Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Ophannus]

Maybe it'll be generic eminent type gear. In other words ilvl versions of old armor. They're bringing back old models with haruapex/aetosaur, might as well bring back scorp harness and hauberk.

[Kanriel]

You don't have to be very serious about endgame to level one useful job and do skirmish/delve/whatever thou. If anything, it's less of a timesink for a casual player than grinding all those JPs with sub-119 gear, especially if you want to gear up more than one job.

If you're having trouble finding the time to acquire 119 gear on your main job, how is it significantly easier to level a whole other job and gear it out so that it can acquire 119 gear? We're talking about people that don't already have 119 accessories and such to swap between all jobs.

[arus2001]

I find it more worrisome people are still insisting to do something you hate so maybe one day you could possibly do something you like. Without any kind of party-finder or LFG tool, that's pretty much the reality of the game past and present.

[Sechs]

Eh?
Who is insisting for who to do what? And what is that they "hate"?

[Kanriel]

Eh?
Who is insisting for who to do what? And what is that they "hate"?

Playing the "mainstream" jobs. I play this game to be a THF. I don't have much interest in other jobs for my main. I have RUN somewhat setup, but I have no real drive to excel at it, it's just there because I kinda enjoy it. According to main FFXI philosophy, I am only useful for TH and a complete waste of space on any content where TH isn't effective. This then gets translated to everyone else in the game so that even if I can outparse MNK/SAM/RNG on content, since I'm considered a weaker DD, I'm "not invited" to content. Solution: Make your own group. Yeah, I know, it's great jumping through hoops just because on VD content my job may not be capable...

[Sechs]

Playing the "mainstream" jobs. I play this game to be a THF.

I've been having that issue myself in the past (during the 75 era). I was seriously struggling to find a place and levelling a new job from 1 back then wasn't a joke as today.
Concerning this, I can only quote Matsui's words. "We cannot expect people in this stage of the game to be willing to only play a single job".
He was talking about the fact that despite all their best intents and efforts, they cannot possibly make so every single job can be equally viable in every single circumstance.
I think they went to great lenghts to that regard for allowing a wide set of variegated possibilities, but of course some will always be more efficient than others and hence more sought after.

Personally, I'm talking in general and it's nothing personal, I think that if someone plays FFXI like any other MMO and demands to be playing a single job out of the 22 available 100% of their time, then they are doing it wrong and playing the wrong game for their tastes, they should move to other game with different models more suited for their needs (there are plenty who rotate around the concept of a single class/job to focus upon).
I know it sounds arrogant of me to be saying this, but really, it's quite naive to expect things to be any different in a game such as this. Demanding for things to be different means failing to understand how some core concepts this game is based upon really work.


This been said, I can understand people hating some jobs, but I'm very skeptic about being unable to find even just a single other job out of the 21 left that they don't like, unless they're being stubborn and refusing to change their position no matter what.
Again, I'm talking in general and not about your situation for THF (which is not in a perfect situation sadly, but not even as bad as many other jobs. In my LS we regularly deploy THFs for DM and Incursion for instance, or for the newly added NMs. And in lowmen content THF is very much welcome in all BCs because of TH)

[Hitou]

What content has a VD setting where you don't want THF for drops? If you wanna play THF as a DD then yeah you have to make your own groups. Scratch that, if you want to play a DD at all then you have to make your own groups. I know it sucks, but everyone likes to play melee jobs, and they like to play the popular, flavor of the month jobs. So, unfortunately, the easiest way to get in to any shout group is to play WHM or BRD. Don't want to play those jobs? That's fine can't blame you, but good luck making your own groups and shouting for those exact same jobs.

I might be wrong but your post seems to indicate you think leveling a popular job like MNK or SAM would give you an easier time being invited to groups. And, well, it wouldn't. No one really shouts for DD and if they do they're not usually picky because it's for something like skirmish. You might see a MNK shout for delve every once and a while but they're not gonna want an eminent MNK. On the other hand no one seems to give a crap about WHM's gear even though a WHM is more likely to cost a run than a slightly gimp DD. People are just happy they finally got a tell after an hour of shouting. This is just my experience though, things might be totally different on your server.

[NynJa]

What content has a VD setting where you don't want THF for drops?

Presuming SE replicated the code across all VD content, all of them:

The effects of Treasure Hunter are now active in the following high-tier mission battlefields at the “Very Difficult” setting.

★Ark Angels / ★Divine Might

* In accordance with this adjustment, the number of items needed for reforging artifact armor that drop at this difficulty setting has been decreased by one.

