HorizonXI – Era+ 75 Cap FFXI Server Launching December 17th, 2022

[Spicyryan]

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[Karbuncle]

Poorly thought out and implemented job and balance changes is exactly why I stopped playing. This doesn't sound fun at all. Yes, there are plenty of other things to keep you busy in-between, and those are fun and enjoyable, but eventually you reach the place where these unreasoned changes become a wall to your gameplay and enjoyment. HNMs turning into a multi zone event does not sound appealing or well thought out, you concede ninja as a job and sub just suck, any so many ideas where the stated reasoning is "we want to relieve the reliance on certain meta and subjobs cause they're broken" get implemented in a way that just exasperates the problem; red mage and ninja come to mind.

It's not balance changes, it's "we dislike certain meta and are changing it" (for the worse)

Yah, my complaint regarding their meta changes also fell toward, and this is the nicest I can word it since I've already voiced this complaint, "Some of these changes had unintended consequences I feel need attention".

BCNMs for instance, with a permanent 50% Slow on Utsu:Ichi, are much more difficult(While not impossible) to do at low levels for many jobs that aren't BST. Its not so bad that its undoable but you definitely feel the sting in that content while leads to further BST dominance in that field which you know, isn't the worst thing, but it doesn't help the BST hate any. You also have instances where jobs like THF who's, lets be real, only value outside of Treasure Hunter is being able to low man certain NMs in the world other jobs would have extreme difficulty doing. The level 80+ NMs like Ungur, Charybdis, etc. Slapping a permanent 50% Slow on Utsu Ichi while not making these tasks impossible, is a task I fear to try. Cause even back in-Era(ToAU era) when I had the best gear I could for EVA and Haste(Homam Legs/Feet among others) those NMs were still nail-bitingly difficult and some took multiple attempts even with a RDM duo partner... and well now both of those things are nerfed lol.

I don't want to ride them too hard, cause I know Kip dips in here every so often and while I'm negative its because I feel as passionately about THF as clearly some people on the dev team feel about BST, WAR, SMN, and PLD. Its not malicious negligence mind you, it just feels like the sum total of knowledge of THF that is being expressed here is "Oh, right, thats the thing we bring for TH right?".

Also congrats on the baby and goodluck... it can be a little rough sometimes

[Druin]

I hope Kip dips in here because I see a serious fucking problem with Enlight that NO ONE seems to be talking about. From my understanding, they removed TH off Thief's Knife because of how vital it is to THF's kit and replaced it with an item that is easier to obtain and just requires a bit of work. Then they go and add Enlight to PLD and buff it to high hell effectively making it REQUIRED for PLD's kit. The problem is... the drop from the BCNM40 (The Worm's Turn) it comes from is absolute dogshit (lower than PCA it seems) and the rest of the BC doesn't drop ANYTHING of value. The ball dropped here is fucking massive and infuriating. So answer me this Balance Manager (if ur here), the fuck was your team thinking with this one? And I swear to god if I get some "Play and find out" bullshit....

Rant over

Still having fun and enjoying myself... for the most part.

[Julian]

Considering they forked LSB to make everything their own private vanity project, no. They arguably give or try to give little to nothing back to LSB or anyone. Meanwhile, they still want and get support from LSB. While servers contributing to a collective and helping to blaze a trail Horizon benefits from are footing their own bills.
I wasn't calling for them to divulge their funding either, but discussing the subject.
Also, if they start "raking it in" where does that money go?

So Nasomi 2.0?

I mean, obviously the custom shit they make shouldn't go back into the main branch, but people who take and don't contribute back suck.

[Spicyryan]

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[threevo]

I hope Kip dips in here because I see a serious fucking problem with Enlight that NO ONE seems to be talking about. From my understanding, they removed TH off Thief's Knife because of how vital it is to THF's kit and replaced it with an item that is easier to obtain and just requires a bit of work. Then they go and add Enlight to PLD and buff it to high hell effectively making it REQUIRED for PLD's kit. The problem is... the drop from the BCNM40 (The Worm's Turn) it comes from is absolute dogshit (lower than PCA it seems) and the rest of the BC doesn't drop ANYTHING of value. The ball dropped here is fucking massive and infuriating. So answer me this Balance Manager (if ur here), the fuck was your team thinking with this one? And I swear to god if I get some "Play and find out" bullshit....

Rant over

Still having fun and enjoying myself... for the most part.

Its a 500k expense. PLD isnt really an expensive job. Just do AA and sell ore for it if you dont want to waste the seals.

[Syrio]

So my experience has been mostly positive after playing since release. My goal wasnt to hardcore it and no life but ive spent a bit of time playing jobs I never got to in retail. I have a bunch of jobs 30+ 3 jobs 60+ but nothing at cap yet. No sky working my way through CoP just doing stuff here and there. The job balances are a WIP, I dont like how shit getting ninja to 37 was. It was nice once u get Ni tho so whatever. I get the idea behind it, but its still the meta for subjobs due to damage mitigation. Tanks cant hold hate off DPS 55+ without a THF and its even sketchy with one.

