Kuno's Guide to Making an Expansion

[Pacha]

Missions in an expansion should be very difficult and time consuming and only the best players should be able to reach the end.

I couldn't disagree more. If you're going to alienate a majority of the playerbase with an expansion, why bother making an expansion at all?

I would guess you're assuming that most people haven't finished CoP because it's too hard, and not because it's a ton of work for very little reward. Especially when compared to RotZ.



I don't play WoW, so I have no idea what gear progression is like in that. But I assumed people meant something like... instead of a stack of lolmaridleather, make Shura Sune-Ate an ingredient in Usukane Sune-Ate, where old equipment would literally be required to obtain new equipment.

When I say only the best players should be able to reach the endgame area in an expansion I mean the top 50% of players not the top 2-3% who play constantly. My ideal expansion would require a system of HNM's and Missions that required a bit of skill to reach an ultimate end that is rewarding. I don't think this is asking much. All I know is that ToA was too easy with minimal reward and CoP was likely too hard/time consuming. The ideal expansion would be a happy medium between the two and I hope SE finds that midway point in WOTG. You're entitled to your own opinion but the CoP earring, ring, and sea gear were well worth getting through CoP, not to mention the intrinsic value gained merely from knowing that you beat something that many others did not.

My understanding of gear progression in WoW is that you have to have a certain gear from a previous zone to beat a boss in the next zone. For example, you have to have a certain amount of fire resistance from one instance in order to survive the boss in the next instance. The basic idea is just a general progression in the game, ie you need certain items to advance, those items become obsolete and you need additional items to advance further and so on and so forth (hence, "progression).

[BRP]

I think the bigger flaw of "kings" is that they are not instanced/ghetto-instanced. People have much less of an issue doing RotZ Dynamis than they do with camping RotZ HNMs.

Most king(and sky) abjurations have been "obsoleted" in some way... and done pretty well, as Salvage isn't exactly quick to reward you.

I also think the game could use to be beefed up a little. With merits, food, and new gear, stuff seems too soft, especially in an environment where Genbu can drop something as useful as Cerebus. I think SE should give some older HNMs new traits or abilities and raise their stats. I mean raising their evasion and magic resistance just enough to make merits a requirement seems like a good idea.

Anyway, the whole idea of upgrading old gear seems like a good idea. I'd have to say that's probably the best way to go about it.


And concerning missions... would you have preferred them to be like this?

Shadow Lord - cap 50 or 60

RotZ
Tonberries - cap 60
Antican - cap 60
Kam - cap 70
Ark Angels - cap 70
Eald - cap 70

ToAU
Luzaf - cap 60
Khimaira - cap 60
Lancelord - cap 70
Lamiae - cap 70
Gessho - cap 70

I think those were the levels they designed those fights for(to be difficult). I personally wouldn't mind it, but I think a large part of the player populace might have.

[Veli]

They should like never add new HNM to this game that are not in a BCNM type battlefield. Killing a nm with 50 people from your ls in the zone is pretty much gay. They really need to limit the amount of people for a hnm fight.

[Krandor]

I also think the game could use to be beefed up a little. With merits, food, and new gear, stuff seems too soft, especially in an environment where Genbu can drop something as useful as Cerebus. I think SE should give some older HNMs new traits or abilities and raise their stats. I mean raising their evasion and magic resistance just enough to make merits a requirement seems like a good idea.

Recycling old content because you refuse to offer real progression is not something that can really be viewed as a recipe for success.

[Plow]

BRP is right about part of it.


CoP in my opinion had the best missions, the best fights, I doubt much of anyone would argue the best story by a long freakin ways, and the best of a whole lotta shit so far in this game.

But fucking level caps man... GTFO!

[Viena]

I also think the game could use to be beefed up a little. With merits, food, and new gear, stuff seems too soft, especially in an environment where Genbu can drop something as useful as Cerebus. I think SE should give some older HNMs new traits or abilities and raise their stats. I mean raising their evasion and magic resistance just enough to make merits a requirement seems like a good idea.

Recycling old content because you refuse to offer real progression is not something that can really be viewed as a recipe for success.

Frustration of investing quite some time to top your gear and it being rendered vastly inferior neither.

[BRP]

I also think the game could use to be beefed up a little. With merits, food, and new gear, stuff seems too soft, especially in an environment where Genbu can drop something as useful as Cerebus. I think SE should give some older HNMs new traits or abilities and raise their stats. I mean raising their evasion and magic resistance just enough to make merits a requirement seems like a good idea.

Recycling old content because you refuse to offer real progression is not something that can really be viewed as a recipe for success.

It's not really recycling as... you aren't adding new content that was recycled. Just making the game harder and gear matter more.

[Plow]

I also think the game could use to be beefed up a little. With merits, food, and new gear, stuff seems too soft, especially in an environment where Genbu can drop something as useful as Cerebus. I think SE should give some older HNMs new traits or abilities and raise their stats. I mean raising their evasion and magic resistance just enough to make merits a requirement seems like a good idea.

