Dev Tracker: Discussion

[dasva]

I for the life of me can't understand SE. A bit ago they were so thirsty for subscriptions that they completely let slide massive game exploitation they would normally ban for and now they are telling normal customers they don't want their money anymore <.<

[TummieGaruda]

My problem with SoA was how content was implemented. SE added low end and top end gear/weapons at the start and then filled in the gap with later updates. If they wanted to have some type of progression where each updated added an artificial cap, they could have rearranged the updates like below:

1) Reives and ilvl 100 Bayld Gear/weapons
2) WKR (Colkhab, Achuka, Tchakka) - ilvl 106
3) Skirmish weapons NQ (Rala/Cirdas) + ilvl 106 Bayld Gear/Weapons
4) Delve v1 Field, Skirmish Yorcia, updated bayld gear
5) WKR (Hurkan, Yumcax, Kumhau)
6) Sparks Gear/weapons, updated Bayld stuff
7) Delve v2 Field, Skirmish Ra'Kaznar
8) Fracture Delve v1 and v2, Alluvion Skirmish

The main problem is there is a lot of overlap in ilvl gear but I believe that SE's intention was that there was gear to fit people's play/skill levels where bayld/sparks gear was the low end and delve was the higher end with skirmish in the middle.

[Draylo]

People would have beaten Delve even easier and got bored a lot quicker. The rest of that junk people cap out on so quickly. I don't think theres anything they could have done honestly. People don't even know what they want these days. They needed more content and faster, and that would have been impossible because they put all their resources into that FFXIV.

[fantasticdan]

If they didn't invalidate nearly all legacy content with ilvl gear, people would have a lot more to do.

[Damane]

If they didn't invalidate nearly all legacy content with ilvl gear, people would have a lot more to do.

can we have old content just die pls. if i have to go to dynamis and stuff back i start to vomit seriously. its just tooo olde after 11 years of FFXI geees. I wouldnt mind new dynamis zones with new totally different mechanics (non proc not the same as olde dynamis) or so, but not the same ole fart with just higher lvl mobs.

[Kincard]

I'm not sure why you're singling out Dynamis, that's actually one of the few areas that hasn't become obsolete because any casual player can still go in there to make money, and you still need base relic armor if you want to reforge it.

Out of everything, it was pretty stupid for them to make us farm Salvage II for months and then make us use the gear we got from that in...basically nothing before ilevel gear appeared. I mean yeah there's a few select pieces from there that are still good, but that's only because they haven't thought to add gear that directly outdates it yet.

I guess I can kinda argue pulse items were kinda wasted too, all those people farming for 0.02% drops or some shit and barely got any use out of them before ilevel came. How Adoulin was introduced was just really weird considering what came right before it.

[Malithar]

If they didn't invalidate nearly all legacy content with ilvl gear, people would have a lot more to do.

I'll never understand this point of view. What if everything pre-SoA wasn't outdated, where would the game be now? Most on this board wouldn't be here IMO, capped on Limbus, Dyna, Legion, Meebles, Salvage, Nyzul, etc. If the new shit didn't invalidate the old shit, there'd be no reason to do it beyond the fun of it, and as we all know, that's not enough of a reason to do content beyond the first time, or Monstrosity and other such content would be thriving.

Not saying I agree with the ilvl system and the progression path they took, but simply saying out dating old things was a bad move is moronic.

[Draylo]

People don't know what they want, it's that simple. I bet if they revamped this games graphics to look like 14, people would look past so many flaws and still play. I know that is a major selling point to people.

[Seha]

More banalities and fallacies please.

[Kincard]

I know I like sidegrades, and I get the feeling most people around here are the same, because after years of that stuff that's just the sort of playerbase they have. I liked the variety in things to do after the dust on Adoulin settled and they were going back to sidegrade stuff (I even liked Voidwatch, but I know lots of people hated it). I like the stuff they've been adding recently since they have a good base down for ilevel gear already so they can expand on variety. I didn't like the ridiculous power explosion at the start of Adoulin that made almost everything before pointless.

