Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Damane]

Most curious about this. Every weapon type has 119s from 1+ BC, Delve (sans Katana and Gun), Skirmish +2, Plasm, and JSE sans Pld, Brd, and Geo, plus all the RMEs. Is another 119 option that relies on augments really going to be useful? I'm kind of giddy about "shields." Here's to hoping we're going to see some meaningful MDmg/MAB/MAcc shields come about, even a 119 DD shield for Bst since according to the official forums, that's still a thing. Then again, with all the mistakes in that post, maybe shields was a mistake too. ._.;

Kind of figured we'd be going back to the other skirmish zones at some point. Would just be weird to have such a system separated into 3 tiers with the lower tiers being extremely pricey to run due to their reliance on legs and bodies. I wonder if this means Inner Ra'kaznar will be useless other than niche CP farming. :/

there are still weapons classes some jobs can use, but no option available at 119.
-Mages have no ilvl 119 shield (a decent one with good stuff on it)
-Polearm useable by somethign else then DRG (WAR or SAM)
-X-bow for THF + ammo (i believe)
-Gun for NIN + ammo
-Shurikens for NIN
list goes prolly on
-excellent recast staves for mages (i miss them recast staves from magian ._.)

i know not many people cares about this stuff and its not relevant, but its nice being able to equip a weapon that can make use of the enemys weakness/gimmick at some times or offers other benefits.

[Bukadan]

anyone else get the feeling that the WKR augments were tests to see what augments people liked (or something like that)? maybe well get OAT2(or 3 even) on weapons lol

[Malithar]

-excellent recast staves for mages (i miss them recast staves from magian ._.)

i know not many people cares about this stuff and its not relevant, but its nice being able to equip a weapon that can make use of the enemys weakness/gimmick at some times or offers other benefits.

No doubt, stuff like that is always nice. I just doubt something like that would come from an event centered around augments. These could be 119 weapons for non-main jobs though, there was a dev post two months or so ago from Camate that said 119s for non-main jobs would be coming in the near future. That still doesn't make them particularly useful (yet..) though.

[Treize Kordero]

anyone else get the feeling that the WKR augments were tests to see what augments people liked (or something like that)? maybe well get OAT2(or 3 even) on weapons lol

ilvl 119 weapons with 40% OAT would be interesting.... I also like the idea of alternative 119 weapons for all the jobs like what Damane mentioned.

[Sechs]

the event is already dead for people with relic/mythic for their job

I wouldn't be so negative but part of what you're saying is true, and here is the development "error".
When you keep players playing your game by giving them a power-creepy long-time goal (Relics, Mythics, Empys etc) then it's gonna be hard to create other weapons that will be interesting and sought after by players.
If you, as a developer, want to balance the attractiveness of a certain event by the weapons it can drop, you're going to fail because of the situation you created before (making players aim for RME and fuck everything else).

They acknowledged this "error" and tried to correct it with SoA, but of course it was too late. Waaaay too late. You couldn't really take RME back after giving them so much importance for so much time. Players were rightfully mad.
So what happened? Since there was no perfect solution to this issue they created themseleves, they went for a compromise.
RME are still good, but the gap with other options is small and in some rare circumstances they're actually better.
This worked fine for a while, but I feel we're slowly slowly slowly walking back to the initial situation, where nobody cares about anything that's not an RME.


Personally I'm really curious about these weapons, really want to see what we can get out of them and seriously hope for a mage shield, I want to retire my Genbu's!

[JSHidaka]

So the news on skirmish only mention wpn ? It better be awesome wpn to compete with current top tier wpn for each job and grindy enough to not be cleared day one, but I fear that if it's weapon only, the event is already dead for people with relic/mythic for their job

It's cirdas and rala 2.0 and they were just weapons originally, so I wouldn't expect gear till yorcia 2.0

[FaeQueenCory]

I wouldn't be so negative but part of what you're saying is true, and here is the development "error".
When you keep players playing your game by giving them a power-creepy long-time goal (Relics, Mythics, Empys etc) then it's gonna be hard to create other weapons that will be interesting and sought after by players.
If you, as a developer, want to balance the attractiveness of a certain event by the weapons it can drop, you're going to fail because of the situation you created before (making players aim for RME and fuck everything else).

They acknowledged this "error" and tried to correct it with SoA, but of course it was too late. Waaaay too late. You couldn't really take RME back after giving them so much importance for so much time. Players were rightfully mad.
So what happened? Since there was no perfect solution to this issue they created themseleves, they went for a compromise.
RME are still good, but the gap with other options is small and in some rare circumstances they're actually better.
This worked fine for a while, but I feel we're slowly slowly slowly walking back to the initial situation, where nobody cares about anything that's not an RME.