Recycling old content because you refuse to offer real progression is not something that can really be viewed as a recipe for success.

It's not really recycling as... you aren't adding new content that was recycled. Just making the game harder and gear matter more.

One of the biggest issues is that it's hard to make it matter when the shit that's "amazing" is not really all that great. Sure, "adds refresh effect" is nice, but how much can they possibly have that 100-200 mana over the course of a typical hnm really matter? And wtf @ thf and drg and shit, if something's going to require e-body they better give them more than a halfass wanna-be ws only version of it.

If they really wanna make gear/progression matter/exist they've got some SERIOUS revamping to do.

[Sagacious Sundi]

I think the bigger flaw of "kings" is that they are not instanced/ghetto-instanced. People have much less of an issue doing RotZ Dynamis than they do with camping RotZ HNMs.

Most king(and sky) abjurations have been "obsoleted" in some way... and done pretty well, as Salvage isn't exactly quick to reward you.

I also think the game could use to be beefed up a little. With merits, food, and new gear, stuff seems too soft, especially in an environment where Genbu can drop something as useful as Cerebus. I think SE should give some older HNMs new traits or abilities and raise their stats. I mean raising their evasion and magic resistance just enough to make merits a requirement seems like a good idea.

Anyway, the whole idea of upgrading old gear seems like a good idea. I'd have to say that's probably the best way to go about it.


And concerning missions... would you have preferred them to be like this?

Shadow Lord - cap 50 or 60

RotZ
Tonberries - cap 60
Antican - cap 60
Kam - cap 70
Ark Angels - cap 70
Eald - cap 70

ToAU
Luzaf - cap 60
Khimaira - cap 60
Lancelord - cap 70
Lamiae - cap 70
Gessho - cap 70

I think those were the levels they designed those fights for(to be difficult). I personally wouldn't mind it, but I think a large part of the player populace might have.

How about, in addition to your proposed caps, equipment (or most of it) is still kept, but your stats are decreased? Maybe even lower the stats on the equips.
I think losing gear was one of the bigger complaints about caps.

[Not Kuno]

Regarding AV:

I don't think AV being broken needed to really be addressed. It was a development bug, or requires some super crazy gimmick nobody found and in design looks fine. The big problem with sea was the rare torques and non-100% drop rate.

I didn't cover storyline because who am I to tell SE how to write their stories? In any expansion I was always in awe of the story and music and in those two regards I don't think anything needs to be said.

In regards to missions, I did not get into great detail because we still don't know if ToAU is going to do anything in that regard. While it doesn't look like it, there are still some unused stuff that may become useful. Mission fights and stuff arn't really that important in the grand scheme of things so I really avoided that stuff. And I think its general knowledge at this point that level caps don't really fly so I left that out. Option level caps as far as I know seem to be ok (as seen in Assault) although I personally havn't done them.



SE has made it clear they do not approve of progression however there should always be some. I'm not asking for every piece of gear to get completely replaced, but as everyone knows there are some glaring problems with the current situation. Mostly in regards to cap on how good weapons can be due to relics, and also things like Ridill and D.Ring.

Basically answer this: If SE said that they will never introduce an item to either replace or be similar to ridill (ie something like for another weapon type that doesnt have ass damage), and where completely honest in their answer, what do you think will happen?

[Credos]

Of course it's upto the player, and a large majority want them. I don't know about you but going through the entire of CoP we kept going "oh I bet this'll be the patch that puts Abjurations on ____" or "I bet Abjurations will drop from _____!", and then the same thing happened in ToAU to some extent, since everyones hope for important fixes were completely shattered.

The problem is that the people want either an easier way to get said gear (which SE said they will not do) or something better. Expecting people to camp a 3 year old monster every day for said 3 years is not a viable option for a healthy game.

Well the point I was trying to make was that its not really SE's fault people care about that equipment so much, because all other parts of the game are accessible without those items.

Now if having kings gear to progress further into the end game was necessity then I'd have a major problem.

Kuno, solid post.

One thing I'll say about the post above is that if you're an MMO developer and you don't think that people are going to be concerned with their gear, then you're a face breathing retard. Differentiating yourself from the pack is a major part of any kind of game that you play; if it wasn't then you wouldn't have people meriting hours after hours to modify their job, etc.

I personally don't think King abj should come from anything "easier" than what it already comes from, but I do think that it should come from a different set of HNM. Creating items of the exact same caliber (Adaberk, Ridill, Dring, Dalm etc), and placing them on the three ToAU HNM would be a great step towards giving people more of a chance in getting that gear. Let's be honest, for the most part the collective loot pool on these new HNM do leave something to be desired. I do not feel that RoTZ was "over doing it", I think that it was doing what an MMO should do; have a shitload of drops, dispersed amongst multiple jobs. That's the reason I think RoTZ was so successful (apart from the gear), it was the -way- that items were spread out on the guardians + Kirin.

While there are some people out there who do want to help their fellow LS mate get that "one" item that they want, how many out there are fighting something because they know -they- have a chance at one of the drops? I'd say the percentage is pretty high.

