Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Ophannus]

By the same token by consistantly "grandfathering" in old RME users, new content, which is balanced around NQ weapons, will invariably be 'easy', especially as more and more of the player base obtains RME's. Old players with RME will become bored because their RME make content too easy. It's a hard thing to balance. Should RME continue to be 'grandfathered in' as the ultimate weapons so new players only have to strive for body equpiment and accessories? If so, new content will continue to be easy because those weapons are already quite powerful.

I think what SE is trying to do is not nerf the weapons but introduce other weapons which are on par, that other players can obtain more easily than RME and then balance the content around the new weapons(which are more or less on par with RME). So they want to smooth out any large gaps that RME create by reducing the gap, and leave RME with a small but discernable boon over NQ. For example, Durabdala is great, and Terpander gives 3 songs which reduces the gap between 2 and 3 song bards, but Durabdala at 99 will have an extra song and higher duration. They balanced older weapon skills to be more or less on par with Relic and Mythic Weapon skills so that other jobs with NQ weapons can perform just as well. Certain unique traits of the weapons will never fully be given to NQ weapon owners, for example Coronach's low enmity or Yagrush's AoE -na, however they have made strides to reduce the gap with things like Divine Benison proc on Divine Seal and Decoy Shot.

Also as a model, you don't really want to encourage players to be doing old, outdated content, for the best equipment and I don't see them adjusting the special unique traits of RME anymore but rather encourage players to see the newer equipment which can be competitive(except for Koga,Annihilator/Yoichi,Ryuno,Carwen,Burtgang,Yagrush, Nirvana, for obvious reasons) those weapons will likely never become obsolete simply due to the fact that they change those jobs' performance in a very drastic way. However they could implement weapons that even RME would use in certain situations. For example a weapon with +50-60acc could outperform a Mythic if the NM is extremely evasive and boasts high base dmg or if a new class of weapons comes out with high +acc/att and extremely high powered and unique weapon skills(but won't have aftermath for example)

[ccl]

The answer is simple, every 2-3 months add content aimed at top tier group(they can add new not game breaking upgrade that everyone would want like ifrit ring+1, we'd all have spammed w/e event those ring would have came from if it wasn't crafting), then when the next tier is added, nerf the previous one; so casual can always catch up while working on the side on r/e/m if they want to do content on release.

Make something as hard as delve I was before we get boss wpn, make it drop small upgrade(lot of room for that, TA2% grip, better stp ring, str +5/att+5 earring etc) and nerf it when you add the next tier of content; repeat forever.

[Ophannus]

They could follow the FFXIV model and add 'extreme' fights but then even hardcore people would complain that these 'extreme' fights are too hard and then SE would nerf it.

The answer is simple, every 2-3 months add content aimed at top tier group

SE tried that with Legion. They intended Legion to be aimed at hardcores, then people(even BG hardcores) whined how hard it was because they couldn't win even with their 99Ukon Wars and Ragnardrks and then they nerfed all of the NM's HP by 60% and reduced their defense and evasion and let you enter with half the required members.

There's very little content in this game that was hard yet fair. And when I say 'hard yet fair' I mean the content featured NM(s) with extremely powerful offensive capabilities but if certain conditions were met, bullshit AoE's that could wipe you were able to be avoided. Maybe like Proto-Ultima was a good example. Decently hard, yet still a fair fight. Also Odin v1 at 75 was fair. He only used Zan once and it could be avoided. AV had potential to be a fair but hard fight if people knew to take advantage of 2hr locking at 75. NMs where gimmicks could be exploited to avoid bullshit extreme damage(stun doesnt count) I consider fair. I don't know how DL was intended to be killed at 75, maybe it was balanced around 64 people(original dyna cap) but they never adjusted him when dyna particpation dwindled so people made up for the lack of DPS using only 18 instead of 64 people and resorted to CS Stun? Delve is decently hard and fair, most NMs have gimmicks to avoid bullshit either by hitting them with something or -not- hitting them with something to weaken or lock an aspect of their AI or movelists(i'm convinced about 60-70% of Delve NMs are just killed with brute force and we still don't know their weakness like Eft/Kurma(Kurma sometimes enters a phase where he takes extremely high physical damage like 5-6k Victory Smites even when Delve1 was new) or most of the new delve NMs(no way SE intended Ravenous Wail to be a fair amount of AoE damage unless there was a way to prevent or lock its use, it has to be a 'punish/counter' type move that's used when you're doing something wrong like some Skirmish 3 NMs when they counter you with something nasty if you piss them off with the wrong dmg type).

