February 2016 Version Update - Discussion & Findings

[dasva]

I highly doubt PUPs were doing VD battlefields during that time with any success, even if every one of them had a Kenkonken

And yet before I joined them my ls did and nobody had KKK and I don't think anyone even meleed. Seriously the hardest part about them was surviving. Dmg wise your entire pt could do only like 10k a minute (except on EV of course) and you could still barely squeak out a win

[Atomic Skull]

I wouldn't be so sure. I mean, those who have the good groups already are likely going to stick to them for the sake of optimal grinding. Maybe occasionally you'll get some willing to sell BC drops, but it's also likely that average returning player won't have the gil to pay those kinds of prices. Otherwise, shit'll just rot. Meanwhile, just creating the base Oboro weapons (arguably meant to be a casual friendly entry high ilvl weapon option) got a hell of a lot more expensive because previously slow-moving back stock is now getting munged up by those wanting to up their RMEs. But even as far as upgrading AF/Relic/Emp goes, they're not really endgame viable in the general sense. Emp also has the Vagary clear cockblock. So, unless someone is coming back to a group of friends, they're gonna be in trouble once they hit Escha-tier content. This also doesn't really account for people being Job Point snobs, particularly for jobs where there are some game changers in the mix.

If the MMO scene was full of people willing to share everything without second thought, I guess I'd be more onboard with the notion. But my cynicism, in part inspired by XI itself, has me feeling things aren't going to change all that much for those who've been out of the loop. Does that make this a bad patch? Hard to say. I'm simply not sold on it being "enough" to get those who have their own circles branching out to include the less fortunate.

Pretty much this, nobody shouts for Escha content (or really any content anymore), everyone does it either with a small event/social shell or with a small clique of friends and LS's no longer recruit except from people that LS members know personally so returning players are basically locked out of everything and screwed. The game has become even more cliquish and insular than it was back in the days of big HNM shells. That system was razed to the ground during the Abyssea and Seekers era (I'm sure SE thought they were doing good by this but it turned out to not be the case) and what grew up from the ashes is even harder to break into for an unknown player. Previously getting into an endgame shell was sort of like getting into a motorcycle gang but these days it's more like gaining entry into an underground secret society.

[Draylo]

Can blame SE for that in making everything low man only, it actually hurts groups to bring more people and include others into their shells. The scaling is terrible and unfair to anything but lowman groups, so why bring new people? That said, there are still social LS out there and you can basically solo almost everything these days.

[dasva]

Kind of sucks for the other players too... like you want to help friends/lsmates but you know bringing along someone that at the time is essentially deadweight could literally make or break you (not kidding there have been fights where I time out every time at 10% with an extra person but kill with minutes to spare without them). And the bridge gear content has been done to death by everyone not returning

[Viar]

Pretty much this, nobody shouts for Escha content (or really any content anymore), everyone does it either with a small event/social shell or with a small clique of friends and LS's no longer recruit except from people that LS members know personally so returning players are basically locked out of everything and screwed. The game has become even more cliquish and insular than it was back in the days of big HNM shells. That system was razed to the ground during the Abyssea and Seekers era (I'm sure SE thought they were doing good by this but it turned out to not be the case) and what grew up from the ashes is even harder to break into for an unknown player. Previously getting into an endgame shell was sort of like getting into a motorcycle gang but these days it's more like gaining entry into an underground secret society.

If you find it "hard" to make progress because you're not in "small group" or something like that, then there may be some improvement to be made when it comes to your connection making skill.

When I just came back from a break a few months ago, I had no LS/friend nor in any small group, wearing mostly sparks/early delve gears. Literally all event LS rejected me at that time, because nobody wants to go back to old content for a returning player.

5 days later I cleared all Vagary zones, 1 month later I ended up in a couple of elite LS/groups, 2 months later I have all escha/reisenjima clears except Reisen T4, and I only play about 10~15hr a week(which isn't a lot compare with most endgame players), so it's not like I play 24/7 to catch up. I didn't pay for win, and I would say I make progress faster than majority of casual players, and the tip is to make connections more actively and "show off" appropriately.

Basically I sent random tells to social LSs for a pearl, since social LSs are often more willing to offer a pearl. From there I can ask questions about how to do current content, gear up jobs, get help for easy stuff and make some progress on my character.

Some social LS has more casual players, and some social LS has 1~2 veteran players that's more knowledgeable and better geared. I just keep joining new social LSs until I find those "vet" players. When you finally know those players, I seize every opportunity to pt with them, which opens up more opportunity to pt with more "vet" players, and builds more connections.

Also, join every shout pt that you see, or make shout groups often, ask for a pearl if there's any good player in pt. Try to demonstrate your knowledge/skill w/e when you pt with those good players so they'll like you, and be nice to everyone. Keep expanding your connections this way, eventually the door to event LS will open for you.

