New Vanafest incoming.

[Draylo]

It's a gate to the far east.

[ronin sparthos]

I'm still going with some type of Parallel Dimension ToAU.

Abyssea-Caedarva
Abyssea-Zhayolm
Abyssea-Wajaom

Don't lie, you'd all snap it up like hotcakes.

[arus2001]

Not sure I'd want a Tanaka-touched Abyssea since it'd mean shit like no confluxes, all mobs true sight/sound, 3x damage to offset our higher HP, 10x HP on scrub mobs to offset our gained damage, jacked up TP moves all around, timed spawns on 2+ hour windows, and 1% drop rates on everything.

[Genosync]

Not sure I'd want a Tanaka-touched Abyssea since it'd mean shit like no confluxes, all mobs true sight/sound, 3x damage to offset our higher HP, 10x HP on scrub mobs to offset our gained damage, jacked up TP moves all around, timed spawns on 2+ hour windows, and 1% drop rates on everything.

you forgot about 50tp/tick regain and 250hp/tick regen, as well as instant cast Death but even if it wasn't instant cast, it wouldn't matter because it resists Stun after 5 casts.

[Kyte]

300 hp/tic poison auras everywhere!

[Slycer]

Honestly I wouldn't mind a hard-mode abyssea that actually took atma and cruor buffs into account so that the whole thing wasn't trivial. Something that made those weird and/or hard to get atmas more useful, especially something like Savior or whatever. Not something alliance-based, mind you, just something that isn't a cakewalk like old abyssea is now.

[Michelob]

I would LOVE a hardmode abyssea. We already have an easymode one where the entire content can be cleared out under a year; how about one that is actually a challenge and is essentially impossible without acquiring key atmas and abyssites from the current abyssea zones? Sounds like fun to me as long as I can't 2box everything in it easily.

[arus2001]

If your goal is to basically skew all mob stats to recreate the outside-Abyssea environment, why even bother with the Abyssea step?

Lore-wise, we're supposed to be strong there. From a casual friendly perspective, gear acquisition was pretty much spot on after some later tweaks (Could still add a few KIs to chests, though). Sure, seeing NINs and WHMs everywhere could suck, but I'd take that over needing 17+ others just to get anything done. I think some forget we've also outleveled Abyssea's content, too, starting as early as 85 for the first zone batch.

[Michelob]

If your goal is to basically skew all mob stats to recreate the outside-Abyssea environment, why even bother with the Abyssea step?

Lore-wise, we're supposed to be strong there. From a casual friendly perspective, gear acquisition was pretty much spot on after some later tweaks (Could still add a few KIs to chests, though). Sure, seeing NINs and WHMs everywhere could suck, but I'd take that over needing 17+ others just to get anything done. I think some forget we've also outleveled Abyssea's content, too, starting as early as 85 for the first zone batch.

Was 80 for the first, not 85. Besides, even at 90 when Heroes came out everything in the Heroes zones could be 2boxed with a DD and a WHM bar Rani and Shinryuu which could still be solo'd with a brew. The only part of abyssea which wasn't stupidly easy was the first zones when they came out before anyone had atmas like Razed Ruins.

Why bother with the abyssea step if you make potentially new abyssea zones more challenging? Something new to use all of those atmas and abyssites on that isn't just fall asleep at keyboard autoattacking with a WHM curing you. I'm sure I'm not the only one that would welcome a new version of abyssea which caters to 12-18 players instead of 1-4.

[arus2001]

I'd just say you're fishing for VW with better drop rates, then, because scaling mob stats in counter of atma buffs both pigeonholes people into specific atma builds and generally negates the need of the system to begin with. Why have 2x HP when mobs hit 2x as hard? Why hit 3x as hard when mobs have 3x defenses? I can understand the whole "I want a challenge!" schtick, but that comes through better mob AI and more imaginative encounters than just flexing big numbers brought on by atma and higher levels.

The pick-up-and-play nature of Abyssea was what made it good. You didn't have to suck the cocks of a dozen other players to get shit done. There's actually nothing stopping people from using alliances there as is, multitasking and getting things done far more efficiently. People just choose not because organizing people in FFXI has always been an aggravating hurdle, nevermind rewarding them all fairly for their time. And with Tanaka's twisted sense of balance, fairly rewarding people isn't up there on the list of things he does.

[Michelob]

I'd just say you're fishing for VW with better drop rates, then, because scaling mob stats in counter of atma buffs both pigeonholes people into specific atma builds and generally negates the need of the system to begin with. Why have 2x HP when mobs hit 2x as hard? Why hit 3x as hard when mobs have 3x defenses? I can understand the whole "I want a challenge!" schtick, but that comes through better mob AI and more imaginative encounters than just flexing big numbers brought on by atma and higher levels.

