FFXIV 3.0 : Heavensward - Expansion Information and Discussion

[Alkar]

They already stated that there will be drops for Normal/Story mode. Personally I expect a 10 or 15 level gap between the armor sets.

It's not going to be 10. Yoshida said the gap will be bigger than the current one (which is 10) so i'd expect at least 20 if not more. Most likely the gap will be filled with crafted (possibly... the new Specialist system could be implemented for this reason) and tomestone gearsets.

[Kaisha]

Main point of the bigger iLvl gap that I'm reading between the lines on is their way of forcing the HP/DPS checks without means of being able to meld crafted gear to compensate.

Of course if the chests remain completely RNG then progression will solely depend on luck if you keep getting stuck with 90% healer shit like FCoB.

[Appie]

I hope the gap is bigger than 10 ilvls, 20 sounds about right for me to give a fuck (the fuck is completely thrown out the window if Hard mode revolves around rng again though).

Maybe it's a good idea if SE were to release alexander raids in DF right from the get go.

That's always a good idea, no matter what content or diffculty imo, but since Japanese use DF differently, I at least expect Normal Mode Alexander to be in there from the start.

[Alkar]

Tokens for Alexander are already confirmed. We don't know exactly how it works yet but it won't be Coil.

[Sephiroth]

They already mentioned that Normal will be like Coil with echo which still wrecks a sizeable portion of the playerbase. It'll be a cakewalk to people already clearing Coil but won't be completely faceroll.

That's interesting because the people who can't beat Coil tend to be the same people who can't beat it with echo and go buy their clears. There's still many who can't beat T9. So if that is their plan the casuals will still find it too hard.

[Lucavi]

Casuals weren't the ones complaining about it being too hard and about itemization and all the other gripes, so its not really an issue if they'll still find it too hard.

[Gulkeeva]

Theirs people that haven't beat t5 yet, and are geared in i120-i130 with a zeta i135 >.> (well saw a few in T4 spam with 100 soldiery bonus and stand out when they have no clue what they are doing).

For some people its just... easier to buy a clear instead of dedicating time to find a static and then dedicate time for progression/clearing. Its really easy to make gil ingame (can do hundreds of mil per month with effort) or for the super lazy they just buy gil since it seems like SE does nothing to the rmt or the buyers of gil from what I can tell.

SE is probably looking to attempt what wow has been doing... faceroll mode and actual raid mode for a instance. One where you can sit in mechanics and not die, and the other where you will die. A few things I'm curious about the new raids... is if they've learned anything from 2.X about it.

1. Will the ilvl/gear requirement be so high for the actual hard mode raid that you can't just craft gear, stick vit/accuracy in and clear it in 1 week?

2. Can you switch between the 2 modes while in the raid like wow used to let you in case a hard mode is too hard, you can still progress without zoning out -> change mode -> clear shit again to get to boss.

3. If you can't do #2, if you clear easy mode boss 1, can you do hardmode boss 1 also, and get loot from it.

I'm sure WoD was an "experiment" of their future easy mode. Note a stacking debuff, its like training wheels. You won't die the first time, but if you can't continually dodge you will get 1 shot. I won't be surprised if they continue this trend of a stacking debuff that lasts a long time in alexander raid to "teach" you to dodge stuff.

(oh god, don't think I've typed a all of text in awhile)

[layoneil]

It's not going to be 10. Yoshida said the gap will be bigger than the current one (which is 10) so i'd expect at least 20 if not more. Most likely the gap will be filled with crafted (possibly... the new Specialist system could be implemented for this reason) and tomestone gearsets.

you're misinterpreting what is said. Coil went 90 > 110 > 130, every iLv increase was 20 levels at the top end. Heavensward will have bigger jumps when the iLv goes up. so maybe 130 > 170.

that doesn't mean the difference between Alex Normal and Alex Hard can't be 10. Alex Hard can be 170, Alex Normal can be 160.

tomestone stuff can be 150 upgradable to 160 and you can still have crafted and expert dungeon drops that are 140 or 150.

3.1 will give you alliance dungeon drops that could be 150 or 160.

we also have new primal stuff and whatever that FC Airship stuff is if they actually drop gear. there's going to be more things that are at the lower end of the iLv increase but i think even Alex normal will be much closer to the top end than gear from all the other places.

[solracht]

Yea, I read that quote exactly the same way layoneil did - he was talking about ilevel jumps between the tiers, not about the ilevel between Normal and Hard. Personally I'm only expecting a difference of 5-10 ilevels between the two modes plus the ability to dye the gear.

[Gulkeeva]

Yea, I read that quote exactly the same way layoneil did - he was talking about ilevel jumps between the tiers, not about the ilevel between Normal and Hard. Personally I'm only expecting a difference of 5-10 ilevels between the two modes plus the ability to dye the gear.

Ilvl jumps of 5-10... are kind of... so small in stats that most people won't really care >.>

Thats like +1 weapon damage, +2~+3 "total" of all the stats. If anything, it'll come down to a choice of which is better glamor for most people >.>

I'd expect something like...

I140 quested gear -> I150 crafted gear -> I160 Normal raid gear (i165 weapon) -> I180 hard mode raid gear (i185 weapon).

[Niiro]

It would make sense for them to make smaller steps up in ilvl going forward otherwise it would get pretty absurd pretty fast.

The again idk how other MMOs with similar systems handle ilvl inflation, or if it's really even considered an issue.

[Lucavi]

Yea, I read that quote exactly the same way layoneil did - he was talking about ilevel jumps between the tiers, not about the ilevel between Normal and Hard. Personally I'm only expecting a difference of 5-10 ilevels between the two modes plus the ability to dye the gear.

