Tanaka Rage!

[Alkimi]

Does it really fucking matter who's at fault for last update's shortcomings? The fact remains, individual treasure pools is the best thing that happened to XI in a long time imo. No more fighting over items among LS mates or bidding wars with DKP (Not saying you would use DKP for VW or WoE). This truly is a step forward in terms of cooperative game play. I agree with Septimus, something indeed needs to be done with treasure pools to increase it's loot quality, based on EXP cap or something to actually increased drop rates for said treasure pools.

The individual loot works fine for walk of echoes but for Voidwatch not so much. As a linkshell we've killed probably in the region of 50 of the T4 city ones and we've seen zero body pieces despite lights being near to or at cap on all our runs. At an average of ~14 people per run that's 0/700 in total. I think it would work if they upped the drop rate and allowed us to pass drops into a main pool, things we've been asking for since VW first started.

It's not as if it would break it, some of the new T3s and even the odd T2 are pretty damn difficult. Seems SE has just dumped high-tier abyssea mobs into voidwatch while forgetting we don't have 3k HP anymore and even some of the best linkshells took numerous attempts to beat some of them. Pick-up/shout groups have little to no chance of beating them so it's not as if upping the drop rate and passing to a loot pool would create a scenario where everyone would have the same gear like abyssea has done. Sure successful linkshells would sell things to outsiders for millions but that's never really hurt anyone.

[Jem]

The individual loot works fine for walk of echoes but for Voidwatch not so much. As a linkshell we've killed probably in the region of 50 of the T4 city ones and we've seen zero body pieces despite lights being near to or at cap on all our runs. At an average of ~14 people per run that's 0/700 in total. I think it would work if they upped the drop rate and allowed us to pass drops into a main pool, things we've been asking for since VW first started.

It's not as if it would break it, some of the new T3s and even the odd T2 are pretty damn difficult. Seems SE has just dumped high-tier abyssea mobs into voidwatch while forgetting we don't have 3k HP anymore and even some of the best linkshells took numerous attempts to beat some of them. Pick-up/shout groups have little to no chance of beating them so it's not as if upping the drop rate and passing to a loot pool would create a scenario where everyone would have the same gear like abyssea has done. Sure successful linkshells would sell things to outsiders for millions but that's never really hurt anyone.

It's not difficult enough, sometimes I still get swings before you have to raise me!

In all seriousness though, I do want increased difficulty. I would rather have increased difficulty and increased drop rates to compensate. Or possibly the option to pick your difficulty on pop.

I'm sure I've seen it mentioned somewhere on BG before. Something like give HQ pops an increased drop rate plus 1 exclusive item that only drops from the HQ with stats scaling like Sagasinger versus Talekeeper (Yes, I know both of those drop from the same mob). And make the HQ pops difficult enough where PUG's couldn't just cheese them to death.

[Spira]

the only trial for mythic that is less difficult then relic is the 95 all the rest are on par.

lol i guess thats true.. the difference at 75 is to account for work required to obtaining a mythic compared to a relic, at least imo

[Spira]

Just wanted to poke this one since it was brought up elsewhere and there was a, in my opinion, mostly valid counterpoint.

Pre-and-post Dynamis could be done with small groups and remain profitable. Especially after the first level increase it wasn't unreasonable to find groups of 5-10 taking a zone and farming it to near-completion, if not entirely done.

Salvage was capable of being done with small numbers even before the first level cap increase, especially if you were intent on only farming Alexandrite and ignoring clears or armor. As we received more power in the form of armor and raw level correction, Salvage and Dynamis took a steady dive in terms of risk/reward.