[Hitou]

The answer is simple, every 2-3 months add content aimed at top tier group(they can add new not game breaking upgrade that everyone would want like ifrit ring+1, we'd all have spammed w/e event those ring would have came from if it wasn't crafting), then when the next tier is added, nerf the previous one; so casual can always catch up while working on the side on r/e/m if they want to do content on release.

Make something as hard as delve I was before we get boss wpn, make it drop small upgrade(lot of room for that, TA2% grip, better stp ring, str +5/att+5 earring etc) and nerf it when you add the next tier of content; repeat forever.

That is what they've been doing. The issue is the dev team isn't large enough to crank out content that large that fast. No MMO really has that kind of ability. Delve II was sort of an anomaly since it used the same currency and started with 6-18 man in mind. I donno what you want. Add content that doesn't drop gear that's better than what we have so it's never easier? Constantly up the item lvl cap and neglect to add +skill to weapons so hit rate is floored for a few months? Releasing Delve I that early in the expansion was a huge mistake, the dev team even said as much. Because of that we've spent all the time up till now closing the gap between 99 and 119. As much as you praise initial release Delve I it's the reason nothing has gotten harder for a long time.

[ccl]

This is not what they have been doing,most HM battlefield are joke and cleared day 1, also drop are trash, that kind of content isn't aimed at top tier group. Idc about 6 or 18 man, I want something challenging for max geared group.

Simply, make something that require something equivalent to delve 1 DPS/gear/support check back then(before boss weapon) with adding good but non game breaking gear like new Ring+1 are. Then nerf the content once the next batch is released so more than the optimal geared people can clear.

[Hitou]

Again the item lvl is still 119 why do you expect 119 content to be harder than other 119 content? Just because they haven't released the next item lvl doesn't mean they aren't slowly making older content more accessible to more players they way you suggested. If you're saying it can't be "nerfed" until the new difficulty standard is released then a ton of people would probably drop and SE cares more about the so called casuals than a few people whining everything is too easy. So I guess take a break, toss your koga, or sit tight cause nothings gonna be harder than it is till the next item lvl cap and possibly not even then.

[ccl]

We don't need ilvl increase to get harder content. And you can't be more wrong, not everything is the same difficulty for the same ilvl atm Stellar VD is the same lvl of VD AA yet the difficulty difference is day and night.

[Hitou]

But not to you right? Cause everything is a joke?

[PSOfanatic]

I got an easy answer that I mentioned 5 or so pages back, convective condensation level: SE doesn't care about the top 5% because satisfying the other 95% of the playerbase makes them more money. You beat the game. Congrats...Go play EVE or something.

[NynJa]

We don't need ilvl increase to get harder content. And you can't be more wrong, not everything is the same difficulty for the same ilvl atm Stellar VD is the same lvl of VD AA yet the difficulty difference is day and night.

Technically, we dont know if there is any level difference in any of the D/VD battlefields. All we know is "greater than 119". It can be inferred that they are all the same as the VE/E/D go 113-116-119, but thats all.

And the difficulty different lies in the fight itself, not mob stats.

[Sechs]

They just confirmed ilevel 120+ stuff is coming eventually.
The fact they're even talking about it leads me to think it might be closer than we thought.
Don't know if this is going to be a good thing or a bad thing.
I'm kinda leaning to say that without a good amount of new content (new exp?) it might be a bad choice, but who knows.

[Damane]

wouldnt be surprised if new skirmish weapons will be ilvl 124 and then later on empy armor follows up with ilvl 124 increase.

basicly it being the restart we had last year with skirmish 1.0 followed bayld gear and new ilvl wkr gear followed by skirmish 2.0 then they will throw in some new hardmode battles followed by bayld gear +1 and an endgame area for ilvl 129 stuff

[Sechs]

I would be really surprised if Skirmish weapons are >119.
Not ruling out the possibility, but it would surely surprise me a lot.