I'm not a big fan of hinting at the potential increase in ilevel either, honestly. I agree that a game that tries to expand laterally is difficult to sustain if the creators don't understand the game, though. If they really have to up the ilevel I hope they creep up slowly which was what was happening even way back in vanilla to RoZ to CoP- this game has never been 100% horizontal and I'm not entirely sure it's even possible to do that.

[Prothescar]

People don't know what they want, it's that simple. I bet if they revamped this games graphics to look like 14, people would look past so many flaws and still play. I know that is a major selling point to people.

wouldn't fix anything. would attract people to look at the eye candy for a few weeks at best before the issues surface and people stop giving a shit again, and that's if they even manage to give SE money to reactivate their subs because apparently SE can't even set up billing systems properly. SoA's progression curve was too rapid, breakneck; it wasn't so much a curve as a sheer vertical line. That's doing the transition into "vertical progression" all wrong. You ease out of aby/vw/legion/etc. era into a higher iLvl over a span of time, particularly when coming off of a very horizontal game; but SoA launched with gear that was magnitudes stronger than what we already had, especially when it came to weapons.

Increases in gear power and monster strength were necessary, stagnating in one spot doesn't work forever. You guys can say all you want about how you'd have been happy fighting Byakko and Jailer of Love forever in your lv 75 gear, but you're lying through your teeth if you say you actually believe that to be true.

[Shenrien]

People don't know what they want, it's that simple. I bet if they revamped this games graphics to look like 14, people would look past so many flaws and still play. I know that is a major selling point to people.

Hey you got a point. 1.0 had amazing graphics for its launch and hundreds poured in for about a month and then the game was on life support from there on out because it was terrible. It's kinda like how the game is right now. Sept they're skipping the whole amazing graphics bit and the life support is a giant machine that flashes 401 on your screen saying no payment for you..

Btw bought 3 time cards, tried to redeem each on XI and was unable to, but worked with XIV. ??????????????????? - Fuck man all I wanna do is give them $40 and not log in for the duration of the month because I need an excuse to burn money or something on things that are terrible. Credit/Debit don't work, replaced both cards with new numbers, the whole works. Nothing is going through -_-; bank says it's not on their end, and I'm not about to get charged by Square to be put on hold for 5 years to be told that they're unable to do anything about it because Japan. I even tried using internet exploder >_>; figuring it might be a browser issue but nope.. My PC also probably got the Ebola when I used IE.

[NynJa]

That's doing the transition into "vertical progression" all wrong. You ease out of aby/vw/legion/etc. era into a higher iLvl over a span of time, particularly when coming off of a very horizontal game; but SoA launched with gear that was magnitudes stronger than what we already had, especially when it came to weapons.

Increases in gear power and monster strength were necessary, stagnating in one spot doesn't work forever. You guys can say all you want about how you'd have been happy fighting Byakko and Jailer of Love forever in your lv 75 gear, but you're lying through your teeth if you say you actually believe that to be true.

The problem was SE's vision about working up the ladder. You were expected to get your 106 skirmish weapon, get a perfect aug, then get your 109 delve armor, then cap that out, then get your 109 delve weapon, then cap that out, then try your hand at the boss. The problem being that when people see the top of the ladder, they're not going to go rung by rung if they can do 2 or 3 rungs at once. So now you're stuck with 119's going "hey im bored", and you have people at 106 going "hey I cant beat this".

[Damane]

I know I like sidegrades, and I get the feeling most people around here are the same, because after years of that stuff that's just the sort of playerbase they have. I liked the variety in things to do after the dust on Adoulin settled and they were going back to sidegrade stuff (I even liked Voidwatch, but I know lots of people hated it). I like the stuff they've been adding recently since they have a good base down for ilevel gear already so they can expand on variety. I didn't like the ridiculous power explosion at the start of Adoulin that made almost everything before pointless.