[JoOeetheplatypuS]

Max's guide to making an expansion:

Good fucking luck, your playerbase is never going to be happy.

[BRP]

Ridill is a huge deal only for one job. If SE they would never give WARs something better than Ridill in that weapon slot, it wouldn't be a big deal at all. I repeat my feelings in saying, the bigger problem is how you obtain Ridill not that it's the best weapon in the game. People don't complain about Dynamis being old nearly as much as HNMs being old.

And concerning RotZ, my only complaint on the mission-line is how underdeveloped and undramatic the whole "betrayal" was.

[Krandor]

I also think the game could use to be beefed up a little. With merits, food, and new gear, stuff seems too soft, especially in an environment where Genbu can drop something as useful as Cerebus. I think SE should give some older HNMs new traits or abilities and raise their stats. I mean raising their evasion and magic resistance just enough to make merits a requirement seems like a good idea.

Recycling old content because you refuse to offer real progression is not something that can really be viewed as a recipe for success.

Frustration of investing quite some time to top your gear and it being rendered vastly inferior neither.

Enjoy camping Fafnir for the next 4 years!

Are you seriously telling me that when SE added say, Homam gear to the game, all the PLD/DRK/etcs out there broke down in tears and cursed SE for adding something better then what they already owned?

[Stolin]

One thing I'll say about the post above is that if you're an MMO developer and you don't think that people are going to be concerned with their gear, then you're a face breathing retard.

If you were a game developer and you were told that about 5% of the population of your playerbase spent 3 hours a day for 3 years camping the same NM, would you think "what the fuck?"

[Sekkite]

That 5% of the playerbase is a very loud part of the playerbase with a lot of influence over a good 40+%.

[BRP]

That 5% of the playerbase is a very loud part of the playerbase with a lot of influence over a good 40+%.

It was a very loud part, now SE believes "Okay, now there is enough instanced end-game activities and enough 6-man'd end-game activities. If you want bore yourself to shit everyday for a sword, a body, and a 1% drop rate ring, knock yourself out".

[Stolin]

It was a very loud part, now SE believes "Okay, now there is enough instanced end-game activities and enough 6-man'd end-game activities. If you want bore yourself to shit everyday for a sword, a body, and a 1% drop rate ring, knock yourself out".

Thats pretty much what I was thinking. Kings are probably the last thing on their minds.

[Not Kuno]

It was a very loud part, now SE believes "Okay, now there is enough instanced end-game activities and enough 6-man'd end-game activities. If you want bore yourself to shit everyday for a sword, a body, and a 1% drop rate ring, knock yourself out".

Thats pretty much what I was thinking. Kings are probably the last thing on their minds.

I'm sorry, I'm pretty sure myself and the other 100+ people in aery every day are customers too. If you figured there was a new item that replaced ridill and people would not camp it anymore, or it was isntanced or something, do you think nobody would want it anymore? There are alot more then the 100 people in aery each day that really want it but just dont want to deal with the inane BS that comes with camping kings.

Also judging from the bannings and the multitude of HNM changes the last few years I think Fafnir and the other kings are on their mind more then you think.

[Viena]

I also think the game could use to be beefed up a little. With merits, food, and new gear, stuff seems too soft, especially in an environment where Genbu can drop something as useful as Cerebus. I think SE should give some older HNMs new traits or abilities and raise their stats. I mean raising their evasion and magic resistance just enough to make merits a requirement seems like a good idea.

Recycling old content because you refuse to offer real progression is not something that can really be viewed as a recipe for success.

Frustration of investing quite some time to top your gear and it being rendered vastly inferior neither.

Enjoy camping Fafnir for the next 4 years!

Are you seriously telling me that when SE added say, Homam gear to the game, all the PLD/DRK/etcs out there broke down in tears and cursed SE for adding something better then what they already owned?

I didn't know that Homam rendered Valor body or Adaberk obsolete, and when I did that comment I was thinking mostly about bodies, as they use to be the harder pieces to get.

Basically, I believe that the fun from a MMORPG is provided from the diversity of activities. So I wouldn't want to spend a year after the expansion release by just repeating x activity over and over to get v 2.0 of certain item, as people have done with Fafnir for years, which in addition to repetitive, is an awfuly implemented system. I don't think that anyone enjoys the actual camping. However, repeating an activity, even if it's new, makes it boring pretty quick.

In my opinion, the best way to add progress would be adding different ways to get the same or similar items, so you can end getting the same valuable rewards without repeating daily the same activity (which by today's standards would be Fafnir, but adding a better equipment to a new activity could make it equally tedious). Perhaps, in the case of the addition of higher end substitutes, make an easier way for players with the previous gear versions to upgrade.

In addition, developers can always create situational equipment, thing that SE has done quite a bit. However, given the limited item storage and macro lines, it wouldn't smoothly suit ffxi without those issues being resolved first.

Besides, you can't really compare the approach taken by WoW to FFXI's gear-wise. As far as I know, the former progressively increases the max level of the player, intending to leave older content easier, while the other intends to always keep certain level of challenge in it.