Personally I'm really curious about these weapons, really want to see what we can get out of them and seriously hope for a mage shield, I want to retire my Genbu's!

Hmmm... Were you around in the 75 era?
Because... That is what we have been returning to ever since the REM update.
In the 75 era, gear paradigm was to +1 artifact and relic sets as a base and supplement those with various 68~75 pieces that were good. (Basically AFs with drop gear. Sometimes full sets of stuff like ZNM or something, but mostly it was AF+random.)
As for weapons... Sure Relics and Mythics were "the best"... But there was still functional alternatives that could even exceed their worth. (Off the top of my head, Nanatsusayanotachi. Given the right gearing, Nana SAMs could parse just has high or even exceed Relic or Mythic SAMs...) Sure those weapons had lower DPS than the relics and mythics... But it wasn't an end-all-be-all situation like it was in the 99 era.
The gap was smaller...
And that's what we're returning to... Only better because Matsui wants us to use 3 mixed and matched AFs as a base instead of just two. (Both the 99 and 75 eras had 2 sets of AF as a base for gearing... But due to the paradigm of the empyrean set bonuses... Relic+2 became kinda on the same level as random drops. Which is probably why it's taking so long to get those iLv'd... I wouldn't be surprised if there was no more set bonus on them in iLv form.)

People forget that in the 75 era RM was the best of the best, but the gap between them and other endgame weapons wasn't as massive as it was in the 99 era.
The 99 era was so huge in terms of gap that if you didn't have a 90~99 REM... You weren't getting in to something. Pretty much no exceptions.

And I don't think we're going back to 99 era style of REM-only.
Namely I find that any "why bother" is because of just how many options people already have.
Like if you already have a REM, why would you care about a new 119?
And that also applies to other jobs too.
Like take my PLD, did I care about Delve2's augmentable sword? Nope. Anahera is all my PLD will ever need... If not Burtgang... And I don't feel the desire or need to make Burtgang.
So it's not just apathy or elitism over REMs... It's that ppl already have what they consider personally really good for their job and don't see a need to change weapons.
(And of course that will change once they see a new weapon that fits their playstyle or looks prettier.)

Of course that's even assuming this will be actual new gear...
I wouldn't be surprised if this "HQ" skirmish is just a system that enables you to select skirmish gear augments.
And any gear dropping from it is just +1 armors and +2 weapons we already have. (An alternative to the KI climb because even now ppl don't want to do S3... Just goes to show you make something shit like that KI droprate for long enough and after fixing it no one will want to bother. Though I also think it has to do with reaugmenting...)

[Sechs]

Hmmm... Were you around in the 75 era?

Nope sorry, started only last year

[Hirronimus]

Randomly generated dungeons and what reads like a not fucktarded augment system? This I like. 'Tis what Skirmish should have been from the beginning

Rehash, Reuse, Recycle.

[Malithar]

Rehash, Reuse, Recycle.

Have you seen Rala's and Cirdas' maps? Imagine multiple different skirmishes were planned fairly early in with their size. And nothing inherently wrong with Skirmish content. Exception to Yorcia (I still haven't ran it with the speed up NA option, is it MUCH faster?), Skirmish is kinda like the Assault/Campaign Ops/Meebles of SoA. Short runs with a dedicated objective that don't really eat up too much time to complete.

[Damane]

Have you seen Rala's and Cirdas' maps? Imagine multiple different skirmishes were planned fairly early in with their size. And nothing inherently wrong with Skirmish content. Exception to Yorcia (I still haven't ran it with the speed up NA option, is it MUCH faster?), Skirmish is kinda like the Assault/Campaign Ops/Meebles of SoA. Short runs with a dedicated objective that don't really eat up too much time to complete.

yeah yorcia speed up is pretty fast, if you pick the option goal one is 12 min and goal 2 is addtional 17 min of defending, doestn matter which tier it seems, it just squeezes all mobs into that window of 17 min

[Byrthnoth]

Two Lomloon posts on the JP side:
1) They're going to add the synthesis +2 torques to Treasure Caskets. They have some note about specifics (in terms of how it will affect the drop rates of other rare items from the caskets) but I'm not sure exactly what they're saying.
2) Someone replied to their explanation about why Ferreous Coffin can't use Prot/Shell (it doesn't fit his personality as a campaign Freelancer NPC) basically saying, "Okay, well where's Revivescence then?" They replied that they didn't add it because it would be a PITA (or something similar). They noted that Shantotto detects elemental weaknesses and casts the appropriate magic. Also, in the future there will be a trust that gives you TP.