Now that we have seen the first spot of gear in a post-Abyssea world, does anyone honestly believe that at 99 there are going to be four-man groups clearing the tiers of VW that drop worthwhile plates? Not to mention that the droprate is directly influenced and furthermore enhanced by bringing more bodies; Conversely Dynamis and Salvage don't give a care how many bodies are in zone, if the Rampart was dropping two Alex it was only dropping two Alex. Similarly, outside of Treasure Hunter and the random 100coin, drops were the same thing if you had 6 or 64 present. The only difference is how long it takes you to farm your fill from the zone. It is just as profitable to dual-box Salvage as it is to bring an entire alliance. I haven't stuck my head into Dynamis much since the update to it but from what I understand it is still possible to be bringing out a large reservoir of coins in a duo or trio. I could be wrong, feel free to correct me.

I'm rambling a bit so I'll wrap up. Relics and Mythics are miserable grinds made easier by having friends along to speed up the process. Voidwatch actively penalizes you for not bringing everyone you know on a different job to maximize the chance of each individual possibly helping you with progress. This is further complicated by the relative ease of Dynamis and Salvage and the current mostly-sidegrades in the 90>95 gear since the incredible boost in potency and power we saw in the initial level cap updates seems to be petering out.

Thought I should probably respond to this.. I get where you're coming from but there are flaws in both system. Seeing as we're doing a direct comparison, it only makes sense to compare each of the 3 events in their current state of difficulty and popularity.

Dynamis in its current state doesn't need much said for or against it. Its both solo and group friendly. Farming doesn't require much of any skill since you can achieve that through just taking on normal mobs and the stronger/faster you get the higher your rewards due to the way repops work and so on. It's still a grindfest, but a feasible and flexible one. Getting a friend or two to come along will net a greater supply of currency due to the increased speed. If you are splitting currency your personal haul is likely reduced, but an increase in supply will only serve to bring market prices down - so it benefits you indirectly.

Voidwatch probably has the best of both lowman and gangbang situations, but favors gangbangs. Say you only need 6 people to clear a VW fight. Having more people can do 3 things. 1) It speeds up and lowers the difficulty of the fight. 2) It increases the chance that you will raise alignments in favor of better drops. 3) It means more people have a chance of getting the heavy metal plates. #3 is beneficial in the way that it will also help to drive prices down - tho with the current demand on Empys (due to the sheer number of owners) it'll take a long while before supply could push prices down. But at the same time, it helps accessibility.

The other advantage of Voidwatch is really its accessibility. You don't necessarily need friends for this event - just people. Random strangers work for all you care because even if you fail, you merely lose a Voidstone, something that naturally replenishes itself everyday. There is no trade off. People are also much more willing to go because it costs nothing to join and they get their fair share of rewards/cruor/exp/KI gathering, or they want the plates too anyway.

Salvage on the other hand, is the most rigid. You need to bother at least 2 other people because you cannot enter without that. I don't know the fullest extent of its lowmannability, but you probably don't need those 2 people either. Supply of Alexandrite is pretty much capped no matter how many people you bring. There is an upper limit dependent on existing mobs for that area - and the bosses. It's not a no-brainer farm because you actually have to progress the dungeon (and you should). Worst of all, if you screw up, you're wasting the AP of everyone who enters, which you have to consciously farm because no one does assault anymore - and it is also for this slight barrier to entry that you're not going see people just want to join you for the sake of it - other than the fact that there really isn't much there worth of value anymore and not spammable the way VW is.

tl;dr : Salvage is the weakest system of the 3. If its revamps are anything like Dynamis, then it could balance the Mythic acquisition system up to Relics and Empyreans.
In the greater scheme of things for legendary weapons, VW isn't the evil that people make it up to be for Empyrean acquisition. You could just as easily blame the ease of obtaining lower lv versions of it too, because that directly influences demand. Also, see how the opposite is true of Mythics.
Furthermore, it's a great vehicle for getting other stuff - cruor + exp + chance and gil items in max 30min sessions that are spammable is a hard package to beat.

[Limlight]

are people really complaining about VW when you can go buy voiddust if you're out of stones and continually spam anything that you need with your group?