I dont think any other KI battlefields existed at that time.

[Kanriel]

I've been having that issue myself in the past (during the 75 era). I was seriously struggling to find a place and levelling a new job from 1 back then wasn't a joke as today.
Concerning this, I can only quote Matsui's words. "We cannot expect people in this stage of the game to be willing to only play a single job".
He was talking about the fact that despite all their best intents and efforts, they cannot possibly make so every single job can be equally viable in every single circumstance.
I think they went to great lenghts to that regard for allowing a wide set of variegated possibilities, but of course some will always be more efficient than others and hence more sought after.

Personally, I'm talking in general and it's nothing personal, I think that if someone plays FFXI like any other MMO and demands to be playing a single job out of the 22 available 100% of their time, then they are doing it wrong and playing the wrong game for their tastes, they should move to other game with different models more suited for their needs (there are plenty who rotate around the concept of a single class/job to focus upon).
I know it sounds arrogant of me to be saying this, but really, it's quite naive to expect things to be any different in a game such as this. Demanding for things to be different means failing to understand how some core concepts this game is based upon really work.


This been said, I can understand people hating some jobs, but I'm very skeptic about being unable to find even just a single other job out of the 21 left that they don't like, unless they're being stubborn and refusing to change their position no matter what.
Again, I'm talking in general and not about your situation for THF (which is not in a perfect situation sadly, but not even as bad as many other jobs. In my LS we regularly deploy THFs for DM and Incursion for instance, or for the newly added NMs. And in lowmen content THF is very much welcome in all BCs because of TH)

Oh I understand, my situation isn't NEARLY as bad as half the jobs in the game, absolutely. And yeah, they'd not be able to specialize bosses much if they were to allow all jobs to be truly useful to all content. I only got RUN up at all when I saw Yorcia delve as impossible for THF, and figured a slashing job with some party-defenses may be able to fit into my desired playstyle. Working on BLU as well, and will eventually work COR into things as well, just sticking to light armor jobs. But I still want to do 90-95% of content on THF. I'll play another job if the content is truly anti-main, but it is my main. But this isn't specifically about me and THF, this is about all the jobs that get almost no playtime. There have always been some pretty serious DRG's in this game (partially because of the victim complex of being laughed at all the time, though...) and only after a recent buff has anyone even been excused to play the job a couple times in incursion from what I've seen. PUP, BLU, DNC, RDM, BLM, PLD, DRK, BST, NIN all are told they have to switch to another job. I've run with some pretty awesome PUP's (mythic though), BLU's AOE-erase has to make it really damn useful in content (when Yagrush isn't present), NIN makes a rather baller tank for a bunch of AA content, my GEO can hit 10-12% parse on delve bosses with 3 melee and shit gear, I'm sure BLM can destroy that and be a solid addition, etc. etc. But these jobs aren't given any chance. This game isn't tuned like WoW, losing some DPS isn't wiping you on content, we can relax on our job exclusiveness.

[fantasticdan]

I find it more worrisome people are still insisting to do something you hate so maybe one day you could possibly do something you like.

Like farming JP?

Without any kind of party-finder or LFG tool, that's pretty much the reality of the game past and present.

Party finder tools work in other MMOs like FFXIV and post wotlk WoW because of how streamlined they are. It's basically impossible to be missing key skills/spells, gear wrong, use the wrong subjob, etc. because those games don't give you the option to. The worst you can do is have linearly worse (lower level) gear, or play badly. In old school games like FFXI you have the freedom to play 100% wrong and be nearly or completely useless.

There's no FFXIV/modern WoW equivalent to a geo sneaking into a group unskilled up and missing most of the spells, your 'healer' showing up with an excalibur/melee gear and no cure potency/gear swaps, your drk DD showing up with DW swords and fulltime evasion gear, your war showing up /whm for sick heals, etc.

Those are all real examples of things I've seen happen in groups I wasn't leading, and a LFG tool that can't weed them out would be chock full of it. Players that can actually clear content would avoid it like the plague, and you'd be left with the bottom of the barrel dregs, and nothing would ever get done.

I might be wrong but your post seems to indicate you think leveling a popular job like MNK or SAM would give you an easier time being invited to groups. And, well, it wouldn't.

This. Difficulty in joining/forming groups (besides just low player population) is caused by everyone wanting to play DD, and nobody willing to properly play healer/support. The only DD job that was ever in high demand in this expansion was relic rng for faceroll rng+pld strats. Just leveling sam or whatever wouldn't get you anywhere, everybody and their mom has 119 mnk|sam|etc rearing to go.

