Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Fwahm]

I think the problem with Escha was that for the first few weeks, silt was very hard to get due to lots of competition, low level mobs, 5 minute repops, and expensive tribulens.

While SE fixed it after a while, it left many players with a bad impression they are unable to get over. It also probably didn't help that the majority of the Escha gear is augmented, which means that players can't see the final stats and get excited from just the dat mined pieces.

[Seha]

Overcrowded camps with necessity for all party members to have the stuff and buffs disappearing on pop. That implementation was pretty awful.

[vivbiibasjiu]

Not to mention the entire zone was bland and featureless (literally in monochrome!) with absolutely nothing in it besides trash and ??? to pop NMs. Hell even Abyssea was a more interesting "zone" to explore

[The Assman]

Plus Zi'Tah itself has a pretty crappy layout. They picked it because it's an iconic zone for even casuals that never reached 75, but without the music and colors there's nothing to like. And the new music is cool but with no battle music it gets old fast.

i can name what was wrong: everyone needing tribulens instead of only the pt leader.

I don't get why they couldn't just copy Unity's system of draining everyone's points once the NM is popped.

[Sechs]

I think the problem with Escha was that for the first few weeks, silt was very hard to get due to lots of competition, low level mobs, 5 minute repops, and expensive tribulens.

While SE fixed it after a while, it left many players with a bad impression they are unable to get over. It also probably didn't help that the majority of the Escha gear is augmented, which means that players can't see the final stats and get excited from just the dat mined pieces.

First impressions in general are very hard to overcome, in that regard I absolutely agree with you. I'm confident that played a big part in the whole thing.

At the same time though you said "while SE fixed it after a while".
Well... That's very debateable. The situation now is MUCH better and it's bearable.
If you have certain jobs who can cleave and can combine with friends and CORs and Kupofrieds and stuff you even get silt at pretty nice rates.
But... everybody else? Everybody else is kinda stuck in sucking for very long sessions of silt farming against boring monsters in a boring area with very minimal return.
Effort:reward ratio is okaysh, but pretty bad.

And then you have the major annoyance of
1) having to warp to #1 to get a new KI, then back to your favoured pop ???
2) everybody needs silt, which creates troubles for people who try to schedule organized events (yes, there's still people who like that, and it's the nth time that SE fucks up with such groups)
3) after ~3 pops the price goes up, so you have to take breaks etc

That's very annoying.
Also I don't think the "lack of augment" is a problem.
At this stage of the game people who know how to access websites where they can see lists of datamined gear, also know that such gear can be augmented.


@Assman
Having everybody's silt drained when you pop would've been SO MUCH BETTER. Would still incur into the annoyance of "everybody has to farm silt on their own", but it would've been much better than the current situation for sure.

[Suteru]

Plus Zi'Tah itself has a pretty crappy layout. They picked it because it's an iconic zone for even casuals that never reached 75, but without the music and colors there's nothing to like. And the new music is cool but with no battle music it gets old fast.

I don't get why they couldn't just copy Unity's system of draining everyone's points once the NM is popped.

You know, even with color, Zi'Tah is just a very ugly brown.

[Kyte]

Yeah it's nothing
http://gallery.ffxi.foreverfinalfant...i_tah+Pond.jpg

but brown

http://img4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2..._-_Boyahda.jpg
certainly no colors here
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2.../5f/ZiTah1.jpg

just brown tree trunks and dirt

http://i.ytimg.com/vi/fDB7CXwXe-A/maxresdefault.jpg

I mean that's basically a Tahrongi reskin

Spoiler: show

oh wait, no, it's one of the game's most iconic zones. It might be a little dated now, but if you were to go back in time and survey people what their favorite zone and zone music was in 2005ish, I think at least half of the respondents would say Zi'tah to both. A lot of that popularity is due to, again, the music, as well as the color contrast- which it probably had the most of out of all the pre-CoP outdoor areas aside from sky.