The pick-up-and-play nature of Abyssea was what made it good. You didn't have to suck the cocks of a dozen other players to get shit done. There's actually nothing stopping people from using alliances there as is, multitasking and getting things done far more efficiently. People just choose not because organizing people in FFXI has always been an aggravating hurdle, nevermind rewarding them all fairly for their time. And with Tanaka's twisted sense of balance, fairly rewarding people isn't up there on the list of things he does.

I actually dont enjoy doing voidwatch at all. The proc system of abyssea was my least favorite part about it. The fact that the mobs spend most of the fights staggered is kind of lame as well.

What I did like about abyssea was that there so much stuff to do in there. New quests that gave rewards that were really good (abyssites), a myriad of NMs that had drops you could use, and also a number of different ways to get things accomplished. I liked abyssea a lot more before we got the good atmas though. Hence my reasoning for thinking that a hardmode abyssea would be fun. I also think that drop rates for items were a little too high overall though. Rani and Raja before 200k brews were pretty fun and I think people would have done those a lot more if you couldn't trigger blue !! and get the drop 50% of the time.

[arus2001]

New quests, items, and various other things to do can happen without butchering the Abyssea mechanics with some silly ideal of difficulty, too.

[Michelob]

New quests, items, and various other things to do can happen without butchering the Abyssea mechanics with some silly ideal of difficulty, too.

I guess that is where we differ, then. I don't find difficulty to be a silly ideal; I like a challenge. To each his own, I guess.

[Khamsin]

I just want a new fight that has the same pace as an old school wyrm fight. Something that can take decent people ~45-60 min to kill, and maybe ~30 min with bragging rights for the elite, and a wipefest for pink MNKs, perle WARs and teal mages. Something that you can choose how much TP to feed it, with a designated one or two tanks (PLD, or a couple good DD/NINs trading hate), and is more of a battle of attrition, surviving while whittling away at it while managing your resources (MP, enmity, etc.) rather than a 90 second sprint of fuck-you TP moves vs your 8x song 4x roll embrava/PD 2houring empy/relic DD.

Mind you, you can still put up 8x songs, 4x rolls, use Embrava and PD and have the best of the best empy/relic DDs, and it will still take you ~30 minutes (after taking off about 20-25% HP in the initial zerg, only to deal with the DDs getting murdered from all the hate they pulled when PD wears off).

For this to work, the NM has to have dangerous, but not instakill, TP moves (no doom/death or 3000+ damage aoes) and no (or limited) auto-regain. As well as high enough stats and HP to survive such a zerg attempt with most of it's HP intact, and high enough single-target damage to necessitate a tank. Toss in positional attacks (like wyrm breath, spike flail type stuff) to encourage strategy, and it could work. If a gimmick is absolutely needed to prevent zerging, then maybe give it a move that puts it's own Perfect Defense up if X damage is dealt too quickly, where X is high enough that fighting it in a normal, well-paced manner won't make it use it too often. Or alternatively, a 2-hour lock, or some other mechanism. But ideally, adjusting its stats properly should take care of the zerg problem without gimmicks.

[Byrthnoth]

You're essentially asking for Neo-Genbu. The problem with the fight you're describing is how incredibly boring it would be. Tanked Genbu was boring (in 2004). Nuked Ouryu was boring (always). Tiamat was boring (except for brief hate-resetting Roar fun, one-shotting tanks, etc.)

[Michelob]

You're essentially asking for Neo-Genbu. The problem with the fight you're describing is how incredibly boring it would be. Tanked Genbu was boring (in 2004). Nuked Ouryu was boring (always). Tiamat was boring (except for brief hate-resetting Roar fun, one-shotting tanks, etc.)

Tiamat may have been boring after doing 20 of them, but I remember the first few times doing them and remember how fun that was. I did my first Kalusutrex yesterday (recently came back after a ~9 month hiatus) and all that involved was stand there and beat the crap out of it while it layed there motionless the entire fight. I went as a WHM and out of 5 fights I didn't even have to cure anyone until the last fight. If that's not boring then I don't know what is. Much more boring than doing my 100th Tiamat.

[Khamsin]

You're essentially asking for Neo-Genbu. The problem with the fight you're describing is how incredibly boring it would be. Tanked Genbu was boring (in 2004). Nuked Ouryu was boring (always). Tiamat was boring (except for brief hate-resetting Roar fun, one-shotting tanks, etc.)