[Sechs]

Party finder tools work in other MMOs like FFXIV and post wotlk WoW because of how streamlined they are.

^this.
Everything is very homogeneized and every job fits a very specific role out of the three possible and just that.
/boring

I don't like this approach but truth be said there are several pros in that. For instance it's much easier for devs to tune and balance fights because they can perfectly foresee a small range of different setups deployed by players.
Here in FFXI you'd have to take account for 22 jobs who do not always fit one of the three basic roles of the Trinity System, sometimes they fit more at the same time, and you have the huge variable of "rare equipment".
You'd have to take into account group of players exploiting multiple geos/brds, groups who have RMEs and grousp who don't... all of this creates an insane amount of possibile combinations, a huge range, and it becomes impossible to make the fight challenging for one end of this spectrum while not making it impossible for the other end.

[Damane]

Oh I understand, my situation isn't NEARLY as bad as half the jobs in the game, absolutely. And yeah, they'd not be able to specialize bosses much if they were to allow all jobs to be truly useful to all content. I only got RUN up at all when I saw Yorcia delve as impossible for THF, and figured a slashing job with some party-defenses may be able to fit into my desired playstyle. Working on BLU as well, and will eventually work COR into things as well, just sticking to light armor jobs. But I still want to do 90-95% of content on THF. I'll play another job if the content is truly anti-main, but it is my main. But this isn't specifically about me and THF, this is about all the jobs that get almost no playtime. There have always been some pretty serious DRG's in this game (partially because of the victim complex of being laughed at all the time, though...) and only after a recent buff has anyone even been excused to play the job a couple times in incursion from what I've seen. PUP, BLU, DNC, RDM, BLM, PLD, DRK, BST, NIN all are told they have to switch to another job. I've run with some pretty awesome PUP's (mythic though), BLU's AOE-erase has to make it really damn useful in content (when Yagrush isn't present), NIN makes a rather baller tank for a bunch of AA content, my GEO can hit 10-12% parse on delve bosses with 3 melee and shit gear, I'm sure BLM can destroy that and be a solid addition, etc. etc. But these jobs aren't given any chance. This game isn't tuned like WoW, losing some DPS isn't wiping you on content, we can relax on our job exclusiveness.

as sechs said: you are basicly ignoreing the biggest feature and core mechanic of this game: the jobchange/subjob feature. You cant and should not expect to have only one main job. you should have 3-4 main jobs you use, in the best case spread out between DD support healer and something else. in your case its clearly a point of wrong expectations. if you want to play only one job fine but dont bitch about you not getting invites when you ignore 99% of the other stuff the game offers via job change.

[Lyramion]

This. Difficulty in joining/forming groups (besides just low player population) is caused by everyone wanting to play DD, and nobody willing to properly play healer/support.

Me and my 2 best friends in LS are BRD WHM SCH. It's so hilariously easy to start up anything at any time with the snip of a finger when we are on together.


Playing mage is like being the girl at a sausage fest party.

[Kanriel]

as sechs said: you are basicly ignoreing the biggest feature and core mechanic of this game: the jobchange/subjob feature. You cant and should not expect to have only one main job. you should have 3-4 main jobs you use, in the best case spread out between DD support healer and something else. in your case its clearly a point of wrong expectations. if you want to play only one job fine but dont bitch about you not getting invites when you ignore 99% of the other stuff the game offers via job change.

And thus we return to the earlier comment of "doing something you hate just to advance in the game". There's not much in having 3-4 main jobs if you only enjoy 1 and only play 2 of the ones you don't enjoy. I understand sacrifices at times but the stigma in this game around many of the jobs is absurd.

[Damane]

Me and my 2 best friends in LS are BRD WHM SCH. It's so hilariously easy to start up anything at any time with the snip of a finger when we are on together.


Playing mage is like being the girl at a sausage fest party.

tell me about it my mains are mythic whm geo sch run and relic war (secondary jobs blu rdm brd smn). as 1 of the 2 dedicated mage players in my shell you can guess in what direction their event sheduling went since i stoped playing totaly 4-5 weeks ago. all of a sudden i see melee only players pick up mage jobs!? guess at some point they have to suck it up when their mage backline fades away

[Byrthnoth]

They're pushing the expansion of Unity chat back to next update, I think.

