January Version Update Schedule Revealed! (12/15/2014)

[Byrthnoth]

The skill gap problem is not just a problem with MMOs. No games are fun when there is a large player skill disparity.

[Lyramion]

Well the recent trends with games just let them all have a super low skillcap so noone has to feel unskilled ^- ^

[NynJa]

Well the recent trends with games just let them all have a super low skillcap so noone has to feel unskilled ^- ^

SE can keep going by implementing difficulty scales that affect loot quantity.

[Malithar]

SE can keep going by implementing difficulty scales that affect loot quantity.

This largely seems to be a flop though. Even if you can do VD BCs, outside of doing it once just cause, what incentive do you have to keep doing it? +1 tale is a joke at this point, RME mats are all but worthless, and you don't even get 100% at 2 items, just a supposed increased chance, all for more risk. Incursion seemed to be a much better implementation of variable difficulty IMO, but it too suffers from a breaking point where it's no longer viable to do. When you can do a 130 boss within 10 minutes with no risk, why spend 30+ minutes doing a 140+ run that could wipe with a bad timed resist or two?

[Byrthnoth]

The major problem is one dominant correlation:
* The less a player plays, the worse they are.

This is generally true. Someone who logs in 5 hours a week is generally going to have RoE gear, not have completed the most recent missions, not have gotten all their Skirmish armor upgraded and augmented well, etc. Even if their skill level is the same as someone who plays 24/7, they aren't going to have the gear to use it with. Also, by and large, their skill level won't be the same because they have much less practice/experience with the game. They also have a less competent social network in game, generally.

So now when you add that to another correlation:
* Harder content gives more rewards.
Then you end up with players that play a lot and thus can handle more difficult content and get rewards faster per hour. So the weaker players are angry that they can't do hard content and the stronger players are angry that they don't have anything to do because they cleared all the fights on VD / farmed them on D an capped out.


Instead of continuing to increase drop rate on higher difficulty mission fights, they should add 2005-style HQ versions of each drop. Minorly superior to the NQ version, but still there. Put them at a 2% drop rate on D and a 10% drop rate on VD.
Example: Floestone +1 could have 4 STR, 5 INT, and 11 Attack instead of 3 STR, 5 INT, and 10 Attack.

Now hardcores have something they can do and casuals have more easily attained nearly-equivalent alternatives. I mean, if we're talking about +1 STR to each slot for the HQ then it would be a melee with 216 STR vs. 200. Hardly a big deal.

[arus2001]

Doesn't really solve the problem of Hardcores (or those simply finished with a piece of content) not helping those below them, though. And what's more likely the case, the VD groups that do arise will demand you have full D gear, maybe even a few VD pieces just to be worthy. It's one thing for SE to have a reasonable expectation of gear, like being in RoE stuff, but collective anonymity of the players just makes them assholes, which results in the whole, "Have to have beaten the content to participate in it." epidemic that tends to plague MMOs where reasonable progression alternatives aren't present.

So, while I think most of us are in agreement that their Su1 thing is dumb, it's the possible Su2 and beyond that's really worrisome. And sure, it's easy for someone to just say someone struggling should play more efficiently, but that's all subject to server, when they play, their favored job(s), and a fair bit of luck.

[Damane]

Doesn't really solve the problem of Hardcores (or those simply finished with a piece of content) not helping those below them, though. And what's more likely the case, the VD groups that do arise will demand you have full D gear, maybe even a few VD pieces just to be worthy. It's one thing for SE to have a reasonable expectation of gear, like being in RoE stuff, but collective anonymity of the players just makes them assholes, which results in the whole, "Have to have beaten the content to participate in it." epidemic that tends to plague MMOs where reasonable progression alternatives aren't present.

So, while I think most of us are in agreement that their Su1 thing is dumb, it's the possible Su2 and beyond that's really worrisome. And sure, it's easy for someone to just say someone struggling should play more efficiently, but that's all subject to server, when they play, their favored job(s), and a fair bit of luck.

tbh SE shoudl just leave REM out of the equation, and they say they do, but it seems like they dont account for really high end gear with highend setups, which makes it even more easy for highend people to flock through stuff. There was allways casual content and highend content. But lately everything seems to be more casual then highend, the last really really highend designed content was delve 1.0 on its initial release period.
Then again we had occasions where we took 1-2 Pugs into delve 2.0 runs and they said we (the group) make everything look so easy, while they couldnt do this stuff with their shell. I dont know...
The solution would be to implement casual and highend content at the same time, but given their ressources I doubt that will happen. Considering the still broken core mechanics i really doubt anything really challenging will come towards our way.

