Dev Tracker: Discussion

[ccl]

With all the bad things those event had, VW and Legion were the perfect balance difficulty wise. This was for me one of the best Era of FFXI.

[Malithar]

One time, I tried to put together a PuG for a to-be-determined VE AA (bring your PUP; who gives a shit?) and oh man, the hate-tells.

Major problem with the lower difficulty runs is the drops. Merits are a dime a dozen, but even with their ease, most won't bother throwing awaying 10-20 for a VE or E run of something when the reward will be so small. What do you get on VE, 1 tale, super-low-undetermined chance at a piece of gear, and an ok shot at a synth mat? VE and E are great for soloing or maybe even low manning if you don't have the setup to lowman N+, or just get a group and do D+, but it's the sort of thing you'd have to find like minded people to do. Most won't want to pony up the merits for zilch.

What's worse is if they improved the drops too much, you'd see less runs (other than dedicated groups) going for anything of any challenge since people would just go lowman and solo the easier runs and get their stuff. Path of least resistance type of shit like people have been saying. With VE and E being as easy as they are for any group, look at all the people on sites like Alla or the official forums that happily admit they don't do BCs, they grind sparks to buy tales. It really has been to the point of "find other people to do stuff with" for awhile, and a large number still won't.

[scaevola]

Major problem with the lower difficulty runs is the drops. Merits are a dime a dozen, but even with their ease, most won't bother throwing awaying 10-20 for a VE or E run of something when the reward will be so small. What do you get on VE, 1 tale, super-low-undetermined chance at a piece of gear, and an ok shot at a synth mat? VE and E are great for soloing or maybe even low manning if you don't have the setup to lowman N+, or just get a group and do D+, but it's the sort of thing you'd have to find like minded people to do. Most won't want to pony up the merits for zilch.

What's worse is if they improved the drops too much, you'd see less runs (other than dedicated groups) going for anything of any challenge since people would just go lowman and solo the easier runs and get their stuff. Path of least resistance type of shit like people have been saying. With VE and E being as easy as they are for any group, look at all the people on sites like Alla or the official forums that happily admit they don't do BCs, they grind sparks to buy tales. It really has been to the point of "find other people to do stuff with" for awhile, and a large number still won't.

You're assuming a VE/E shout is trawling for the kind of people who have the kind of regular access to N+ groups that would incentivize holding on to their merits. The ability to solo some AAs doesn't matter here, because we aren't locked in to one so if you like we can just go kill one you can't handle alone. Regardless, last I checked Spark gear/109 Reforged is all over the place so there's a pretty sizable group of people unable to get the pages they need in the current environment.

I mean, one 6-10 page might be peanuts to you but would you really say it's not worth 10 merits if you legitimately do not have anything better to spend them on?


EDIT: as to your second paragraph I don't really have a problem with the current MPNM reward structure even if I agree that lackluster fight-specific drops make some of them DoA.

BUT

With VE and E being as easy as they are for any group, look at all the people on sites like Alla or the official forums that happily admit they don't do BCs, they grind sparks to buy tales.

This, this is exactly what I was saying. They do not do BCs because this community has convinced them that the BCs are not for them, even at VE/E levels, and they are afraid to try (see: hate-tells).

[ccl]

With 109 af and bad wpn, any group even a group of bad should be able to do Normal fight.

[scaevola]

5 DDs and a non-whm healer, or a non-aegis/ochain PLD, 4 DDs, and a non-whm healer?

(all the bards are waiting for a different shout)

[Fwahm]

You're assuming a VE/E shout is trawling for the kind of people who have the kind of regular access to N+ groups that would incentivize holding on to their merits. The ability to solo some AAs doesn't matter here, because we aren't locked in to one so if you like we can just go kill one you can't handle alone. Regardless, last I checked Spark gear/109 Reforged is all over the place so there's a pretty sizable group of people unable to get the pages they need in the current environment.

I mean, one 6-10 page might be peanuts to you but would you really say it's not worth 10 merits if you legitimately do not have anything better to spend them on?


EDIT: as to your second paragraph I don't really have a problem with the current MPNM reward structure even if I agree that lackluster fight-specific drops make some of them DoA.

BUT



This, this is exactly what I was saying. They do not do BCs because this community has convinced them that the BCs are not for them, even at VE/E levels, and they are afraid to try (see: hate-tells).

Drop rate is so low for VE/E, that it's literally not worth the time using merits on them if you have even a single thing to spend merits on still. Even then, it might just not be worth the time investment. I'd say <1% drop rate for equipment is not an exaggeration from VE, from what I've seen.

[ccl]

5 DDs and a non-whm healer, or a non-aegis/ochain PLD, 4 DDs, and a non-whm healer?

(all the bards are waiting for a different shout)

the 2/3song brd fit in that category they would go to normal.

[arus2001]

Casuals get the majority of the content. Getting gear from said casual content(Skirmish/WKR/Reforge Armor/RoE/Bayld) can be used to easily beat Delve1 and 2 if you're able to find 5 other people that have a modicum of brain cells. Do you not see the point in the entire hierarchy of events? We just want something a step above Delve, which would not hurt casuals in any way as they work their way up the hierarchy at their own pace. Or are you seriously that butthurt if someone has a piece of gear that's 1% DPS better than yours because you're not willing to grind out 50 hours for it?