[dasva]

I think that is almost the point... turning lush colorful zones into monochrome for the sheer change. I mean sky was also fairly colorful too

[BerenTebogo]

So jormungand with 5? Merrow caster adds.

"So they want to fight everything with BSTs huh?!" Is how I imagine designing that fight went.

[Sumy]

I don't really know what was "wrong" in Escha. I can name the things that didn't work for me and my friends but ultimately that's still a very subjective perspective on the whole topic.
What's out of doubt is that something clearly did not work, whatever it may be.

I don't know what was wrong with Escha either specifically, but I can tell you the reason I never bothered with it... they ANNOUNCED the end of the game. As soon as they did that, there instantly was no reason or incentive to upgrade my gear - and there was about 12 seconds worth of story content in Escha, so basically, I went in, looked around, a left.

The game has always had a sense of progression, even when we were level capped at 75 we always knew greater challenges were ahead - but now, why bother? I can see me logging in for Rhapsodies updates, doing the missions, and then not being seen again until Nov/Dec when I'll do it again, then log out for good.

Im sadly sitting on half complete Idris, and Yagrush with no incentive at all to finish either of them, or even log in. I would complain that SE announced the end WAY too early, but then, they really couldn't disguise Rhapsodies as anything but a finale.

As long as they created something that's fun to play without tedious, useless, annoying requisites and gatings, it's gonna be fun.

...and this is more important than ever now. Before we dealt with tedious annoying content because we knew the rewards were (mostly) worth it, and were usable for future content. Now, everything I get is only good until December, and the 4-12 days I log in between now and then - it's just not worth it.

[BerenTebogo]

People talk often that the game is dead the second Nov / Dec hit, but I think that is really open to interpretation.

Sure there is no new content after that date, but back in the olden days we played for months and months with no hint of if/when updates were coming, or whether or not the gear will be better, etc. They could have ilvl140-145 stuff planned for November that takes a month for the people at the forefront of the game currently to clear. That's going to be a lot of content for the average player.

I'm expecting to lose some people in my group around DEC, but others have said they hope the content lasts at least until Jan/Feb. Not playing just because you know it doesn't get better than this is like all the people who quit when they announced level cap raises. There was still lots to do and people had fun doing it, whether or not it was to your taste was fairly inconsequential. In fact a lot of people who pulled "dead game /bailout" ended up coming back and eating their words hard.

SE annoys me greatly. They really do. After all this shit + 14 I'll never touch another MMO they throw at me. But in 11 I have pretty much always had fun. I'm still having fun. Escha rabbit is a fucking hilarious fight that maybe what? 2-3% of the remaining player base has had a chance to experience let alone clear?

Yeah we don't have unlimited time left, but not enjoying what we have just because there is an expiration date has always been silly imo.

[Seha]

I said it before, but the smartest thing they could do for november is to implement a new line of legendary weapons then that is time intensive as much as a mythic upon release. That would keep a lot of people playing for a long ass time. Couple if with a Legion/v1Delve type of endgame and game will stay afloat for a very long period after major content updates are dropped.

[BerenTebogo]

I said it before, but the smartest thing they could do for november is to implement a new line of legendary weapons then that is time intensive as much as a mythic upon release. That would keep a lot of people playing for a long ass time. Couple if with a Legion/v1Delve type of endgame and game will stay afloat for a very long period after major content updates are dropped.

Strongly agree. If something is fun and if there are clear goals that can be set/met, people will play.

[steellord]

People talk often that the game is dead the second Nov / Dec hit, but I think that is really open to interpretation.

Sure there is no new content after that date, but back in the olden days we played for months and months with no hint of if/when updates were coming, or whether or not the gear will be better, etc. They could have ilvl140-145 stuff planned for November that takes a month for the people at the forefront of the game currently to clear. That's going to be a lot of content for the average player.

