New or Returning Players Discussion 2: SoA Homeless Veterans Edition

[JSHidaka]

Iirc delve was introduced like 3 updates after SAO release... ilvl was introduced with skirmish update and that was before delve one. And the combat skill update was like 6 updates after delve release... when probably 60% of the players had their delve win, and making it easier for the rest.

[Hitou]

SoA came out in March 2013, Skirmish was added at launch in March 2013, Delve came out in April 2013, and item levels were added to all Adoulin gear on July 2013. + skill was added with item levels. So 2-3ish Months after the initial release of Delve, and no, 60% of the player base did not have a delve boss win at that point. I'd say less than 10% probably did because it was only the best players or at least the players that could field 18 competent people that won before + skill.

[Sechs]

Totally not 60% of player base. 10% seems more likely, if not even less. And actually not all 3 delve zones were considered the same level of difficulty. Think back then Mugyinwa was the hardest?

[Altnob]

So you're saying people were doing Delve before weapons had +skills on them (aka SIGNIFICANTLY WEAKER) and nowadays only certain DD's can go ? Certainly the DD's that are "inferior" are much stronger than the top DD's were before weapons had +skill. I mean... it just sounds like the playerbase isn't adapting or is just lazy.

[Karizo]

So you're saying people were doing Delve before weapons had +skills on them (aka SIGNIFICANTLY WEAKER) and nowadays only certain DD's can go ? Certainly the DD's that are "inferior" are much stronger than the top DD's were before weapons had +skill. I mean... it just sounds like the playerbase isn't adapting or is just lazy.

From my understanding, before item levels were introduced, only top-notch LS with full alliances are completing delve 1.0 (Ceizak/Hennetiel/Morimar) consistently. When ilvl was released, more LS are able to complete it and top-notch LS are able to shave some number off when it comes to time and the amount of people they have to bring. With the most recent adjustment of HP scaling to alliance/party size, they're quite easily done with trained monkeys (lol jk, not trying to be mean). but people who know what they're doing are able to do all delves with 6 people (maybe 7 or 8 for the new delves). On the other hand, people no longer prefer doing them with full alliances because it includes more TP spams from mobs and therefore hitting stun walls earlier (for the old ones) or just straight out insta-gib alliances in the new ones, should a handful of DDs not pull their own weight; since it's hard to control quality of players as the group gets bigger, full alliance is no longer a thing. As for low manning, while it's easier in some aspects, it also allows less mistakes in some sense. Combining all these factors, people start sucking again.

To address your "only certain DDs can go," this is a PUG mentality. Why bring a job that doesn't perform as well when you can just request jobs that have the easiest time? Also, no amount of gear can compensate for a quality of a player, it can only enhance it (in most cases, lol).

[Altnob]

Is there a specific place I can go to look for event linkshells on my server? Particularly ones that do not use silly methods like "LS banks" and what not.

[Damane]

So you're saying people were doing Delve before weapons had +skills on them (aka SIGNIFICANTLY WEAKER) and nowadays only certain DD's can go ? Certainly the DD's that are "inferior" are much stronger than the top DD's were before weapons had +skill. I mean... it just sounds like the playerbase isn't adapting or is just lazy.

90% of the playerbase is dumb and fail delve 1.0 even today.

[Darkmagi]

It's also a case of pickup groups being awful and you really don't want to gamble with stupid people.

[JSHidaka]

10%... To be honest, i dont think most players are that bad -_-... Maybe I'm been optimist, but almost sure in Asura most players had their win(and yea most of them bought them for sure) but to get into a pug you only needed to be cor, or geo (easiest jobs to lvl and get ready for delve), or a daurdabla bard...

[Patsu]

Anyone have a good list of GoV/Trust leveling spots since no one seems to do abyssea anymore?

[Hitou]

Been a while since I've gone out and actually solo'd a job since I just use coalition assignments these days, but this is what I used to do.
0-10ish starter zones > 10-15 tahrongi/konschtat etc > 15-30 maze of shakrami or other similar zone > 30-35 east altepa or upper delkfutt> 35-40 sea serpents grotto >
40-55ish fei-yin or crawler's nest, changing pages a few times > 55-60ish Kuftal or the tree, probably safer to aim for 57-58 start for kuftal > 60-75 the boyahda tree. After 75 it's probably easier to just grind an easy GoV to 99 than run around looking for mobs in the right range. But if you want to, say to keep skills capped, there's options. Check the GoV/FoV pages on the wikis for exact mob ranges.

