Dev Tracker

[arus2001]

Well, if you're introducing scaling, you need to start with a minimum intended size for conflict. Legion scaling is pretty shitty since it sounds like it's just HP-based in difference. When it comes to soloing, it's rather evident not all jobs are created equal here, and using the Maat fights as a reference point, some were snores while others could've boiled down to dumb luck. It's probably safest to start with a baseline of 3 players for an encounter, one expected to focus on damage, one to heal damage taken, and the third to probably keep the mob's focus. Since XI's enmity system blows, 1 and 3 can probably double up. The brokenness of Utsusemi doesn't help here, either.

Should these fights be near impossible for all but the best geared? I'm going to say no. So, figure out something that, if you fuck up, you'll probably fail, but not so hard that you're fucking up every time. With the expect roles of this trio in mind, you'll then want to design gear to further their purpose in the encounter. Do you make it so 1 in 3 will walk away with something each time they win? That may depend on how commonly you can do the fight, but I think think anyone really favors fighting something a few dozen times or more.

Of course, when you start adding bodies, you'll need to improve the mob's HP a bit, make it harder, take less damage, and perhaps pick up some new tricks. If using a party of 6 for this, you can probably move on to guaranteeing at least one drop with a slim chance for more. Double this number of party of members and maybe you can introduce HQ variants of the earlier gear while the other stuff can still drop at a decent rate. Mob stat growth will improve, and it could learn more tricks or even gain things like adds. Jump to 18 and the HQ gear drops more often, maybe even the NQ removed from the pools. 2 things could always drop, with an added 1-3 depending on luck. Mob will be at its hardest. Anything more than 18 is just asking for trouble if limiting it to a closed environment.

[Isiolia]

^ sounds like heaven to me right now.
I think if FFXI would go back to camping shit as a main source of epic endgame gear shit would be amazing. new kings, new 3 day nms. I like Abyssea imo it did save a dead game but now we need to go back to old roots.

I'm fairly sure that would drive away quite a lot of the players who have stuck around. In a lot of ways, Abyssea provided an attractive way to keep playing despite, well, growing up. Camps are effectively proposing that players sit around for a few hours in hopes they actually get to play. That really doesn't stack up with the past several years of MMO content, and would be unlikely to attract new players. Current players have adapted to the current ability to play more on their own terms, and may well still be playing because of it. Trying to change things back to 2004 era XI would probably only serve to kill the game for good.

The big question becomes how do you encourage all sizes of groups to participate? If a 6 man group can participate in a scaled down version (HP wise let's say, all other factors equal) and win while receiving the same rewards as a 36 man group, the tendency will be for 6 man groups to form for faster rewards.

Scale up rewards based on number entering the event? In Quantity? Quality? Droprate? Its a difficult call, but the idea of course is a great one, if it could be implemented properly. Let's see how they do Legion. If there is an actual benefit to go with more than 18, maybe it will preserve the intent SE had.

What seems like it'd generally work would be events that split up, but would still allow for multiple groups to cooperate inside them. For example, doing multiple Limbus paths at once, or theoretically what you could do with some Salvage runs if limited cells didn't discourage large groups there. A single group can do a solid run of one route, but an alliance can cover multiple routes.
Maybe as an example, the event branches to three paths, which can't be backtracked. Each path is doable by a tight group of three, more comfortably by six, but still allow the entire alliance to take one path if desired.

To make that particularly relevant, some measure of run restriction needs to be there - once a day, whatever. Also a time limit for the event itself.

I think the big area to improve would be with making sure all participants get a consistent base reward (at least). Perhaps something like, instead of Ancient Beastcoins, Dynamis Currency, and so on, make it a personal point/currency system, like cruor or AP. Kills from any path reward it to all members of the alliance. Let players buy any loot from the zone with it, but also drop vouchers or damaged items as a shortcut to purchasing that loot.

Small groups share the dropped items between fewer people, but can't rake in as much of a currency reward as larger groups. There'd still be a motivation to kill more with fewer people, but done right there'd still be a balance to strike, and no matter what individual players always have forward progress.