After all, all the event LS desperately needs talented players, if they know you're a talented player, they will open the door for you. It's actually not your current gear that makes a player good, since gears are easy to get anyways. It's the communication/listening skill, knowledge, ambition to improve, decision making and problem solving skill, and so on.

It's the same process as how you get a job in real life I'd say. You don't get the best job in the world right off the bat, you start from smaller companies and use it as stepping stones to get into bigger companies.

[Oyama]

Level an in-demand support job like GEO and gear it as best you can with starter gear and relevant JSE. That's my advice to new or returning players. Groups want their support line well-geared and are more likely to invest in doing content for you/with you. That's basically how you enter the current game/endgame. As long as you're not completely incompetent, you can get by on a forgiving support job, get good at it and start gearing it up to at least a high-middle level, then use that job to gear up whatever job you want to play to standards an endgame group will entertain. You have to have multiple roles you can play at any given fight in the current game, and the best and easiest ones to fill for a new or returning player are the support roles. Just make sure you do them right.

[Lyramion]

Making your own shouts for your Server is basically like good Perfume. People will instantly like you and wanna be your friend. (Unless your shouts fail then well, though luck)

[Sechs]

nobody shouts for Escha content (or really any content anymore),

Sorry to say but I think this is server-dependant.
Shouts happen pretty regularly on Asura.

[dasva]

Making your own shouts for your Server is basically like good Perfume. People will instantly like you and wanna be your friend. (Unless your shouts fail then well, though luck)

Ha even when your shouts are notorious for being complete fails people will still jump on board a bit

[Protey]

I'm confused that you have the stupid opinion that this should even be afterglow level effort when there is no reason they should have attempted to make it that difficult to upgrade in the first place. I guess 30,000 alex is nothing too and that should be boosted to 300,000 by your logic.

emo much? You actually consider the upgrade difficult? wow. People are farming the 10k beitetsu/boulder/pluton in about 24 hours playtime. In comparison, farming 30k alex takes about 10x the amount of time (about 240 hours playtime) to farm (not buy). And Level II afterglows? It depends on which weapon type, but for mythics, at my current average rate of farming scoria (yes, I am taking the pics and killing all the NMs) it is going to take me about 300 hours of playtime. And yes, I am still going the Level II afterglow route. You probably won't be able to understand this, like so many other people, but MMOs are not about the endpoint of obtaining something, they are about the journey of obtaining something. Otherwise you might as well just buy gil and get all your stuff instantly. But a problem arises when you do that. Then you have nothing left to obtain and the game is boring at that point. Learn to enjoy the journey.

[Protey]

There's nothing broken about Immanence, all it does is create a shitty one-step skillchain which decreases potential magic burst damage compared to making multi-step skillchains, and it's restricted by stratagem charges amongst other things. Making skillchains is so easy in any number of ways, being able to make low level ones magically is hardly gamebreaking. Immanence has always been useful it just finally saw the light of day due to the insane magic burst update, and you can argue that is broken but not immanence. If anything they went way overboard on magic burst damage and could tone that down

Being able to self MB massive DoT is broken. What SE needs to do is tone the MB damage down as you said. Though the idea that you can SC using magic isn't right either. By the very name skillchain, it should only be from weaponskills. It has caused a very niche way of defeating NMs. Though I imagine if it wasn't there we'd resort to just using RNGs to make WSs. That's the whole problem with having ranged attacks (magic or otherwise), it makes for cheap killing tactics so we don't have to figure out the mechanics behind an NM. Probably the only way SE could fix it is to nerf all damage from a distance. The trick would be balancing between melees and damage from a distance in such a way that groups would feel compelled to actually figure out the mechanics of an NM.

[Karbuncle]

emo much? You actually consider the upgrade difficult? wow. People are farming the 10k beitetsu/boulder/pluton in about 24 hours playtime. In comparison, farming 30k alex takes about 10x the amount of time (about 240 hours playtime) to farm (not buy). And Level II afterglows? It depends on which weapon type, but for mythics, at my current average rate of farming scoria (yes, I am taking the pics and killing all the NMs) it is going to take me about 300 hours of playtime. And yes, I am still going the Level II afterglow route. You probably won't be able to understand this, like so many other people, but MMOs are not about the endpoint of obtaining something, they are about the journey of obtaining something. Otherwise you might as well just buy gil and get all your stuff instantly. But a problem arises when you do that. Then you have nothing left to obtain and the game is boring at that point. Learn to enjoy the journey.

For Mythic, yeah, its probably more grindy and long than 10,000 of Boulders/Beits. But at the very least not for relics. If anything the Relic phase is easier to Afterglow before upgrading, but probably not by very much, which is what I'm sure they intended.

Empyreans IDK, they dont require you to build a pop but them drop rates...