You may want to stay in some zones a few levels longer if you feel the next zone is too high a level. With trusts you should be able to handle T-VT decently well depending on job/gear and which trusts you use. If you want EP-DC only, go a few levels later than I suggested.

[Kaisha]

I see the POL update servers are as slow as they've always been, even now with my beefier connection.

I quit playing shortly after Trusts were first introduced (about 10 months?), and had MNK/BLU/RDM/SMN/SCH/GEO relatively geared (i119 weap/gear where applicable) for the standards people had back when Delve1/Skirmish2 was the battle content available. Am I looking at much work to get up to date from all the shit released since then to do the modern end game content?

Last I looked into the game, it involved farming a metric ton of merits to buy KIs to do any of the new fights, along with a new tier of Skirmish and Delve content.

And is 2boxing still a relevant thing? Had one for Abyssea-era, didn't see much use of him during early SoA outside of a packmule, too much shit to unlock/upgrade in the expansion for me to be arsed to do it twice.

[Sechs]

Omg Kaisha!
Kai!
Welcome back! <3

I was just asking some common friend where did you disappear just a few days ago.



As for new stuff that got released since when you quit and that you might be interested in:
1) ilevel 119 version of Skirmish Gear (you lose augments if you upgrade)
2) Some new 119 weapons, some of which are better than the previous options.
3) Some new accessories and non-ilevel stuff dropping from new delve zones
4) 109 and 119 Relic Armour, pretty confident there's quite a few pieces you might be interested in getting for your jobs. Logic is similar to the 109 and 119 AF. Around 5 REM tales type 1-5 for the 109 version, 8 REM tales type 6-10 for the 119 version. Additional materials required are dynamis stuff for 109 and Delve MB drops + 1 Rare VW mat for 119
5) ilevel 119 Job Specific Weapons got added, some are really nice, the rest are kinda meh.
6) Several new revamped BCs got released. In addition to dropping Rem Tales like the old AAs BCs they also drop some unique items and accessories. Majority is probably sidegrades you can skip but there are a couple of really interesting items, depending on your jobs.
7) Alluvion Skirmish part 1 got added. It drops new ilevel 119 weapons that can be augmented. Normally it's very high damage but also very high delay ones. Some of those can get really interesting but overall they're nothing spectacular unless you get lucky with augments or want to throw hundreds of mils of gil on them hoping for the best.

Also many new interesting Trusts, Adventuring Fellow NPC now can go up to level 99 and once u're there it gets ilevel benefits like Trusts.
Anything else? Some additions you probably are not interested in (like in-game gearsets), a very cool Warp Ring with infinite charges and 10 min recharge, all jobs.


Coming soon:
Moar Job Points
"Incursion" (new 6-18 event, we know nothing about it)
ilevel WoE confluxes
Atomos avatar & fight
Alluvion Skirmish part 2

[Julian]

Don't do it kaisha, its a trap!

But to answer your question, not too much I think. There's some good gear from AA/DM, most the other merit fights aren't as worthwhile (they each have a specialized piece or two, but they're not as extreme in versatile usefulness as DM or as drops)

Besides those, look at upgraded AF/relic for your jobs and be aware we may be seeing empyrean upgraded soon as well.

[Malithar]

MNK/BLU/RDM/SMN/SCH/GEO

Depending on how your LS/friends are, your Geo might have some serious use to it besides the ol -def/-eva turtle mode of Tojil. Look into the Oboro JSE Bell, or check the AH for the WKR bell under instruments to get mostly caught up. I think there's a post in the Idris Testing thread in the Mathy Parts section that details some of the +5 buffs so you can get an idea of what it's capable of now.

[Kaisha]

Don't do it kaisha, its a trap!

Too late.

I was just asking some common friend where did you disappear just a few days ago.

I disappeared to the somewhat boring land of Eorzea. Need something else to play now since I'm close to done everything I want done in XIV with the current content available, and it takes me just a day to burn out the weekly content.

Just finished grabbing all applicable Trusts I could. With the thing I'm getting for having logged on this month I can grab another. Preferably I want the Moogle because it's a god damn Moogle, but Joachim seems like one of the top-tier Trusts to have.