[Celebrindor]

I must admit though, I've never liked the concept of a token based reward system as a primary means to distribute loot. For me part of the excitement is the drop. While yes, being able to "buy" gear after so many runs is a fair way to do it, the event becomes more of a counter than a moment of excitement.

Which was more fun for you in Einherjar?

"Oh! I'm only 700 ampoules away from my Omega Ring!"
or
"Holy Shit Vahalla Helm!"

I think the mix works, just don't take away that "dorp!" moment. Yeah, the d. ingot sucks. But the w. legs rocks too.

[Dazusu]

Which was more fun for you in Einherjar?

"Oh! I'm only 700 ampoules away from my Omega Ring!"
or
"Holy Shit Vahalla Helm!"

The only thing that gives this feeling in game now is beating Nyzul sans flee-hax. Even Provenance Watcher has lost its excitement due to the relative ease after 3-4 fights. It's quite sad, really. It's all about the instant gratification right now, people seem to love it - but it's taken away a lot of what the game once was (and I agree not all of it was great back then - but not all of it was bad either).

[Isiolia]

I must admit though, I've never liked the concept of a token based reward system as a primary means to distribute loot. For me part of the excitement is the drop. While yes, being able to "buy" gear after so many runs is a fair way to do it, the event becomes more of a counter than a moment of excitement.

Well, that's why I mentioned still putting drops in there. Just not as a mix of items - if something dropped that all of a sudden gave you half the points you needed towards an item, you'd probably still be psyched. If it didn't, you'd still feel like you made some progress. The point isn't to remove the excitement of a drop, but rather to avoid people quitting due to a bad run of the RNG (or, as this article would put it, a "sharp dropoff in the rate of reward").
My thought is that by not splitting things into two categories of rewards, it'd lend more credibility to small or large group approaches. Most everything in XI has split loot up, and in turn fostered a "small as we can manage" group mentality as a result.

[Septimus]

you know, i think we generally agree about what is happening, we just don't see eye to eye on the smaller details. I'd say i follow your pragmatic misanthropy. I don't hate but am aware that people are terrible and kinda accept that its the way things are. That said, I still do believe that the number of nice people in game is far less these days because of the ageing population of this very game.

When i started out, I was like 17, and I do believe quite a number of people who started playing this game were around this age range. I'm willing to believe that many people, like me, hadn't met enough assholes in their life, be in in-game or IRL to know better than to be too nice to them. I myself have been exploited many times in the past - lending gear or gil, helping people with ridiculous events but then having them disappear when they agree to help you. Take a few knocks and you'll figure out that it doesn't pay to be too nice to people around you. in fact, learning to be a bit of an asshole is a useful skill so you don't get stepped on.

Whilst the old-school style system did encourage all sorts of politics and whatnot, I can't help but feel it was cohesive in more ways than it was divisive. Yes, there will always be backstabbers and whatnot, but also people who are close friends. you get shit done, share experiences together, and there's greater familiarity with the people you log in with and interact on LS. Social LS do make up for some of that these days, but really if you're left without that, the game has essentially become a very lonely place because the need to interact has gone down. When I solo i feel like im playing a single player game but can just see other people. In any case, the new can of worms does seem to contain less exploitative elements, so I suppose its better.

I know a few people who quit because of level cap increase. and I'm pretty sure SE didn't think XIV was gonna be the next hot thing, because if so they wouldn't have announced/released Abyssea before XIV came out and flopped. The 2 years before that, especially the scenario add-on year was painfully slow tho. Much worse than 2011.

It does seem to be different perspectives on the same view.

Learning to be a bit of an asshole is a useful social skill, but you can still be a fairly nice person despite being an bit of a practical asshole. I will generally help anyone in game, so long as it isn't in a monetary fashion; last week I spent several hours showing a sub-jobless guy all of the summons and explaining a bit about how the job works.

While there was a cohesiveness to the old-school method, I would say that the lack of decisiveness is much better. For example, I was musing with Mifaco a while back how the Trial of the Magians is an amazing system because complete strangers and even former rivals will team up together for NM kills. Of course, this isn't pure altruism- people outside of your party are potential competition who can slow down your progress, but a few years ago people would have just said "bot harder" and not invited anyone outside of their LS. Shout groups for Voidwatch is a similar example, not pure altruism because of the individual loot pools, but a few years ago it would have been inconceivable. (If only there was a way to fix going 0/3,000,000...)