[Damane]

emo much? You actually consider the upgrade difficult? wow. People are farming the 10k beitetsu/boulder/pluton in about 24 hours playtime. In comparison, farming 30k alex takes about 10x the amount of time (about 240 hours playtime) to farm (not buy). And Level II afterglows? It depends on which weapon type, but for mythics, at my current average rate of farming scoria (yes, I am taking the pics and killing all the NMs) it is going to take me about 300 hours of playtime. And yes, I am still going the Level II afterglow route. You probably won't be able to understand this, like so many other people, but MMOs are not about the endpoint of obtaining something, they are about the journey of obtaining something. Otherwise you might as well just buy gil and get all your stuff instantly. But a problem arises when you do that. Then you have nothing left to obtain and the game is boring at that point. Learn to enjoy the journey.

I havent asked for an afterglow on my epeolatry and my idris. neither will i get one, yet SE is asking me to do the same 10k shit like the other REM... The upgrade is just asstastic and atm fast doable due to the campaign, but once the campaign drops the input on stones will be halfed or 1/3 then what it currently is. you feel shafted? what do you think i feel like with my ergons getting squad shit from this ¬.¬?

[dasva]

I'm not even bothering to do my Epeolatry. It's not like it becomes that much better of a gswd for my RUN for me to want to throw what is 50 mils worth at it? I might have considered it for the glow but doing glow trial for no glow is just rediculous

[Byrthnoth]

No one is going to farm these upgrade items for less than 10k each and incidental drops will never match demand. We're going to end up with a situation where Boulders are cheap (because Empyreans are hard to 99) and Pluton/Beitetsu are like 10k or so.

[Damane]

No one is going to farm these upgrade items for less than 10k each and incidental drops will never match demand. We're going to end up with a situation where Boulders are cheap (because Empyreans are hard to 99) and Pluton/Beitetsu are like 10k or so.

I just think that haveing only Hard mode BC and Delve as a source for those stones is very fucking detrimental. I really hope they have somethign in store to add the stones to alot of events like they did back then when they added them to HM BCs otherwise it will get very fast very boring once the campaign ends...

atm everyone is doing HM battles and every other event in the game was put in the backburner.

[Kyte]

I'm not even bothering to do my Epeolatry. It's not like it becomes that much better of a gswd for my RUN for me to want to throw what is 50 mils worth at it? I might have considered it for the glow but doing glow trial for no glow is just rediculous

Depends on how much you use RUN on things where it's possible to do relevant damage (or be part of a SC). In that respect, the upgrade is more gil-efficient than many of the HQs people go for. From a tanking perspective, you do also get more parrying skill and admittedly underwhelming additional +enmity (is parrying floored on the high tier NMs?).

[arus2001]

Sorry to say but I think this is server-dependant.
Shouts happen pretty regularly on Asura.

It is. Asura also happens to be the most commonly recommended server for new/returners because the English community seems most active there, in part due to reddit, I guess.

I mean, it's really easy to tell someone to get better at networking, shout to make their own groups, or whatever, but when you do try and get crickets, it's not hard for morale to plummet. Sometimes it's the fault of the hour, others it's available jobs in question, and a lot of it is just people not wanting to do old shit that doesn't benefit them (greatly). Abyssea isn't to blame for this no matter how much some want to try and assert it so. People are gonna be self-serving no matter the required party size.

Overall, it's why I tend to rail on SE for not upping their game on matchmaking here. The LS concierge simply isn't enough. Search comments don't cut it. Not being able to LFG with Trusts out hurts. Still charging for server transfers is fucking dumb because who wants to waste money going somewhere with no guarantee for success. And overall, just having alternative progression sources helps. XI isn't as bad as other MMOs in this respect, but I don't really envy someone who wants to try and get good Skirmish gear augments nowadays if that's their personal limit. That just means a lot of Dynamis farming since alternative cash flows blow chunks.

[wipers]

LOL. 10k is nothing. I can't believe anyone would complain that is too much. If anything it should have been in the area of 50k to make it closer to the effort of an afterglow (even then it still isn't on par, just closer).

Why stop at 50k ? They should have made it 500,000,000 plutons etc. Cause you know what is fun doing the same battle over and over again. That is really really fun !

[dasva]

Depends on how much you use RUN on things where it's possible to do relevant damage (or be part of a SC). In that respect, the upgrade is more gil-efficient than many of the HQs people go for. From a tanking perspective, you do also get more parrying skill and admittedly underwhelming additional +enmity (is parrying floored on the high tier NMs?).

Yes I know it will help but like I said it's not that much. I'd rather throw money at more reisin stones or finish my Gastraphetes. And remember those little extra stats are costing everyone else 1 stone with the other potential 9999 going to glowing. So it just chaffs me enough that I'm gunna put it at the bottom of my list hoping SE pulls it's head out of it's ass before then