Or is it the fact that you need a group to do it what people are bitching about? I realize that abyssea has made us lazy and the need to not depend on a group to do things is great and all, but still.

Or even dynamis and farming currency as nin/dnc, thf/dnc, dnc/whatever etc. Guys like atoreis have finished a relic in what, a couple months? (2-3?). You all are being silly and slightly emo if you're raging about the way things are. If you don't like it, WoW's out there I guess (i'm not really too caught up on current mmo's aside from WoW, Aion, FFXI).

This is miles and miles ahead of salvage and anything else pre-abyssea in this games history. Sure it isn't perfect but it isn't 0/200 on 35 usu body. It seems like a lot of you are complaining for the sake of complaining, which is really childish.

[alph]

Maybe i'm retarded but I don't see one single pro of them having Tanaka back as producer, I see nothing but cons based on where the game has been post-abyssea. You're right, Tanaka is the kiss of death, Abyssea brought people back because the content went against "the grain" of all their design choices of the past and now with him back at the helm, expect really dumb shit for 4months of waiting for content.

I'm going to jump on this right here.

Three or four months ago I came back from a 3 year quit that I thought was permanent as I played since NA launch and had enough. Since then I've been having a lot of fun in abyssea, I even picked up a second account off of steam. I'm paying SE more than I ever have been all thanks to abyssea and the complete change in dynamic of the game.

However, I've been noticing as I'm catching up it seems to be slowly turning back into that old game that I originally quit. After back reading the split thread and this one I'm seeing that a lot of people are feeling the same way as myself. If the 'old XI' starts emerging again you can be sure a lot of people will leave again.(no you can not have my stuff) I say again because it's amazing how many people I talk to these days that have a similar story to my own.

[grevenilvec75]

This is a split from the Dev Tracker thread.

The discussion can continue here.

Translation:

Y'all are Isladar's problem now.

[Septimus]

Have you realized that what you are saying is bullshit and not comparable? Because that's what I've been telling you for a while now. I'm not advocating that my system would be the better one, when I've repeatedly only told you how much the two would differ from each other, while you try to shove them down into same umbrella desperately to make a point.

In either case, the extreme nature of obtaining a relic is an exception, not the rule. My system may not keep them playing and paying, but at least they think they actually have a shot, instead of having none at all.



Yes, the threshold could be somewhere *up there*. But the better the chances, the less appealing point system ultimately becomes, and the more appealing the carrot dangling above you every time you go in is.

The title of this thread is the perfect indicator of how rational the discussion is btw. I applaud whoever named it.

OK, then what is the precise number when something goes from "yay Random Number Generator" to "extreme nature of obtaining a relic is an exception"? 1 in 10,000? 1 in 100,000?

It is silly to think that people would get discouraged by a point system as opposed to "today is the day I'll finally win the lottery". Personally, I find grinding to be easier when I have a numerical concept of my progress. The whole reason I didn't get into Salvage is because the drop rates were so horrific that I knew that I would rage-quit before I completed anything. (And look, I'm still playing. Are you?) Meanwhile, I have ground out 18 Magian Weapons to the +2 stage and two more to +1 on the elemental path because it is something by myself and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

But I know, Magian trials aren't the same as Relics. This is true, these are much better than Claustrum.



P.S. I named it. He is obviously a very polarizing figure. And justifiably or not he is getting the heat for a very lackluster update that bears the hallmarks of his vision of FFXI, a vision to which most of us would rather not return.

[Septimus]

Translation:

Y'all are Isladar's problem now.

No. But if it becomes my problem people will pray to Isladar for salvation.

[Ocara]

I'm not really a fan of ffxi going back to large group events and I'm not really sure why they decided to do that again after seeming to start catering to lowman with dynamis changes, level increase (making old content much more lowman friendly), almost all abyssea content, and salvage reductions. After being in a large linkshell of idiots for a few years I was pretty tired of dealing with stupids and the lowman change was a breath of fresh air when I could make a ls of 3-5 people and clear events in the game. Telling people what to do for the 50th time on the same event we've done for the last 5 months so they don't fuck up breathing midway through and ruin something is the most frustrating thing in this game, and at least on my server I'd be hard pressed to find 6-12 more people who can tie their shoes let alone gear properly and kill a mob for voidwatch.