[geno3302]

I don't believe they intended for us to be able to clear Delve 1 when it was released. I'm fairly sure it came as a shock to them and they were expecting us to farm lesser stuff for a couple updates.

[Hitou]

tbh SE shoudl just leave REM out of the equation, and they say they do, but it seems like they dont account for really high end gear with highend setups, which makes it even more easy for highend people to flock through stuff. There was allways casual content and highend content. But lately everything seems to be more casual then highend, the last really really highend designed content was delve 1.0 on its initial release period.
Then again we had occasions where we took 1-2 Pugs into delve 2.0 runs and they said we (the group) make everything look so easy, while they couldnt do this stuff with their shell. I dont know...
The solution would be to implement casual and highend content at the same time, but given their ressources I doubt that will happen. Considering the still broken core mechanics i really doubt anything really challenging will come towards our way.

I wouldn't really call Incursion "casual." I mean, I guess if you throw enough noobs at it you can beat 1 NM on the lowest setting. With how GEO is now there's never going to be content that is as "difficult" as delve on initial release unless they make it 100 levels above us. Because delve was 20 lvls higher than us with 0 skill on weapons so acc was an issue and the best damage weapons we had were 113 or 99 RME with 110 gear that probably wasn't even rank 15 at the time. Most people just used relic gun anyway till the skill update and people started getting access to 119 weapons.

They can't really afford to pander to the "hardcores" if it means alienating the majority of their player base. Don't get me wrong, I get that people are bored and want a challenge. I'm fairly bored too, occupying myself with whatever plethora of events they add every month and hoping for quests or interesting content each update.

[Ophannus]

SE didn't anticipate buff stacking out the ass and brd swapping dds to have 12+ songs, 6 rolls and all that jazz. Once tojil was beaten once or twice per server by the hardcore people who had top tier legion gear and mythic/relics, and they all got the KI and oatixurs, those Ls started bringing friends to get clear 1-2 at a time. Once you have 20-30 people on a server with oatixurs, the win rate for delve 1 skyrocketed almost overnight and winning became exponentially more common.

Now that SE is "aware" of brd swapping(they claimed they were surprised by the tactic, even though it's been used for like 7-8 years), they'll start balancing content with the assumption that dds are going to be getting a crapload of buffs.

[NynJa]

Arent geo buffs from dunna already the equivalent of like 2 brds?

[Sechs]

I don't believe they intended for us to be able to clear Delve 1 when it was released. I'm fairly sure it came as a shock to them and they were expecting us to farm lesser stuff for a couple updates.

Yet what did they learn from that experience when they released delve2? /rolleyes
Another company would have fixed the insane rates of 5nm+mb runs a few days after the first groups started clearing, but no, they let the situation stale and become too big of a problem, at the point where it was pointless to attempt to solve it, and decided to do nothing with delve 2

The major problem is one dominant correlation:
* The less a player plays, the worse they are.

[cut]

I agree with what you said in general. The solution you proposed wouldn't solve the issue though (yet I concur it would be something)
The real problem isn't in that, the one you described is a side and minor problem compared to what real is the big one.
And imho that lies in a core element of the game.
FFXI leaves players too much freedom, it's an unstructured game that allows players too many setups.
When you can overstack buffs and can have a group with multiple Idris Geos and Daurdabla BRDs stacking buffs on a single powerful DD who multistep SCs for insane damage, and then compare that to another more "classic" setup, the difference is insane.
It's like tacking the same content with 3 people vs 30 people. We're in that scale of difference.
When you have situations like this it's impossible to balance content so that it's not impossible for an "average" group but still challenging for other more hardcore groups.