The era experience is in full effect as there are a ton of toxic assholes roaming around. Learning who to avoid is a necessity. The HNM change to spawns had unintended consequences I think. You cannot play in that game unless your LS has 100+ members and you bring 12 PLD/NIN and 12 RDM/NIN to every camp (ironic with the goal to have less reliance on NIN sub right?). The only good thing is that the windows are only 1 hour long instead of 3. I get that may be an exaggeration, but they can spawn in one of like 20? different locations between 4 zones so good luck finding it unless you have a ton of people scattered everywhere who can also hold it long enough while your alliance gathers. I think at this point theres only 2 LSs who participate in ground kings. I would def like to see this revamped a bit, but honestly dont have any suggestions. Maybe make the enrage timer 15 mins? That would force people not to claim and hold instantly on pop. It would be a race to see who could get their group gathered faster or something i dont know. The current system is just who can bring the biggest number of people to camps. I absolutely do not want there to be a force pop system either so who knows this is probably the toughest balance decision they need to make.

I think they are doing a good enough job banning people who are clearly RMT or botting, but you will never eliminate it completely in a game like this. The population is the biggest bonus there is stuff to do all the time. a 10 gap for level sync really helps you avoid shit tiers where you are between camps. How long it lasts who knows but its been good. I never leveled in this game with level sync on retail and its pretty nice you can customize a party based around a certain level sync to optimize camps longer or skip certain tough level ranges.

Some people in this thread and the HXI discord just cant be pleased, but i think a vast majority of the userbase is content with a almost everything. It will never be perfect. Yea you want you job to be the best and have no changes but we will see friday some major changes with patch 1.1.

If this is what they are doing with HNMs then its genius imo. And that's what's frustrating. They have so much amazing mixed in with so much crap. Whomever is responsible for shoveling in the crap additions should be weeded out of their collective.

[Syrio]

So Nasomi 2.0?

I mean, obviously the custom shit they make shouldn't go back into the main branch, but people who take and don't contribute back suck.

I actually think someone should make a list of their consensus custom "good" modifications and fork it into a custom main branch. There is alot of really good stuff on that server and at some point, a person or group with a less biased vision may come along and create the experience they tried to sell everyone on.

[Druin]

Its a 500k expense. PLD isnt really an expensive job. Just do AA and sell ore for it if you dont want to waste the seals.

Its a 700k - 1mil (1 mil currently) expense at level 40... I get job expense, but PLD already needs to keep up with their gear for the DEF. It's a dumb move and I stand by that without question. Refresh isn't treated the same way.

[Syrio]

Its a 700k - 1mil (1 mil currently) expense at level 40... I get job expense, but PLD already needs to keep up with their gear for the DEF. It's a dumb move and I stand by that without question. Refresh isn't treated the same way.

Enlight shouldn't even exist in that Era. Same as Ready on BST. Who are these impossible-to-defeat mobs at 75 cap where all of these extra damage-dealing utilities are necessary? The game has been beaten a million different ways since 2003.. but their solution is to add even MORE to dealing damage?

[Spicyryan]

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[Syrio]

No because tons of their contributions to that "good stuff" uses either made up info, inaccurate info, or is poorly coded. This is why their PRs are ignored or rejected. Their willing contributions to LSB are so limited they might as well not exist. Their house keeping is poor as well from the sounds of it too.

Yeah I wasnt referring to anything related to damage. Mainly various QOL changes.

[Spicyryan]

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[Syrio]

I figured the "fork the main branch" bit was about taking desirable things from Horizon and forking it.

I mainly meant areas such as:
Seamless custom Launcher
Moving OutPost NPCs
Nanaa's Charm quest(TH necklace)
Choco Digging skill-up messages
Newly created mobs & camps (I dont necessarily agree with all placements or mob abilities, but the idea itself is great)
Twinkling treats needing to be downed to unlock outposts
1 account (single box) and 3 characters per IP address
I like their level sync with penalty rules. I know many do not
71 hour dyna lockout
Starting rings being linked to mission completion so you can easily attain any
EQ scaling OFF
Custom hairstyles/colors



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Whats broken:
Crafting HQ and skillup rates are way too high
Fishing is completely broken and uses a faulty build. The one from Wings was near perfect. Fish botting is rampant
EXP rates are too high, esp on EP mob.
Mobs overall are too easy.. even beyond adding in extra JA's, spells and traits
Many mobs are broken in general. Forgetting how to use abilities or just incorrectly coded ie Weapons not linking in Ro
TH doesnt seem to work at all.. They say it does and post proof.. but using logic and chance on certain drops. its shown repeatedly to not take place
Smn damage is completely off and the dev who coded it insists its retail accurate.. when SMN has never put up the numbers it has
BST getting an EM pet, despite the fact that AF2 already raises the minimum level of a called pet.. so now that piece of EQ is useless.
Pretty much all of their job changes dont make sense or werent implemented well

So yeah basically leave would leave out any codes changes related to jobs, mobs, damage etc

[Tyrath]

Crafting HQ and skillup rates are way too high
EXP rates are too high, esp on EP mob.