[NynJa]

(And look, I'm still playing. Are you?)

Wait? Hyan doesnt play? How can someone who doesnt even play the game voice feedback about the current state of affairs of ffxi?

[Rehn]

Arm chair anthropology?

I thought he played 14.

[Gredival]

I'm not even going to try this time. Just going to copy and paste, verbatim, excerpts of posts I've already made in the last old vs new XI thread that that you posted in. Just like before, I bet you're going to ignore the content of the post because you can't be assed to actually argue/debate the issue.

I hate to bust your bubble but you look even more stupid coming on here saying "GAMES EZMODE NOW! CASUALS GTFO" when it ALWAYS WAS easy, what was so hard about standing under fafnir's wing blowing him up or blowing Tiamat up with an army of blms when she was in the air, bringing an army of smns to rip through vrtra with a few blms on add control?

I guess you didn't play much back in the day when you killed Fafnir 230+ times trying to get a Ridill only to lose a few claims and have it drop on the days you didn't claim it or how about face rolling Tiamat for a month only to see that glorified fire crystal drop despite having TH4 thf whacking away at it before death.

Before you come calling me casual my LS at 75 cap had 30+ pairs of Herald's gaiters since we were the only LS for almost a year capable of bringing Tiamat down, multiple people capped on king HNM drops, 20+ novio's, shadow rings for all tanks. Most people who post on these forums have "been there, done that" so don't give me that shit about "people want to be spoon-fed with moar abyssea cuz they're casuals"

Bottom line lots of people don't want the old FFXI back. I really pity you if thats the only reason why you even play FFXI to sit around in port jeuno saying "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT THE GEAR!" give me a fucking break.

In old XI, if you put in the hours and were competent enough to hang with a good enough linkshell you could get anything. There were some people that just got lucky, and some that went through more struggle, but it was a far better system than Abyssea's "IQ above a vegetable? Here you go. IQ below a vegetable, well here's a Primeval Brew."

I'm not saying the old systems were perfect. And I would definitely have welcomed any changes to the game that furthered the reward of true skill and different forms of dedication than just the ability to camp windows which can rotate around the clock; although that is arguably one form of dedication. But the Abyssea system did not do that, and Abyssea's popularity is not because of that.

Let me clue you in. People don't like Abyssea because it added content. They like Abyssea because they went from Have-nots to Have-everythings. There was always a large amount of content to do in XI, even before Abyssea. On top of storylines and quests there was Einherjar, Salvage, Sky, Sea, Assault, Nyzul Isle, ANNM, SCNM, KSNM, ZNM, VNM, Kings, Limbus, Wyrms, ToaU Kings, Dynamis. The catch? A substantial amount of the *best* drops were centered in content that you didn't like.

No one wanted to do content, no matter how fresh, if the rewards were shitty.

Abyssea didn't save the game because of anything inherent in content; Abyssea didn't even save anything. Abyssea simply made it so that disgruntled people, most often shitty but not always, who used to have nothing to do or could only do lower end content with shitty rewards, could get gameshark buffs and start doing top end content for top end rewards. Abyssea engaged the insignificant section of the playerbase that was mostly idle or kept to itself.

Virtually all of the content I listed, with the exception of the world spawns, were hardly time consuming. Dynamis would be the longest, capping at around 3.5 hrs, something plenty of people are easily able to commit to for Abyssea. SE tried to offer a variety of content in which rewards were scaled according to both difficulty and accessibility of the content. However lots of content ended up neglected because people ultimately hone in on drop quality. Top end players wouldn't waste their time on new content when it didn't offer any drops useful for them, lower end players would sulk about how whatever they got from X still didn't beat Adaberk.