Think about all the silly things you can do in FFXI when you exploit game mechanics, think about buff overstacking, about pt swapping, etc etc.
The only similar situation I can find in another famous game is WoW at the time of TBC where the roles incapsulation of classes was much less strict. You had tanks, dps, healers but also a plethora of hybrid jobs that you could stack to gain several buffs.
Granted that it never was as dire as FFXI, concept-wise it's the same thing.
And how did they solve it? Transforming the game into something completely different were there's a strict implementation of the 3 basic roles of the trinity system (Heal, Damage, Tank) and a widespread homogeneization.

Such a HUGE change (which is beyond the possibilities of SE imho) is the only thing that could seriously "fix" the problem, but at that point the game would be COMPLETELY different. Are we really sure we would still enjoy it?

Personally I doubt it. One of the reasons why players like us still love FFXI so much is exactely because of this amount of freedom left to us, the players.
You can't have your cake and eat it too, as a proverb says, I don't think there's a definite solution to the problem.
(small tweaks to limit the thing instead could be possible, like the one you suggested and many more, but clearly they are unable to see things that way)

[Sechs]

Arent geo buffs from dunna already the equivalent of like 2 brds?

2 songs bard? Absolutely.
4 songs bard? No.
3 songs bard? Uh maybe not, but pretty close. It kinda depends. On some things BRD is still better (and offers much more flexibility), but GEO is seriously broken in some specific things.
But then again we can't use GEO as the scapegoat, GEO isn't the source of the problem, it rather is (one of) the results of the problem.

tbh SE shoudl just leave REM out of the equation

And didn't they try to do it at the beginning of SoA?
Yes they did. And what happened between players? We all know the answer :D
But the beginning of SoA was a really good example of reducing the huge range between "average" players and "hardcore" players.
With all that simple, multipurpose, powerful gear available for players at the beginning of SoA, little sidegrades, few powerful items (which were often "old" and not updated to ilevel) the gap between the two extremes we're talking about was still there, but seriously smaller.

[Byrthnoth]

You're overestimating the utility of songs.

As far as melee buffs go with Dunna:
Geo-Haste >= March/March (2 songs)
Geo-Frailty >> Min/Min (2 songs)
Geo-Torpor ~= Mad/Mad (2 songs)

Geo can also Entrust a third Indi spell sometimes, which is essentially all the MP refresh any decent white mage will ever need. Also, frequently there is the option to use Blaze of Glory, Ecliptic Attrition, or Bolster, which increases how much better the Geomancy is than its Bard equivalents.

Bard gets better debuffs and Scherzo. GEO gets a shitton of interesting boosts and nerfs that bard has no match for.


I made Idris recently and I'm not sure when/if I'll have a reason to use my RME Bard again.

[Sechs]

If there's no dispel stuff and players aren't stupid you can keep 5 songs up with BRD and can do more things at the same time, on more targets etc.
That is... flexibility I guess?
In those terms BRD is still superior. If we're talking about pure potency GEO is absolutely superior with just a Dunna, same if we're talking about variety of buffs.

Then there's different pros and cons of "staticity". GEO buffs cannot be dispelled, but you need to be in range, to place your luopan, your party needs to play in light of this. With a BRD once you've cast your buffs you're set for almost 10 mins, if there's no dispel going on.
Debuff-wise I'm not sure what you meant when you said BRD is better, wut? BRD has requiem (lolrequiem), elegy (who cares for Elegy these days?), Nocturne (/rolleyes) and Threnodies (cool in concept, but they hardly matter).
You could factor Lullabies and Finale too I suppose, but they're hardly game breaking.
GEO debuffs are much better, offer more variety and all of that.


What makes it even more ridiculous is that we're talking about a Dunna GEO (5 mins item) vs THREE rare items BRD (Relic, Mythic, Empyrean). Yes, it's preposterous, I've been saying it for quite some time.
BRD's higher flexibility is out of question, but reason why BRD still gets more favoured than GEO many times imho depends on players mindset and habits. (and maybe there are more bards around than geos?)

[Trumpy]

I spose if people wanted more challenge that are hanging at ilvl 119, they could just not use that 119 stuff. maybe use all sparks stuff since thats what SE usually says they make it beatable by right? Where as people without the gear dont have the choice. Not sayin we all should do this but the idea is there.