I'm expecting to lose some people in my group around DEC, but others have said they hope the content lasts at least until Jan/Feb. Not playing just because you know it doesn't get better than this is like all the people who quit when they announced level cap raises. There was still lots to do and people had fun doing it, whether or not it was to your taste was fairly inconsequential. In fact a lot of people who pulled "dead game /bailout" ended up coming back and eating their words hard.

They might make a 'god mode' along these lines to make truly everything solo friendly, but adding fights that would be challenging to a party-alliance of iLvl 140-145? I really can't see them making the effort. So if acquiring that last legendary weapon is the sole motivator that keeps the game alive for you, it's possible. Even then though...

In the olden days, we fought kirin every saturday for months on end, because we had a couple dozen people needing wleg, and yes we did believe new content was on the horizon. Certainly that was the case with 3 kings, salvage, you name it. Come november, i doubt anyone would put up with this. The only other times i wasn't confident there'd be new content and i had mostly capped on gear was after lv99 cap was added, and guess what, i quit within a month.

FtP games that i've completed i do log on sporadically, but with a monthly fee it's hard to imagine i'll stay subbed come january or so. If SE cared at all about subs, they should've stipulated something like it'll go FtP for those who stay subbed until march. They're so incapable of putting themselves in the player's shoes, instead of stupid ass mog pells. This idea would deter those who are cancelled until november (this is many people i know) and also motivate console players

[Sumy]

The major difference this time (especially for me), is that SE has OFFICIALLY stated their will be no new content after xxx date - if they had never said this, I'm sure I'd be happily finishing up my HP-baylds and alexandrites, spamming vagary and escha, and making plans for upgrading gear.

This is my first MMO that I've played from the NA launch to "the end" so I'm not sure if this is typical - is it ever appropriate to announce the end of content? On one hand, it allows you to wrap up story content, but on the other, it also ends content speculation. How do MMOs typically end? How far in advance do they typically announce this?

I'm not sure what new legendary weapons would bring to the game without content to use it on.

[Kanriel]

If popping NM's used Silt like Unity uses Accolades, I think it would all flow a lot better in Escha. That and making it a stupid leveling zone for low levels were the two great blunders. If the entire zone were level 100-125 mobs, I think it would've been so much better.

[BerenTebogo]

The major difference this time (especially for me), is that SE has OFFICIALLY stated their will be no new content after xxx date - if they had never said this, I'm sure I'd be happily finishing up my HP-baylds and alexandrites, spamming vagary and escha, and making plans for upgrading gear.

This is my first MMO that I've played from the NA launch to "the end" so I'm not sure if this is typical - is it ever appropriate to announce the end of content? On one hand, it allows you to wrap up story content, but on the other, it also ends content speculation. How do MMOs typically end? How far in advance do they typically announce this?

I'm not sure what new legendary weapons would bring to the game without content to use it on.

My first as well from start to finish, and I never played stuff like TERA. But it was my (possibly wrong) understanding with stuff like TERA that you were basically told to go fuck yourself one day and then they turned the servers off a month later. Maybe not TERA, maybe one of the other ones? Aion or something? I don't know. All I know is it's my understanding that as much as we're unhappy with how SE is doing things, in the grand scheme of shit they're being pretty cool about it.

[Fwahm]

If popping NM's used Silt like Unity uses Accolades, I think it would all flow a lot better in Escha. That and making it a stupid leveling zone for low levels were the two great blunders. If the entire zone were level 100-125 mobs, I think it would've been so much better.

I find it really handy for leveling lowbie jobs, since you have moderately significant vorseal bonuses and you get silt as a bonus. Mobs repop fast enough now that it's not too much of a problem unless you've got like 3 cleavers in a single camp.

[Suteru]

Yeah it's nothing
but brown

Rose-tinted glasses. Sure, the areas with the crystal stuff looks nice, but that's only a small portion of the zone. Walking through it after spending weeks in Escha, the browns are really irritating.

[Fwahm]

The Mog Pell event teaser was updated to say that additional mog pell items will be added to the list after the upcoming update hits.

I assume they're talking about new trusts, but who knows.