It's more like I'm trying to repeatedly point out that things aren't as casual as the no-lifers are claiming them to be, but since they're bored, they'd rather call someone explaining how MMOs have socially worked for the past decade butthurt. It all goes back them to not giving a shit about what happens outside their closed circle of asshats and not being able to stomach the fact that a small dev team wasting time on content a miniscule fraction of your players can hope to experience under present conditions is just that, a waste. All that's left is the irony of being told MMOs aren't for me, yet present conditions seem to suggest XI is not for them.

[ccl]

What in XI isn't casual right now beside job point? I can clear w/e event I want going from 0 merit with less than 1h playtime a day if that isn't casual idk what is. This isn't a solo game make friends, learn to play together and you'll can do that too.

They just made us so much stronger it's super dumb how easy the game is right now I wish they would nerf koga if they aren't adding hard content to do.

[arus2001]

I won't argue against the SC adjustment making the game easier. At the same time, prior content wasn't designed with that in mind. Like I said earlier, maybe the new randomized Skirmish will tickle your fancy, I don't know. But in general, you guys are just outpacing the speed SE can actually put out content, hard or not. I outpaced XIV in its first 4 months and still don't really see a reason to go back yet even though I'm keeping tabs on it. On the other hand, I loathe their obesession with capping. I think I saw someone asking for gating/lockouts here, but that's not going to solve any of the real underlying issues of boredom or people not getting to participate.

[PSOfanatic]

this would be imho bad design and AV + PW were never created for people that have relics. SE never stated that. Infact they even stated that they were intended to be nearly impossible to win.
While gear plays a large role, the amount of buffs impacts a party way more then anything else. would you be happy to face a battle that requires you to have a 4 song brd + mythic geo + yagrush whm + 3x koga sams to even stand a chanc at a win? Thats just insane and it shouldnt be expected. Unless SE lowers the gap between 3 and 4 song brds and RME vs non RME DDs, RME tanks vs non RME tanks, i dont see that being good design.

Exactly.. and on top of this...with what gear WOULD drop from that example of event would increase the gap even further alienating more players from ever seeing the light and day of future events that "REQUIRE" said item.

[ccl]

Didn't you guys think Bee+5 was Impossible during delve I era when Tojil+5 started to pop? And gear dropping from the event doesn't have to be omg game breaking could be 1% dps increase and we would glady do it.

[Hitou]

With all the bad things those event had, VW and Legion were the perfect balance difficulty wise. This was for me one of the best Era of FFXI.

Wait, what? VW was perfect difficulty for you but everything in Adoulin is yawn inducing easy? VW was some of the easiest crap they added to this game unless you mean the 1% drop rates. Honestly the only reason people did VW as long as they did was because there was literally nothing else to do at the time. And you got a lot of merits from it, and cruor that people converted to gil before the nerf.

[scaevola]

the 2/3song brd fit in that category they would go to normal.

So you agree a thrown-together group isn't doing normal without a bard?

[Draylo]

You can do them all on normal w/o a bard, just need a working strategy. Something cheap like PLD RNGX4 WHM would be fine too.

[ccl]

So you agree a thrown-together group isn't doing normal without a bard?

Geo is better than your average brd for normal BC, also rmd haste II is more than enough to keep shadow/stay alive on normal. Don't even have to rng+pld to do normal without brd.

[ccl]

Wait, what? VW was perfect difficulty for you but everything in Adoulin is yawn inducing easy? VW was some of the easiest crap they added to this game unless you mean the 1% drop rates. Honestly the only reason people did VW as long as they did was because there was literally nothing else to do at the time. And you got a lot of merits from it, and cruor that people converted to gil before the nerf.

VW+Legion was the perfect combinaison of event for casual+event for hardcore group, sry if I wasn't clear enough.

[Damane]

most people seem to forget that prolly 75% of the playerbase isnt useing windower, gearswap spellcast, cupper, gm mode etc. theese are all stuff that affect your performance tremendously. If you really wanted to experience how a D or VD fight feels for the average ffxi player (just see the giant gap) proceed to a VD D or Delve 2.0 fight wirh the following restrictions:

turn off gearswap spellcast battlemod lightluggage erc TPpary is fine
create macros with 5 lines, if you multiple gearswaps proceed to make multple macros, no automatic gearswaping allowed for anything.
your weapon should be ilvl 117 or augmented 115 at best skirmish +2 weapon no RME weapons
your gear should be ilvl 115 lower with some AF left at 109 tops, if useing 119 skirmish gear keep the augments shitty. dont utilize more then 3 delve 2.0 gear 1.0 is fine to use.
your brd has only 2 songs (no gils to get 3 songs)

thats the average joe now proceed to clear D or VD battles or delve 2.0 and feel the gap between your decked out mythic group. restricions apply to all pt members.

[ccl]

So because there are group we 2song brd still, there cannot be event that assume 4song brd and you don't see any flaw in your logic ?

[Damane]

So because there are group we 2song brd still, there cannot be event that assume 4song brd and you don't see any flaw in your logic ?

your logic is flawed because you think the DEV team is basing the difficulty of fights on people that have high end gear and use various tools like gearswap cupper gm mode etc when infact their difficulty is based around on the average joe i described, which makes sense because thats the majority of the playerbase.