[Mefuki]

Right, Trumpy. It's not like it's a novel concept. People use level conditions and other restrictions all the time on the games they like. It's just something you have to do sometimes in very free form games when you find one of your favorite games has gotten too easy for you. It's why you can adjust the difficulty on the fly in Fallout or Bravely Default, when I uncovered a way to mostly coast through the second half of the game with a combination of Time Mage and Valkyrie. If I used the strategy, the fights would be way easier but then I couldn't very well complain that the game is "too easy".

That's not even getting into the 3 heart, no shield challenges Zelda, Nuzlocke in Pokemon or the NSGNSNCNONENNENBB challenge in FFX and so forth.

[Damane]

If there's no dispel stuff and players aren't stupid you can keep 5 songs up with BRD and can do more things at the same time, on more targets etc.
That is... flexibility I guess?
In those terms BRD is still superior. If we're talking about pure potency GEO is absolutely superior with just a Dunna, same if we're talking about variety of buffs.

Then there's different pros and cons of "staticity". GEO buffs cannot be dispelled, but you need to be in range, to place your luopan, your party needs to play in light of this. With a BRD once you've cast your buffs you're set for almost 10 mins, if there's no dispel going on.
Debuff-wise I'm not sure what you meant when you said BRD is better, wut? BRD has requiem (lolrequiem), elegy (who cares for Elegy these days?), Nocturne (/rolleyes) and Threnodies (cool in concept, but they hardly matter).
You could factor Lullabies and Finale too I suppose, but they're hardly game breaking.
GEO debuffs are much better, offer more variety and all of that.


What makes it even more ridiculous is that we're talking about a Dunna GEO (5 mins item) vs THREE rare items BRD (Relic, Mythic, Empyrean). Yes, it's preposterous, I've been saying it for quite some time.
BRD's higher flexibility is out of question, but reason why BRD still gets more favoured than GEO many times imho depends on players mindset and habits. (and maybe there are more bards around than geos?)

in a fight where flexibility and standing in range isnt much an issue an Idris-Geo equals 6-8 REM songs BRD (depending on what buffs and debuffs are put up). If we take Geos 2 hour into equation... yeah unless you need scherzo. However BRD + GEO are the best combo to go together anyway, because you can cover everything with those 2, they have the perfect synergy together, where one lacks in strenght the other shines and vice versa.

[Ophannus]

One problem with BRD is that our Minuets/Minnes/Madrigals add a static value, and while decent when all stacked, individually they're quite weak. Minuet 5 with max potency is what like 80ish with merits/job points? Chaos Roll/Fury increase as a % whereas BRD songs are static and only if a DD is getting 3-4 Minuets does it match a 11 Chaos/Hunter Roll or Geo's stuff. BRD could use an "Enhances Singing +5" ring or something which instead of "All Songs+X" would add a a good tier chunk of potency to all songs similar to Dunna or COR rings. Either that or maybe we'll see on Empyrean reforged, Minuet +2/March+2/Madrigal+2/Ballad+2/Scherzo+2 on the various pieces. The acc from madrigals or atk from can't compete with what COR or GEO provide, which is fine I guess, gives those jobs more unique traits. I'd also like to see BRD get some more enfeebling songs, like a M.eva down song or Tier II threnodies that also act like Gambit to increase damage towards that element(working with skillchains too).


As an aside, they need to buff DoTs, it's high time. Requiem and Poison need to be boosted massively. It wouldn't have been a big deal if RDM got Poison 3-5 years ago when they raised the lv cap, but now they should just release Poison III and then change how Poison works, making the DoT increase with Enfeebling Skill -- 25-30/tick would be appropriate. As for Requiem, maybe making Requiem act like a Helix where it deals a small amount of non-elemental damage based on Skill(CHR acting like INT) and it would deal damage in Tocks and stack with Helix(but to be fair it would be very small damage, like 80-120). Would make Requiem worth casting.

[Spira]

isn't there two ends of the spectrum tho?
there are people who will always look for a challenge, and then there are those who only want to do things they can faceroll. it doesn't just happen when youre at the top of your game, but becomes an issue when theres no challenge left in the game for the former group of people. I'd say the latter group are easily satisfied in XI because theres a ton of 75 endgame content that was ONCE a challenge that they can go back and overpower.. and then theres Abyssea.

maybe they need to bring back a pre-nerf AV or PW kind of NM lol