I'm not a big fan of hinting at the potential increase in ilevel either, honestly. I agree that a game that tries to expand laterally is difficult to sustain if the creators don't understand the game, though. If they really have to up the ilevel I hope they creep up slowly which was what was happening even way back in vanilla to RoZ to CoP- this game has never been 100% horizontal and I'm not entirely sure it's even possible to do that.

i dont mind if its sidegrades or vertical progression again at this point, i just want new content, incursion is good, hardmode battles is good etc. But i really cant fathom myself to old shit anymore, thats why i shake my head when everybody is so up in arms because they invalidated olde content. Well how about redesigning/altering olde content instead of just adjusting its level... then i would be interested in olde content again, or just add new areas to olde content with vast/different mechanics. I want to play new content not olde shit i did for fuckign years.

they could for example add a labyrinth where your team has to split up in 3 with no chance of backtracking to help others, and wail through the hallways until they reach a mini boss, and each team has to defeat the miniboss to open the gates for everyone to advance to the megaboss for example.
a Diabolos fight esque where you need to be aware of the plattforms you stand on.
list goes on.

[Hitou]

I get your point but there should be 0 people using 106 gear at this point in the game. I mean there's 2 free sets of 117 gear for all jobs. The other problem with skirmish was it took forever for people to even build simulacra to enter the stupid zone since they were super rare back then. By the time people had a few weapons Delve was already out and replaced all of it, and RME. After that the game has mostly been filling in the gaps to 119 and sprinkling in more 119 options. I donno if it really would have been better if they had progressively added gear from 100-119 since "hard cores" would still be bored, but it would have at least made sense for half the gear they added to have existed.

[Prothescar]

If they added it progressively then content could have been designed more carefully. Rarer drop rates, no need to dumb down the battles (original delve was great in terms of difficulty, you had to put in effort to succeed), etc.; Delve and Skirmish could've lasted longer if they were more strategically implemented and not just shoved in as a quick and dirty "increase your iLvl fast" solution. It's disjointed, and has led to a lot of relatively new content becoming nearly worthless almost instantly. It's the opposite extreme of long-term stagnation. It seems neither SE nor most of the playerbase are capable of seeing grays, only whites and blacks.

[Damane]

If they added it progressively then content could have been designed more carefully. Rarer drop rates, no need to dumb down the battles (original delve was great in terms of difficulty, you had to put in effort to succeed), etc.; Delve and Skirmish could've lasted longer if they were more strategically implemented and not just shoved in as a quick and dirty "increase your iLvl fast" solution. It's disjointed, and has led to a lot of relatively new content becoming nearly worthless almost instantly. It's the opposite extreme of long-term stagnation. It seems neither SE nor most of the playerbase are capable of seeing grays, only whites and blacks.

noone is debating that "the way" the Devs implemented ilvl into SoA was retarded. Because it was.

[stamos]

I don't understand what people want at this point. See people talking about they want it how it was at 75. Maybe I am on the minority, but not sure why people are so fond of that time period. Dynamis twice a week to benefit one person, camping Fafhogg for a small chance of ridill/ebody etc etc. Also, I don't understand why people say the game is too easy. I mean, obviously it is going to be easy if you're using a stun bot, or running at 500%. They're not developing the game with that in mind. So, I am curious to what actual solutions people have for improving the game

[fantasticdan]

I'll never understand this point of view. What if everything pre-SoA wasn't outdated, where would the game be now? Most on this board wouldn't be here IMO, capped on Limbus, Dyna, Legion, Meebles, Salvage, Nyzul, etc. If the new shit didn't invalidate the old shit, there'd be no reason to do it beyond the fun of it

It wasn't that black and white (before ilvl anyway). Abyssea didn't obsolete everything that came before it, neither did VW, neo-nyzul, meeble burrows, limbus 99, or salvage 2. Yet people did all of these events. There was a slow power creep that incentived people to do new content for new gear, while still keeping recent content relevant for a long time.

SoA threw that out the window and made working towards nearly anything that isn't 119 a waste of time, without actually having enough 119 content to keep people busy.

[Prothescar]

So, I am curious to what actual solutions people have for improving the game

I pretty much just outlined one. And you don't need to run a stun bot or move at 500% speed to make things easy, that just makes things less annoying.