[Ophannus]

At 75, did Hagun SAMs outparse mythic SAMs? But true, there were many functional alternatives. The new paradigm is a bit different since in addition to the armor's regular attributes, they super-impose stat vomit on top of it. Therefore, higher ilvl items will almost always overtake the lower ilvl items unless there's some uncommmon stat like Store TP or Triple Attack or something.

ilvl119 weapons with arcane glyphics on the order of WKR augments would be pretty ridiculous. But since they're skirmish augments, they'll probably be based off some kind of new stones which means random augs again.

The bothersome thing is this will force people to do old skirmishes for the new skirmish pieces which can become tedious once you're capped on gear/stones. Unless they add new rewards/points to old Skirmish, nobody's really going to want to sit through 30-40min of Skirmish content to farm new segments unless the new weapons are really amazing.

Here's hoping they're 'alt' weapons. Staff for MNK/DRG/PLD/WAR, Polearm for SAM/WAR/PLD, Xbow for THF, Shuriken pouches for NIN(with 242 throwing skill on them), melee club for WHM/PLD/BLU, Scythe for BLM, new shields with mdmg, fastcast, cure potency, pdt for mages, etc...

[dasva]

Screw staff pld give us a mace!

[Shenrien]

The thing with ilvl in this game is they fucked it, they shouldn't have ever done artificial leveling up through the gear itself, it should have been... okay this weapon is i117 and this one is i119 they both have different things to offer besides a change in weapon damage. Much like before they did this back in early/late August with the addition of skill+ to all weapons and some crazy stat changes on all gear and the "stat vomit" which is truly an eyesore. Ever since then its been really clear that if your weapon isn't 119 you're going to be at a healthy disadvantage, while for your gear itself it's negligible.

I'm kinda surprised that they never thought to stick the "stat vomit" in a latent effect kind of thing, where if you are wearing 2/5 -5/5 of a 119 piece you unlock the stats and they become their true intended stats for that class and it would all be hidden and slightly easier to see just what is better on each piece of gear rather looking at the mess that is presented to us.

[Karbuncle]

The thing with ilvl in this game is they fucked it, they shouldn't have ever done artificial leveling up through the gear itself, it should have been... okay this weapon is i117 and this one is i119 they both have different things to offer besides a change in weapon damage. Much like before they did this back in early/late August with the addition of skill+ to all weapons and some crazy stat changes on all gear and the "stat vomit" which is truly an eyesore. Ever since then its been really clear that if your weapon isn't 119 you're going to be at a healthy disadvantage, while for your gear itself it's negligible.

I'm kinda surprised that they never thought to stick the "stat vomit" in a latent effect kind of thing, where if you are wearing 2/5 -5/5 of a 119 piece you unlock the stats and they become their true intended stats for that class and it would all be hidden and slightly easier to see just what is better on each piece of gear rather looking at the mess that is presented to us.

what you suggest might make macroing a pain in the dick... but it would be nice if they could somehow condense all the stat vomit. Personally I looked at a few pieces of armor lately where it feels like, without I.lv Stats, it would basically be "DEF:+ Haste+" and nothing else... and I can even consider haste an I.lv stat at this point.

[Damane]

what you suggest might make macroing a pain in the dick... but it would be nice if they could somehow condense all the stat vomit. Personally I looked at a few pieces of armor lately where it feels like, without I.lv Stats, it would basically be "DEF:+ Haste+" and nothing else... and I can even consider haste an I.lv stat at this point.

what would have been nice on stat vomit would be an indicator on stats, like stats in RED color on armor are stats that represent -stats like on old armor (indicating the stat is lower then standart ilvl stat for that ilvl), white for standart amount and green for higher then normal amount of ilvl stat for that current ilvl. would make it alot easier to skim through gear if you are looking for a particular stat

[Viar]

So the news on skirmish only mention wpn ? It better be awesome wpn to compete with current top tier wpn for each job and grindy enough to not be cleared day one, but I fear that if it's weapon only, the event is already dead for people with relic/mythic for their job

It doesn't need to be "awesome" to compete with relic/mythic, it only needs special state for different purposes.

[ccl]

Doing damage is the only utility a weapon have for a DD; I really hope we get something really strong like even/close to Mythic dmg and that it takes times to get but yeah It won't happen.

Also people claiming there are "utility weapon" other than doing damage is why we have so many useless job cause they can solo EP better than Sam doesn't mean their dmg should be fucking awfull compared to sam on end game stuff. If this is an update to cater to casual, don't we have too many of that already atm?

[Damane]

Doing damage is the only utility a weapon have for a DD; I really hope we get something really strong like even/close to Mythic dmg and that it takes times to get but yeah It won't happen.

Also people claiming there are "utility weapon" other than doing damage is why we have so many useless job cause they can solo EP better than Sam doesn't mean their dmg should be fucking awfull compared to sam on end game stuff. If this is an update to cater to casual, don't we have too many of that already atm?

all updates since months cater to casuals.