Gear stuff I'm a not worry about for now since there's a bunch of info I need to trudge through first, and I want to catch up on story and redo all my macros. What's the ideal means of XP these days? It's looking like I need a god awful load of merits to recap everything. I was getting 2k XP a kill in Kamhir on my MNK w/ Trust assistance which seemed pretty great.

Also stop AFKing in Hennetiel so I can bug you ingame. I need to find me a new social LS.

Depending on how your LS/friends are, your Geo might have some serious use to it besides the ol -def/-eva turtle mode of Tojil. Look into the Oboro JSE Bell, or check the AH for the WKR bell under instruments to get mostly caught up. I think there's a post in the Idris Testing thread in the Mathy Parts section that details some of the +5 buffs so you can get an idea of what it's capable of now.

I will. I have to grab the new spells and shit also, and merit Bell now that I can 8/8 a couple more spells (which'll be Bell/SMN, unless SMN is useless still, otherwise Enfeeb).

[EDIT] Oh, something I can't seem to find an answer to - Did they make the BLU Delve-boss spells learnable from WKR versions? Do people still do WKRs?

[Isiolia]

Oh, something I can't seem to find an answer to - Did they make the BLU Delve-boss spells learnable from WKR versions? Do people still do WKRs?

You can learn them from there.

WKRs are still done, though not consistently. If you see a shout, checking the zone for participation is prudent.

[Hitou]

Just finished grabbing all applicable Trusts I could. With the thing I'm getting for having logged on this month I can grab another. Preferably I want the Moogle because it's a god damn Moogle, but Joachim seems like one of the top-tier Trusts to have.

Get the moogle, there's a an alter ego extravaganza from Sept 10th-17th and you can get Joachim from that. And any of the other event trusts you might have missed. http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...40/detail.html Bottom of the page for the list.

[Kaisha]

Get the moogle, there's a an alter ego extravaganza from Sept 10th-17th and you can get Joachim from that. And any of the other event trusts you might have missed. http://www.playonline.com/pcd/topics...40/detail.html Bottom of the page for the list.

Fantastic, thanks. Was soloing some merits earlier in Kamihr, and was liking the Shantotto/Ulmia/Cherukiki combo with the non-event batch of Trusts. Even made a macro that ditches them all and resummon when one of them runs out of MP.

You can learn them from there.

WKRs are still done, though not consistently. If you see a shout, checking the zone for participation is prudent.

Doesn't require the killshot I'd hope as normal learning methods require? I did a couple WKRs yesterday, and it's just Trust-city over there.

Look into the Oboro JSE Bell, or check the AH for the WKR bell under instruments to get mostly caught up

Ended up getting AH bell for now. JSE bell looks like a joke to get though, but I need to do an SCKNM first before the NPC will consider me. I also need to do that relic-armor quest too which'll put a huge dent in my bayld supply.


I take it sparks are disposable? Already went from 0 to 50k by virtue of the 500+ dmg and mob-kills quests applicable to farming worms in LaTheine when I was working on expanding merits. Weapons from it look like decent filler for stuff I don't have Delve for, but the armor is kinda meh compared to Delve/Skirmish1 stuff?

[Malithar]

I take it sparks are disposable? Already went from 0 to 50k by virtue of the 500+ dmg and mob-kills quests applicable to farming worms in LaTheine when I was working on expanding merits. Weapons from it look like decent filler for stuff I don't have Delve for, but the armor is kinda meh compared to Delve/Skirmish1 stuff?

Very disposable, you can accidentally cap out very easily doing things like Skirmish, CP parties, etc. For the most part as you said, weapons are solid filler, armor is meh. Armor does have a few unique pieces that help fill in areas though. Wayfarer's set is the best idle Refresh set for all the non-mage jobs on it, if you're doing something where you need idle refresh. Espial has a few mage jobs on it if mage DD is a thing for you, notably the head is one of the better +Str/Dex/Acc/Haste options. Outside of that, it's nothing special.

A thing on most servers is selling off stacks of skill up books (if you don't need them yourself) for 30-50k a stack. I'm not familiar with what's best or what kind of gil you can get, but selling some of the vendorable weapons is supposed to be good money as well. Or if you'd like to stock up tales for RF and RF +1, there's that. I'd also snag a Capacity Ring.