

[Isiolia]

Abyssea being the center of the world is a result of SE changing the game over from horizontal to vertical progression. Like I suggested earlier, it'd only take a new arm of Magian trials to make those beloved events like Dynamis/Limbus/ANNM/Garrisons useful again. Be careful what you wish for.

True, though it'd only serve to be annoying since most of us already put a lot of time into older events. Keeping things relavent isn't necessarily the same as forcing people to retread the events. For example, the slight nod to missions with synthetic Atmas. Most of 'em are pretty weak, but still, if you already did the content, then you're rewarded without doing anything more. Probably too weak to make certain things -really- worth going back and doing, but it's a start.

Frankly, even putting upgrade paths from old items could help this greatly, as long as old content (or existing item) + upgrade process would be more appealing to some than the process for a new item.

Whats with the bum rap everyone gives TOTM anyway? It probably is one of the best things SE did to the game.

I don't like grinding as much as the next guy but are we really gonna bitch about grinding in an MMO? Especially one dominated by sit in a zone and spam like a bitch for 3hours for so long? When those Magian weapons came out, for once you felt you were making progress with every mob killed.

Yes, fire/light paths are horribly flawed, relic trials are beyond retarded with the number of killshots required and weather camping can get grindy but again Salvage QQs were fucking stupid, Einherjar was shit on short term rewards, Dynamis drags on for what seems like forever, VNM shadow system suck, Yilbegan defines what HNMs shouldn't be etc etc.

I don't have a problem with Magians as a concept, though I expected that it would actually be an -upgrade- process given what was originally said, not a start-from-scratch quest for most people.

In that vein, were it more something to do for a high-end weapon only, it'd be different. Part of the issue here is the corralling that SE is doing with it. The AH, for example, has barely any post-75 weapons. There are EX options from Abyssea, but those too can be somewhat limited. A big limitation in general is with non-primary weapons, since most of the Abyssea weapons have very narrow usable jobs, and Magian weapons are all very specific as well.

Were the trials more reasonable/flexible, weapons open to a much wider range of jobs (as in, have skill in it? then you can use it), perhaps the ability to jumpstart trials by trading in old weapons (IE, trade in a Perdu weapon to skip the first few stages)...coupled with a fair selection of weapons on the AH for "just dinged" or secondary weapon use, and it'd be better.

[Tortalius]

what's wrong with yilg?

[Khajit]

It doesnt drop anything for starters.

[ronin sparthos]

what's wrong with yilg?

His lootpool looks like something scraped off a canceled BC40.

[Deader2818]

If you can plan your seal farming around lights/darks day, WHM can trigger a fair amount of spells.

I've gotten most of my seals (and my friends seals) as a MNK + WHM combo and we have a good amount of +1s done. Its just a matter of finding nms that drop a majority of the jobs you want and farming the hell out of it.

[Inactive]

Atmas have made abyssea stupidly easy (inb4 FFXI has been easy/lowmannable for years etc), which in turn makes me a bit bored. I can't think of an NM that wouldn't die in 45sec-1min with a group of 4-6 had it not been for proccing !!'s. Which as great as the !! system is, it's retarded and i'd rather have some NMs that I actually needed to stay awake for to get kills. Everyone has already beaten to death the fact that any event/zone outside of abyssea has become obsolete. While we all hated camping kings and doing Dynamis for the past 3+ years atleast there was more than 1 event to keep you busy while obtaining gear. Abyssea is literally the only thing worth doing, and it's so mind numbingly easy that just about every mob in these zones can be killed with 2-3. I enjoyed each extension when they first came out, and for some time after their release. But eliminating all other areas, aspects of the game in favor of 6 zones of the same broken (sup atmas), easy content won't hold my interest for long. Here's to a new abyssea every few months~

[Foldypaws]

It doesnt drop anything for starters.

Galdr ring is still the best nuking ring (outside of latent sorc.)

[Belkin]

My gripe with Abyssea is that everybody is the god damn same now. Nothing is exclusive or rare anymore. Back in the days of HNM camping, it meant something to have things like Adaman Hauberk. At least on Bahamut it did. Now all the gear we all worked so hard for is getting upstaged by things that are leaps and bounds easier to obtain. There is no competition for anything anymore. There are no LS rivalries. There is no MPK, no hatred between LSs and nothing that remotely resembles drama of the old days which made it fun for me.

There is no point in having a LS larger than 12 people anymore either. I loved being a leader of a large, successful HNM LS. Now that you can do anything with a MNK, RDM and BRD or a party full of RDM/NIN, all the challenge and strategy is gone. It's highly disappointing to me.

Abyssea is great content but its the ONLY content anymore. There is literally nothing else to do. Dynamis? 97% of AF2 is shit now. Salvage? Forget about it, full sets of AF3 will be out in a week. Limbus? Homam/Nashira is garbage now. Einherjar? Out dated gear.

WoE is the only other content that is still useful and that's only if you want to bash your head against a wall because its so boring and you never get the coins you want for your second rate emp. weapon.

[mai ikari]

To me, Belkin's post is a summary of everything that was wrong with FFXI, everything that was fixed by Abyssea. There's no intershell drama, there's no HNM-botting dickery, no "You must have 18 people to enter" content. I'm wearing 2 pieces, coming on piece 3 this week, of MNK+2, and the entire LS has gotten the majority of gear that we decided to target this expansion. My LS is 6 regular members, 8 on the weekends, with a few spare accounts.

Abyssea being the only relevant content sucks, but that'll be a much more important argument if it's still the only relevant content when we're at 99 and they've stopped partly outdating their own content every 2 months.

[fredjanx]

Galdr ring does not exist

I agree.