Also yeah, being a one-jobber was only borderline acceptable for someone interested in endgame before Abyssea and is totally unacceptable now. FFXI's jobs share mechanisms that make them far more similar than some would like to believe. If you're just so in love with THF (or SAM, or DRG, or MNK, or PUP) that you can't possibly play other jobs, you have a problem.

[arus2001]

Even if someone picks up 3-4 jobs, there's still no guarantee they're desired by the community. Why someone likes or doesn't like any of them really isn't up for us to decide, either. By default, people probably aren't going to want some undergeared and untried tank running with their pimp DDs, so things like that tend to alienate those of the tank persuasion, which more generally consists of PLD, RUN, NIN, and maybe distantly WAR. Though, like tanking, support roles can also carry a high pressure, where fucking up can quite easily put the blame on you. Being heavily chastised for a fuck up isn't something everyone really wants out of their entertainment. Which really just takes us back to the common theme across all games that DPS classes wind up more popular. Frankly, the only way you're going to be getting people to explore outside their comfort zone is to better hybridize, but in MMO logic, hybrids = fail. Coincidentally, this can also spread literally to the player where if they're trying to gear up 3-4 jobs simultaneously, they probably won't wind up as good as just focusing on one in the early phases. Thus, it's often wiser to select those that commonly show up on the same groupings, but even then there can be extra lengths that must be taken before you can even be considered good at one or all.

To say matchmaking systems wouldn't work in XI, however, because you'd get nothing but dregs or that you can't figure out how to make it work is incredibly short-sighted. There are measuring sticks in place to be drawn from, including things like average ilvl, total merits invested into a job, CP/JP gains, stats relative to a role (HP/+enmity/damage reduction for tanks, as an example... or just /checkparam stuff), mission/quest completion, and so on. If SE designs an event and says people in Sparks gear can beat it, then a party full of people in sparks gear should be able to beat it without needing 3+ hours and multiple wipes. I know this may serve as an affront to the purists who want the really real real endgame that only the sub-10% could partake in, but let's be honest, for all these little tedious hurdles and backwards player philosophies that plague XI, all that's really done is coaxing people into playing something else where they will find satisfaction.

I hate one-job wonders, too. Especially when they try to dictate that because their main is their main, people who play it as a secondary or tertiary job should never hope to be as good. Unfortunately, the CP/JP system kind of justifies this behavior (which makes looking into the future of it all worrisome). Merit WS restrictions also do this. If I could level all 22 jobs, get them reasonably geared, and be the most flexible motherfucker FFXI has ever seen, I totally would. And bluntly, I did during Abyssea without being a dual-boxer or botter of anything. Yet, I also realize not everyone is me. Which is fine. It just leaves me better prepared to help them out if they're a friend. Then again, some folks only play one job because they don't have the time to throw themselves into multiples, and that shouldn't be treated as a crime, either.

Does all this justify some better balance passes and fixing broken things? I'd say yes. But I guess we're at SE's mercy with a side of tinfoil theory suggesting they don't want XI to be TOO good anymore because they've got XIV out now, too.

[Lyramion]

... you have a problem.

... you better have amazing social skills or organization talent ! But most of the typical forum complainers seem to lack that and thus basically being stuck in hell forever.


Reminds me a lot about "back then" in HNMLS. There always seemed to be an "Alpha" Paladin in each HNMLS grouping people around him and claiming all the fame. Other PLDs got the crumbs and got shood away when the Alpha guy was on.

[Yeager]

Has a date been confirmed for the update yet?

Also, regarding the SU1 armors, I'm seriously hoping (mainly for my benefit but also other crafters as well) that the new SU1 armor sets can also have HQ versions. People will pay big gil for that white box, but it will all depend on the stats of the SU1 armors.

So pretty much wait/see, but IMO, if you have to farm 50 Job Points just to equip this stuff, that SU1 armor should have stats that should reflect the amount of work into getting all those Job Points, otherwise this will be considered a major fail by SE.

[Damane]

And thus we return to the earlier comment of "doing something you hate just to advance in the game". There's not much in having 3-4 main jobs if you only enjoy 1 and only play 2 of the ones you don't enjoy. I understand sacrifices at times but the stigma in this game around many of the jobs is absurd.

there isnt much stigma. out of the 22 jobs only a few are really useless. If you cant find out of the 22 jobs 3-4 jobs you enjoy playing and only want to stick to 1, then this game is really not ment for you and you rather go play thf on a game that has only 1 job per character design. There is really no justification to complain.