The excitement would be in the tension of how you're always on the brink of losing control or it killing you, but given your stellar support team, you're managing to stay in the game. TP moves that, one at a time by themselves, won't kill you. But if spammed in quick succession could cause a wipe (either by killing the tank, or by raping the support with rapid succession low damage aoes). So it places an emphasis not only on good DDs, but on good support players, as well. Perhaps it does an MDB down move that if not erased by the next spell, will likely kill the tank. Perhaps it paralygas and you're praying you can paralyna yourself and the tank and other support before something bad happens. Things to keep you on your toes.

You can damage it as fast as your support can manage. This kind of fight isn't something you can bring naked SMNs and semi-naked SCHs and curebot WHM mules to and expect to do well. Oh, and this NM can actually be debuffed to good effect by a good RDM with decent skill. It's resistances are so well balanced that the RDM's gear actually makes a difference. And it's regular attacks are not TP moves, and thus can be slowed and paralyzed.

If you play it extremely safe, having everyone turn their backs and using one DD to melee because your mages are constantly running out of MP or you're afraid of hate being lost, then yes, it'll be boring. In those kinds of fights, people generally will push it to the limits they can handle, which means you're always going to be on the edge looking over, so there will always be that tension. If it's boring, fight harder. If you're dying, pull it back.

[Sci]

You're essentially asking for Neo-Genbu. The problem with the fight you're describing is how incredibly boring it would be. Tanked Genbu was boring (in 2004). Nuked Ouryu was boring (always). Tiamat was boring (except for brief hate-resetting Roar fun, one-shotting tanks, etc.)

If Ouryu didn't sleep like a baby, that fight would have been a good example. My LS used skillchains and MB on Ouryu and only slept it on emergencies until sleep/nuke became popular. Tanking it was always fun, a race to see if people would cure me in time after a terrorga/breakga. But since it couldn't be stunned, used invincible, and would fly, it's a pretty good example of something that would be difficult to zerg.

We also killed Bahamut v2 a few times before zerging it became popular, and that was one of my favorite fights. But his low HP and since it could be stunlocked made it too easy to zerg, even without PD. Ignoring zerg tactics, it was one of the more challenging fights they ever added that didn't include AV-esque BS moves. It was beatable 100% with proper gear and tactics. They should have just made Bahamut invincible while he was summoning a wyrm or while one was up. That might have drawn the fight out long enough to prevent zerging.

[Septimus]

I just want a new fight that has the same pace as an old school wyrm fight. Something that can take decent people ~45-60 min to kill, and maybe ~30 min with bragging rights for the elite, and a wipefest for pink MNKs, perle WARs and teal mages. Something that you can choose how much TP to feed it, with a designated one or two tanks (PLD, or a couple good DD/NINs trading hate), and is more of a battle of attrition, surviving while whittling away at it while managing your resources (MP, enmity, etc.) rather than a 90 second sprint of fuck-you TP moves vs your 8x song 4x roll embrava/PD 2houring empy/relic DD.

Mind you, you can still put up 8x songs, 4x rolls, use Embrava and PD and have the best of the best empy/relic DDs, and it will still take you ~30 minutes (after taking off about 20-25% HP in the initial zerg, only to deal with the DDs getting murdered from all the hate they pulled when PD wears off).

For this to work, the NM has to have dangerous, but not instakill, TP moves (no doom/death or 3000+ damage aoes) and no (or limited) auto-regain. As well as high enough stats and HP to survive such a zerg attempt with most of it's HP intact, and high enough single-target damage to necessitate a tank. Toss in positional attacks (like wyrm breath, spike flail type stuff) to encourage strategy, and it could work. If a gimmick is absolutely needed to prevent zerging, then maybe give it a move that puts it's own Perfect Defense up if X damage is dealt too quickly, where X is high enough that fighting it in a normal, well-paced manner won't make it use it too often. Or alternatively, a 2-hour lock, or some other mechanism. But ideally, adjusting its stats properly should take care of the zerg problem without gimmicks.

I cannot remember who said it, but someone has a quote of another person describing every fight added in recent history that went something along the lines of: "And now challenge consists of poorly paced fights with horrible TP moves that if one thing goes wrong everything just explodes and everyone dies." One thing that I did like about fights like Fafnir, Nidhogg, Wyrm, Tartaruga Gigante, and Ouryu back in the day is that they really did test the quality of a RDM. A good RDM could land enfeebles and make the fights so much easier, a crappy RDM could just cast refresh over and over- it really separated the Chasuble RDMs from the RDM who went out of the way to really hone the job with gear and merits.

Making something zerg-proof would be nice, but I am honestly not sure if FFXI has the population to support anything of that magnitude anymore.

[Byrthnoth]

Any content that can't be ganked with a bunch of retards is nigh-inaccessible to me at the moment.