[Malithar]

You guys jump to some crazy ass conclusions based on a post that says the exact same thing as Matsui said over a year ago. When RMEs were first revamped to 119, it was said that going forward, any increase in the ilvl cap would be accompanied by an available upgrade to RME ilvl. This really isn't anything new, and this tier of Skirmish surely will not be greater than 119, since they've already stated it's 119. Empy reforged I can believe though.

The whole ilvl system is going to become silly again if they increase though. Are we going to have to reforged +2 all of our AF and Relic as well? And further more, what are their plans as far as having a wide array of content to go into at 129 or whatever it is? Or are we going to have a situation all to similar to early SoA where some jobs had 119 weapons, some had 119 gear in certain slots, and some went without any relevant ilvl gear until Yorcia Skirmish?

[Sechs]

Excactely Malithar, hence why I'm warmly hoping they won't increase the ilevel cap until they have a wide array of different content to offer players, a situation which realistically can happen only with the release of a new expansion, imho.
After all it's the same in other MMOs.
They do not increase the level cap in-between expansions.

[ccl]

Technically, we dont know if there is any level difference in any of the D/VD battlefields. All we know is "greater than 119". It can be inferred that they are all the same as the VE/E/D go 113-116-119, but thats all.

And the difficulty different lies in the fight itself, not mob stats.

Exactly that's why I said we do not need an ilvl increase to get hard content; yes if you don't cheat with outside buff VD stellar is quite fun and challenging.

You guys say that they should cater to "casual" otherwise casual will leave if they are excluded from content on release, this is wrong on so many lvl: I was able to sell delve II win for 20m+ for a month(wich is the standard time between update now) wich mean most people wasn't able to clear it for at least a month and no one did quit over that; on the other hand I know a lot of hardcore that are quitting/taking long break cause since delve 2; there was nothing that is either fun/challenging to do or there was no good reward.

Hell they could go the road of nq/hq ring and make the Difficult drop stuff like nq new ring stat wise and vd drop HQ new ring stat wise.

[Damane]

Exactly that's why I said we do not need an ilvl increase to get hard content; yes if you don't cheat with outside buff VD stellar is quite fun and challenging.

You guys say that they should cater to "casual" otherwise casual will leave if they are excluded from content on release, this is wrong on so many lvl: I was able to sell delve II win for 20m+ for a month(wich is the standard time between update now) wich mean most people wasn't able to clear it for at least a month and no one did quit over that; on the other hand I know a lot of hardcore that are quitting/taking long break cause since delve 2; there was nothing that is either fun/challenging to do or there was no good reward.

Hell they could go the road of nq/hq ring and make the Difficult drop stuff like nq new ring stat wise and vd drop HQ new ring stat wise.

i just know as many people that left the game because they couldnt progresswithpugs through adoulin stuff. your point is moot.

[Malithar]

Hell they could go the road of nq/hq ring and make the Difficult drop stuff like nq new ring stat wise and vd drop HQ new ring stat wise.

Was playing WoW when they added that sorta stuff, and at first, I was psyched. Was part of a heroic 25 man guild that regularly got server first clears, so it was cool to get better stuff. But after an update or two of it, I hated it. It kills any and all desire to do content that wasn't of that tier. I know they've since made changes (though I don't keep up on what they are) but I really did despise the drop system ruling out other content.

At least so far, they've kept a reason to do other stuff, if only for gil/mats/tales, but at least it's there in XI. I dunno how well something like that'd work here though. Too many mouth breathers that would demand to run VD even when they/the group aren't capable of it. It'd create a new tier of elitism in the game as well, which I guess is never a bad thing at the heart of it, it's just the people that go too far and have no idea what "good enough" means.

[ccl]

i just know as many people that left the game because they couldnt progresswithpugs through adoulin stuff. your point is moot.

My point is valid, I can do everything in adoulin with pug and tsurumaru.


edit: Yeah I can see the issue with adding drop to VD only but then there shouldn't be HQ ring cause casual can't get them, that exclude them from having them.

[JSHidaka]

Excactely Malithar, hence why I'm warmly hoping they won't increase the ilevel cap until they have a wide array of different content

Yup... They wont do the same thing they did with delve 1.0