My impression was that Abyssea was made to be the last shout for FFXI; they knew that their new game was going to be out soon so they didn't care what was done with FFXI, let alone something fun and innovative. Of course, looking back on it, Abyssea probably saved their MMO department with the people that it brought back to FFXI before the FFXIV launch and the people who played FFXIV and said "fuck this shit, I'm going back to Vana'diel."

[NynJa]

"Oh! I'm only 700 ampoules away from my Omega Ring!"
or
"Holy Shit Vahalla Helm!"

Not rly a fair assessment since omega ring is shit n helm isnt...

Disgustingly low drop rates arent a solution either... There should always be a sense of progression...none of this "0/300" should ever happen

[Celebrindor]

"Oh! I'm only 700 ampoules away from my Omega Ring!"
or
"Holy Shit Vahalla Helm!"

I think the mix works, just don't take away that "dorp!" moment. Yeah, the d. ingot sucks. But the w. legs rocks too.

Not rly a fair assessment since omega ring is shit n helm isnt...

Disgustingly low drop rates arent a solution either... There should always be a sense of progression...none of this "0/300" should ever happen

Please Nynja, are you seriously going to argue the point based on that? I've seen you go on semantics, but seriously? Your second argument is much more valid and a reason that VW has issues that need adjustment.

[drwaffles]

Learning to be a bit of an asshole is a useful social skill, but you can still be a fairly nice person despite being an bit of a practical asshole.

The best social skill I've learned both in FFXI and real life is to simply not interact with anyone other than the handful of people you actually like unless it's absolutely necessary, in which case you should be pleasant but brief.

I believe every human being deserves respect and basic rights, but that doesn't mean I want anything to do with them. Especially not my own hyper-narcissistic generation.

[Yugl]

The best social skill I've learned both in FFXI and real life is to simply not interact with anyone other than the handful of people you actually like unless it's absolutely necessary, in which case you should be pleasant but brief.

I believe every human being deserves respect and basic rights, but that doesn't mean I want anything to do with them. Especially not my own hyper-narcissistic generation.

Damn, this post is amazing.

[NynJa]

Please Nynja, are you seriously going to argue the point based on that? I've seen you go on semantics, but seriously? Your second argument is much more valid and a reason that VW has issues that need adjustment.

Helm is leagues better than Omega ring, even if helm utility is situational. please dont tell me you're justifying its existence other than for usage on mules. I guess you orgasmed all over LS chat when hauteclaire dropped even though it was epic garbage?

And my second argument was more directed towards shit like Salvage. VW will generally put out its rare drop once in every 20 battles or so, the only problem is the fact that it'll usually go to people who cant use it or already have it.

N-NI has it right, as far as loot goes (not the battle mechanics that say you have to cheat to get anywhere)...Kill NM x times, you get a KI to turn in for the drop you want, or you can possibly luck out and get the drop you want from the NM itself. If they added 10 minutes to work with and made it 5 F100 kills was worth a KI to turn in, I'd be ok with it, and I think most people would be as well.

[shepardG]

Still read, and gonna do my best not to come across as a troll, so i'll keep it brief:

Abyssea saved this game, but not because it offered some new amazing game play, if you really look at it, the game play sorta sucked....

No the thing with abyssea was the fact that is showed the playerbase that things COULD change. Things COULD be different.
Problem was that that was it. That was all they had, that was the money shot/ 3pointer at the buzzer/ crest of the rollercoaster. It'll be a niche web browser based game in 2-3 years.
Thing is, we'll always have it, but sometimes, ya just gotta let it go.

[Celebrindor]

Helm is leagues better than Omega ring, even if helm utility is situational. please dont tell me you're justifying its existence other than for usage on mules. I guess you orgasmed all over LS chat when hauteclaire dropped even though it was epic garbage?