Imagine if SE introduced a fight that was easily accessible (in terms of being able to try the challenge) and had top of the line rewards... but was stupidly ridiculously difficult to complete. I guarantee you that the bitching would shift from complaints about "accessibility" to how it was "too difficult." It's all about gear, more specifically, the best gear. Abyssea isn't popular for any reason besides the fact that there's a shitton of people that like having top of the line gear even if they aren't top of the line players. Bitching about "accessibility of content" has never been about the redundancy, time commitment, or annoyance of the pre-fight rituals -- it's about the "accessibility of gear" whether or not I can get it.

Everything needs to be assessed comparatively here.

FIRST, I'll state yet again that the pure level differential between players and the mobs made Kings challenging when those mobs were first introduced. At the very least mobs were hard enough you had to bring a group.

SECOND, even if End Game was easy to top groups it remained challenging to others. How many times did random retards trying to get lucky on Fafnir go in, get over their heads, and wipe when they claimed? I saw it dozens upon dozens of times. I'll state once more, I'd easily take a random group of players that had Adaberk (from Fafnir) over a random group of players made out of general Whitegate dwellers.

THIRD, There is literally a gameshark potion. 98% of Abyssea content is duo-able. I don't understand how anyone could possible to argue that new XI is as challenging.

The laws of probability dictate that a shell that brings more people to more camps will claim more mobs. I've been in lower tier shells where people didn't know how to handle AFK'ing correctly. I even had to kick one fucker for crafting during a KB window.

Conceded this is not a skill test so much as a effort test. But isn't effort part of the equation too? One justification constantly used to defend Abyssea is that it makes it such that if someone puts in the work they will get the rewards. World spawns incorporated that by rewarding people who show up in force everyday with the majority of claims, but leaving open that possibility for anyone putting in the camping work to get the claim. We don't just give AF+1 seals to people who don't want to kill the mob or do the quests, why should Ridills and Adaberks have been given out to parts of the population that weren't willing to work go camp and kill Fafnir?

The skill test came in through the fight itself. Yes Kings by 2007 were piss easy. But keep in mind two things. First, they were not easy at the time they were introduced. Kings were an event that rewarded both skill and effort; must be this good to get drops because you have to kill the mob, must work this hard to get the drops by camping enough to claim and get the drop. Second, even after they stopped being hard for "End Game" players there were parts of the population that still weren't able to do kings and therefore did not deserve rewards.

Now at this point I expect the "Well that's all fine and good, but what sense is it for the best body to the same item that was introduced in RoZ and for the best gear to remain on content that is outdated."

Well first of all, that's not a criticism of the content type at all. It validates all the efforts SE put into the evolution World Spawn system as players grew. ToaU Kings, Ixion, Sandworm.

Second, this issue is about how a game grows as time passes: what permanency and shelf life should gear have? I'd argue several things on this issue. One is that XI did a very good job growing sideways such that it was always important for us to accomplish new content. Second is that permanency of accomplishments is favorable and that there is a way to provide upwards growth through new content that builds on former accomplishments. Instead of the fail augment/evolith systems SE has implemented, we could have had a system in which new content dropped items that could be used to strengthen one's current equipment. Therefore if one's starting with an Adaberk or a Haubergeon +1, the advantage for the old gear is preserved, keeping old content relevant while providing incentive to do new content.

It was also completely possible to grow the game and keep old gear relevant without Abyssea. The reason for the massive totem pole reset where old content and rewards were completely displaced was catering to the DESIRE for a totem pole reset.

[Siatdiat]

OK, then what is the precise number when something goes from "yay Random Number Generator" to "extreme nature of obtaining a relic is an exception"? 1 in 10,000? 1 in 100,000?

It is silly to think that people would get discouraged by a point system as opposed to "today is the day I'll finally win the lottery". Personally, I find grinding to be easier when I have a numerical concept of my progress.