You can't really make them that much harder if ilvl difference is that small. If Alex normal is going to be easier than the current coil, yet Hard Alex is going to be harder than the current coil, there's no way to spread that difficulty without increasing the ilvl requirement. They're going to have far higher HP checks for big moves (as that seems to be SE's only coil way to measure skill, lol) and DPS checks will increase.

I'd put the ilvl difference at around 20, like Gulk.

[Gulkeeva]

It would make sense for them to make smaller steps up in ilvl going forward otherwise it would get pretty absurd pretty fast.

The again idk how other MMOs with similar systems handle ilvl inflation, or if it's really even considered an issue.

it took wow about 13 years to have "issues" with stat inflation, where it went from hundreds/thousands, to millions/billions. They recently did a "stat squish" to fix the issue. Considering FFXIV is only nearing its 2 year mark, and we've yet to see any info on its first expansion to get an idea of how things are going to scale... I don't think we/they will need to worry about stats going out of control for a long time.

One thing to note, is each wow expansion, the gear changes were big enough to make you "want" to get the upgrades, not sit and go "hmm well this is +2 crit and +1 det ilvl 140 Lv58 gear and looks like crap vs my i130 gear I got 4 months ago... decisions decisions... should I get it and spend 5K to glamor over it...?

[The Stig]

It would make sense for them to make smaller steps up in ilvl going forward otherwise it would get pretty absurd pretty fast.

The again idk how other MMOs with similar systems handle ilvl inflation, or if it's really even considered an issue.

If you need some reading material:

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/3885585/
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/15682579/#stat_squish

All in all quite interesting, but it did affect player mentality for a while "omg I'm weak!"

Think only WoW had the issue anyway, when their last expansion final boss (Gary) had to be "split" into 4-5 phases (if I recall reading it correctly, might be something else) because they were unable to give him the desired amount of HP (which is in the stupid region of 608.4m (Phase 1) + 1757m (Phase 2-3) + 351.4m (Phase 1.5) + 527.1m (Phase 2.5) + 1054.2m (Hard Mode only final phase)) not including the adds.

[Taint]

Can someone find the quote for the ilvl jump? I'm pretty sure he said the difference between Hard and Normal would be greater so that they could fit content in-between them.

Normal i140
New CT i150
Crafted i150
New unnamed event i160
Hard i170

[layoneil]

RPGamer: Will the new level 60 armor be available via job quests or via grinding?

Yoshida: We still want to keep this secret for now. But please be assured it’s not going to be something like a Zodiac weapon. So you won’t have to grind that hard. But once Heavensward launches that will be your first goal to reach at the level cap. And with the introduction of Alexander and the normal and hard modes the item levels of those items between the two difficulty levels will be much wider than that of anything in A Realm Reborn. So there will be many different options to gain gear in between.

i read that as between A Realm Reborn and both Alexanders. not between the two Alexanders.

[Shenrien]

Maybe it's a good idea if SE were to release alexander raids in DF right from the get go.

I'd like if I didn't have to go to a specific zone to enter a dungeon that has an arbitrary location that makes no fucking sense on how you enter.

[Gulkeeva]

I'd like if I didn't have to go to a specific zone to enter a dungeon that has an arbitrary location that makes no fucking sense on how you enter.

They probably do it to help people find groups to join to go. I recall getting a few pugs back in the t6-9 days sitting near the entrance area because its faster to just shout something then sit and make up a PF.

Would love a "group summon" ability like wow though for the lazy that don't want to teleport/walk a distance >.>

[Kaslo]

Theirs people that haven't beat t5 yet, and are geared in i120-i130 with a zeta i135 >.> (well saw a few in T4 spam with 100 soldiery bonus and stand out when they have no clue what they are doing).

For some people its just... easier to buy a clear instead of dedicating time to find a static and then dedicate time for progression/clearing. Its really easy to make gil ingame (can do hundreds of mil per month with effort) or for the super lazy they just buy gil since it seems like SE does nothing to the rmt or the buyers of gil from what I can tell.

SE is probably looking to attempt what wow has been doing... faceroll mode and actual raid mode for a instance. One where you can sit in mechanics and not die, and the other where you will die. A few things I'm curious about the new raids... is if they've learned anything from 2.X about it.

1. Will the ilvl/gear requirement be so high for the actual hard mode raid that you can't just craft gear, stick vit/accuracy in and clear it in 1 week?

2. Can you switch between the 2 modes while in the raid like wow used to let you in case a hard mode is too hard, you can still progress without zoning out -> change mode -> clear shit again to get to boss.

3. If you can't do #2, if you clear easy mode boss 1, can you do hardmode boss 1 also, and get loot from it.

I'm sure WoD was an "experiment" of their future easy mode. Note a stacking debuff, its like training wheels. You won't die the first time, but if you can't continually dodge you will get 1 shot. I won't be surprised if they continue this trend of a stacking debuff that lasts a long time in alexander raid to "teach" you to dodge stuff.

(oh god, don't think I've typed a all of text in awhile)

Note: It's also generally difficult to find people for progression/static right now. I finally got around to clearing T9 a few weeks ago (just been busy with work and Destiny) and have only found one T10 group, and that group could not get to 2nd set of adds. Then the non-learning groups are unwilling to even attempt with the 100 Soldiery message, which discourages even trying to join one.

[Ramset]

They probably do it to help people find groups to join to go. I recall getting a few pugs back in the t6-9 days sitting near the entrance area because its faster to just shout something then sit and make up a PF.

Would love a "group summon" ability like wow though for the lazy that don't want to teleport/walk a distance >.>

First Coil, sitting outside Wineport definitely felt like it had more life to it. But everything was new and unknown then, and there weren't many statics yet. Looking forward to that feeling again with 3.0, I really hope there's less lockout system sin place so that people can play together with less restriction.