As your point of omega ring vs. helm may be accurate in term of gear usage, its not the point of the token system versus the drop system. bringing up the value of the piece is merely sidetracking the real issue. Don't detract- it merely takes away your credibility.


edit for lack of mentioning initially: I never fought Khimaira. Seriously, never did the HNM scene outside of a few Tiamats.

[Spira]

The best social skill I've learned both in FFXI and real life is to simply not interact with anyone other than the handful of people you actually like unless it's absolutely necessary, in which case you should be pleasant but brief.

I believe every human being deserves respect and basic rights, but that doesn't mean I want anything to do with them. Especially not my own hyper-narcissistic generation.

amen.

also, i do agree with others that FFXI has definitely gotten less competitive, especially with how people will come together to do things like Magian trials or VW. The competition that we do see from new events these days doesn't usually limit the other players too much - NMs in Abyssea and mobs in Dynamis have very quick spawn rates - its not the 'sorry, come back again tomorrow' thing like classic HNMs used to be.

i'd like to see a hybrid drop system being implemented. ie..
- each run of the event has chance of drops based on NMs encountered and killed (ala normal NMs)
- each run also accumulates a type of tokens for that event, but the amount will vary according to performance in some ways (ala Nyzul, but not just floor / time factors)
- tokens can be used to improve performance in the runs, and also used to buy unique drops (ala cruor in Abyssea)
- players can pick a much harder option for a better droprate. (ala MMM liquidation team)

I actually quite liked MMM liquidation team. i wished they'd put more thought into it and created a real tier system thru maze tabula

[Divinius]

The best social skill I've learned both in FFXI and real life is to simply not interact with anyone other than the handful of people you actually like unless it's absolutely necessary, in which case you should be pleasant but brief.

I believe every human being deserves respect and basic rights, but that doesn't mean I want anything to do with them. Especially not my own hyper-narcissistic generation.

I'm actually going to sig that, if you don't mind.

[ringthree]

The best social skill I've learned both in FFXI and real life is to simply not interact with anyone other than the handful of people you actually like unless it's absolutely necessary, in which case you should be pleasant but brief.

I believe every human being deserves respect and basic rights, but that doesn't mean I want anything to do with them. Especially not my own hyper-narcissistic generation.

You do realize that it's this kind of attitude that is part and parcel with your hyper-narcissistic generation.

[Foldypaws]

You do realize that it's this kind of attitude that is part and parcel with your hyper-narcissistic generation.

The problem with the "hyper-narcissistic generation" is that they forget the most important part of that.

"simply not interact with anyone other than the handful of people you actually like unless it's absolutely necessary, in which case you should be pleasant but brief. "

The problem with the world is not that everyone doesn't treat everyone like family or best friends or whatever, the problem is that 80% of them seem to delight in being absolute pricks and or cunts.

[Ansems]

The best social skill I've learned both in FFXI and real life is to simply not interact with anyone other than the handful of people you actually like unless it's absolutely necessary, in which case you should be pleasant but brief.

I believe every human being deserves respect and basic rights, but that doesn't mean I want anything to do with them. Especially not my own hyper-narcissistic generation.

Damn, this post is amazing.

I concur.

[drwaffles]

You do realize that it's this kind of attitude that is part and parcel with your hyper-narcissistic generation.

Nope. The people of this generation's usual modus operandi is to try and make themselves look as interesting as possible to as many people as possible and calculate their self-worth accordingly. It's all about getting attention and trying to voice your opinions as loudly as possible in a world completely inundated with other people doing the same thing, resulting in an overwhelming cacophony of vapidities that has crescendoed to frenzied levels since the advent of social networking.

I don't see how choosing not to participate in social networking either online or off and instead sticking with close friends whilst still being pleasant to other people around you - i.e. not an asshole - can be seen as anything other than antithetical to the typical conduct of the internet generation.

[mightyg]

You can't go through life just avoiding other people. True in mmo's too. If FFXI taught me anything, it's that encountering, managing, and mitigating the damage assholes can do is what's important. It's a fundamental part of leadership as well. Interacting with fewer people does limit you're asshole encounter rate, just like living in the middle of nowhere instead of a city does, But ultimately if you don't put yourself out there in an mmo you miss out.