People clearly hate grinding with a set number in mind. They should make it next update so that you randomly level up with a decreasing chance the higher level you get! It really gives people something to look forward to. Merits of course should be random too.

I think I'm going to ask my boss to pay me randomly from now on, won't that be exciting?!

[NynJa]

At first I thought you were talking shit lol...I caught the sarcasm on the second sentence.

[ronin sparthos]

People clearly hate grinding with a set number in mind. They should make it next update so that you randomly level up with a decreasing chance the higher level you get! It really gives people something to look forward to. Merits of course should be random too.

I think I'm going to ask my boss to pay me randomly from now on, won't that be exciting?!

If Tanaka was your boss you'd have a 1% chance of being paid, 98% chance of being kicked in the groin and a 1% chance of getting 2 paychecks that can only be redeemed once a week during a 6hour window.

[Gredival]

But the paycheck would be worth 2M and you would never have to work again in your life!

[Epysian]

I'm not really a fan of ffxi going back to large group events and I'm not really sure why they decided to do that again after seeming to start catering to lowman with dynamis changes, level increase (making old content much more lowman friendly), almost all abyssea content, and salvage reductions. After being in a large linkshell of idiots for a few years I was pretty tired of dealing with stupids and the lowman change was a breath of fresh air when I could make a ls of 3-5 people and clear events in the game. Telling people what to do for the 50th time on the same event we've done for the last 5 months so they don't fuck up breathing midway through and ruin something is the most frustrating thing in this game, and at least on my server I'd be hard pressed to find 6-12 more people who can tie their shoes let alone gear properly and kill a mob for voidwatch.

I agree completely. I can't stand large groups. Two of my close friends play and it's great that the three of us can make serious strides towards our goals with our limited free time. I quit shortly before Abyssea primarily because we couldn't do that and it was frustrating. Now I'm having a lot more fun and considering this is a fucking game I would say that should be the goal, wouldn't you agree?

[Epysian]

I'm not really a fan of ffxi going back to large group events and I'm not really sure why they decided to do that again after seeming to start catering to lowman with dynamis changes, level increase (making old content much more lowman friendly), almost all abyssea content, and salvage reductions. After being in a large linkshell of idiots for a few years I was pretty tired of dealing with stupids and the lowman change was a breath of fresh air when I could make a ls of 3-5 people and clear events in the game. Telling people what to do for the 50th time on the same event we've done for the last 5 months so they don't fuck up breathing midway through and ruin something is the most frustrating thing in this game, and at least on my server I'd be hard pressed to find 6-12 more people who can tie their shoes let alone gear properly and kill a mob for voidwatch.

I agree completely. I can't stand large groups. Two of my close friends play and it's great that the three of us can make serious strides towards our goals with our limited free time. I quit shortly before Abyssea primarily because we couldn't do that and it was frustrating. Now I'm having a lot more fun and considering this is a fucking game I would say that should be the goal, wouldn't you agree?

[Tagus]

ffxi's 10 year development is pretty predictable when you consider the nature of MMO's. It's addictive, and meant to be so. Shit starts easy, becomes harder, and gradually becomes nearly impossible. When interest plateaus because content is both too hard for the casuals and the hardcores are capped on stuff, they throw the junkies a new drug with a kick to it, (i.e. abyssea), and get everybody rehooked. When popularity is at it's new (albeit lower) plateau height, they bring a new grind into play. They could have gone one of two ways after they brought Abyssea to us, and it's actually somewhat indicative that they might want to keep the game around a while that they've chosen to ass fuck us again. If they threw us more abyssea we might all O.D. and quit, etc.

Idk, I was online earlier and saw about 1300 people on at about 17:00 central time, on a server that's already merged once. They might be saving their last hurrah for 99, or maybe we've already seen it. Either way, the game isn't going to change again for a while, so might as well settle in and enjoy it.