These seem like a good updates. Why you guys want the masochism of yesteryear

[Spicyryan]

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[Syrio]

These seem like a good updates. Why you guys want the masochism of yesteryear

If the mobs were harder then it would indeed work as a mechanic. I think Wings used the same exp rates and it was fine there

[Karbuncle]

I mainly meant areas such as:
Whats broken:
Crafting HQ and skillup rates are way too high
Fishing is completely broken and uses a faulty build. The one from Wings was near perfect. Fish botting is rampant
EXP rates are too high, esp on EP mob.
Mobs overall are too easy.. even beyond adding in extra JA's, spells and traits
Many mobs are broken in general. Forgetting how to use abilities or just incorrectly coded ie Weapons not linking in Ro
TH doesnt seem to work at all.. They say it does and post proof.. but using logic and chance on certain drops. its shown repeatedly to not take place
Smn damage is completely off and the dev who coded it insists its retail accurate.. when SMN has never put up the numbers it has
BST getting an EM pet, despite the fact that AF2 already raises the minimum level of a called pet.. so now that piece of EQ is useless.
Pretty much all of their job changes dont make sense or werent implemented well

So yeah basically leave would leave out any codes changes related to jobs, mobs, damage etc

Okay, I'm going to level with you and no offense intended, some of these complaints fall under "you joined an Era+ Server and are bitching about things not being 100% Era accurate", but I do agree with some of them lol.

For one, Treasure Hunter. While I've not complained about this here, This is something I've definitely felt and noticed feeling really off. I've gathered a couple hundred kills worth of data now and the numbers fucking suck man. "Common" items, I.E the 24% tier (48%~ with TH2) seem to be working somewhere in the middle, usually around 35%~ drop rate. Uncommon/Rares both often drop below TH0 values. A 10% drop after 200kills with TH averaging 7-8% is either really bad luck or something is off. same for Rares. Rare items are 5%(Which only goes up to like ~7% with TH2), but in one session I logged 103 kills and got only 1 single of said 5% drop item, all with TH2. While not conclusive, its just one example, and every data point I have (with hundreds of kills), most if not all drops Uncommon and below are dropping at %'s slightly lower than TH0.

Crafting skill ups seemed correct for 1-60 for me when I leveled Woodworking, idk if 61+ is what you're talking about though. HQ rights im not sure, haven't parsed that :L. For Exp Rates, they are just WoTG Values, which is fine? Its intentional though not broken. Also for The only Dev I've seen mentioning SMN damage is the main SMN dev whos mentioned at the very least Flaming Crush is broken and will be receiving a pretty sizable "correction" aka nerf. I play with a SMN right now and all their BPs are doing the damage I'd expect and remember seeing when I leveled SMN back in the day. Granted, it may just be the 70BPs that are fucked right now, but the pre-70 ones, including Eclipse Bite, all feel accurate.

For job changes, the only ones I hate are RDM and NIN. I think THF got too little, PLD got a lot of love but honestly they still have the same problems in exp parties they're just slightly more efficient MP wise, enlight is a big boon, and I think SMN's BP:Ward adjustments were a fantastic idea and are well implemented. BST got overtuned but has been nerfed multiple times and I think is in a fine place right now. As i said before my complaint with Job Adjustments were that too many jobs felt like nobody on the team particulate cared about them lol, there were certainly "Love blindspots" for some jobs.

Of note I have noticed while in COP, Promyvion's felt very accurate to retail power levels... everything after Promyvions has felt extremely easy. I've heard Prom-Vazhl is challenging, but for stuff like Mammets and all that we've /breezed/ through them. Mammets were close to memory but I also have to put into consideration we're just way smarter than we were at 13 years old and have better strategies too. Ouryu and Diabolos however were far too easy, Diabolos might be missing his Avatar PDT and Ouryu idk, only had to use 1 Landing item, I severely over-prepared for most of them.

Rank Missions seem close to accurate though. Shadowlord was rough. Avatars seem the right strength except Fenrir who is underpowered and doesn't use his 2hr. Some Avatars however can 2hr multiple times which is broken, Diabolos Prime doesnt Nightmare as often as he should. You're right about one thing, some mob AI is super broken and I've noticed that, I just file bug reports where i can.

[arus2001]

If this is what they are doing with HNMs then its genius imo. And that's what's frustrating. They have so much amazing mixed in with so much crap. Whomever is responsible for shoveling in the crap additions should be weeded out of their collective.

I can't say I knew anyone that liked hunting Ixion or Sandworm and this just sounds like a rip-off of that. In fact, these things offered greater incentive to cheat with radar and position hacks even if their loot at the time wasn't as profitable as Kings stuff to monopolize.

BG's own movement to push for forced spawns back in the day was ultimately the only egalitarian outcome to a legitimately broken system unless you sincerely subscribe to the idea that content should be arbitrarily locked from players for no reason other than bragging rights. SE's old pie in the sky idea that NMs should just be something people chance upon was an unreasonable goal the moment they put anything useful on them. And terrible as they were about policing players, nothing about a private server environment guarantees a better job. I'd actually argue the opposite, especially with money a topic.

[Spicyryan]

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