Why are you looking forward to FF14?

[Kaylia]

Relics were a well-intentioned team-effort attempt at having ultimate weapons. WoW does the same thing with their Orange Legendary Weapons. Human nature just happens to get in the way and fuck things up with greed and other sins.

I don't dislike those types of weapons, I just would rather institute smaller, group rewards along the way to the big, final prize so everyone who assists can receive a benefit as well.

I don't think you can ever stop greed from killing shells, guilds and whatnot, but you can at least lessen the impact by giving others a little bit of a reward along the way - after all, it isn't just the relic-holder that's putting in effort to get that weapon.

Team effort is fine when it doesnt involve everyone's ressource being directed at a person for a long period of time. If you want to make them rare, add more prerequisite (similar to nyzul relic) to filter people, and follow up with "big fight". Nyzul relic were a great attempt if you take out the alexandrite prerequisite and replace it with something that make sense (20-30m price tag?). At least, it's harder to convince people to invest in your relic by "funding" fun.

but ignored the unbalanced equipment and then we see stuff like Ares's mask, that doesn't make sense but in reality it's the equipment from vanilla/RoTZ that doesn't

A few post ago, many people complained about "CoP killing FFXI", and you want to turn sky and kings into another "sea"?

The only reason why endgame was so popular at that time was because it had significant upgrade. Not many ls went to to king for e.legs and w.body, they were there for the big upgrade. Zilart item made sense, it's the rest that make none.

And Ares's mask was release -after-, you can't just ignore the current game and release thing, even if you made a mistake before.

[Hyan]

A few post ago, many people complained about "CoP killing FFXI", and you want to turn sky and kings into another "sea"?

The only reason why endgame was so popular at that time was because it had significant upgrade. Not many ls went to to king for e.legs and w.body, they were there for the big upgrade. Zilart item made sense, it's the rest that make none.

And Ares's mask was release -after-, you can't just ignore the current game and release thing, even if you made a mistake before.

No, RoTZ equipment didn't make sense. Just because the upgrades were good doesn't make the expansion balanced. The upgrades were way too good for their time. End-all weapons for the game introduced in the very first expansion of the game? They basically bottlenecked themselves in regards to how good weapons you can introduce to the game by doing that.

While in RoTZ SE implemented tons of uber powerful equipment, they realized what they had done and in CoP we see almost no upgrades except for those jobs that got shafted with RoTZ. They became too scared of implementing good equipment, they didn't want to make the same mistake again.

But when we come to ToAU, we finally start seeing pretty good equipment again. Sidegrades or upgrades, but we see a lot of them. And most of it is balanced when it comes to rest of the game. The uber powerful stuff from RoTZ is still there but SE didn't want to go down the path of implementing too great equipment again.

RoTZ ruined the game for some jobs, but some other jobs had much better luck because they didn't really get anything in RoTZ. Jobs like DRG had a pretty good selection of equipment implemented with actual upgrades.. much so because there wasn't a STR+30 DEX+15 Acc+54 Att+43 equipment available from the RoTZ era.

Had the equipment from ROTZ been implemented in a much less broken way (the stats would leave room for improvements later) we wouldn't face the problem we have today.

[Kaylia]

No, RoTZ equipment didn't make sense. Just because the upgrades were good doesn't make the expansion balanced. The upgrades were way too good for their time. End-all weapons for the game introduced in the very first expansion of the game? They basically bottlenecked themselves in regards to how good weapons you can introduce to the game by doing that.

Name me one monster, or event, or anything where having RoZ "overpowered" equipment change anything to your way of playing.

Define "balance".

[Hyan]

Define "balance".

If equipment is too good in regards to what else is available, it is not balanced. +20 attack gloves available at level 34? +15% increase in damage, and +30 Magic Accuracy staff available at lvl51? These things belong to lvl75, or not to the game at all.

Had it been +5 attack gloves at 34, +8 at 48, +12 at 59...+20 at 75, and +5% increase in damage and +8 magic acc at 75, things would be a lot more balanced now. SE could have introduced better equipment later that actually makes sense as to what else is available. The equipment introduced was too good, for way too low level. Having a staff like that available at level 51 makes no sense whatsoever, and SE once again bottlenecked themselves in regards to what they can implement later. It's either even more broken than the lvl51 equipment, or it is balanced when compared to the rest of the game's itemization. If SE doesn't want to break the game even more, I don't think they can be blamed for that.

[Kaylia]

What the fuck

[Siatdiat]

If equipment is too good in regards to what else is available, it is not balanced. +20 attack gloves available at level 34? +15% increase in damage, and +30 Magic Accuracy staff available at lvl51? These things belong to lvl75, or not to the game at all.

Had it been +5 attack gloves at 34, +8 at 48, +12 at 59...+20 at 75, and +5% increase in damage and +8 magic acc at 75, things would be a lot more balanced now. SE could have introduced better equipment later that actually makes sense as to what else is available. The equipment introduced was too good, for way too low level. Having a staff like that available at level 51 makes no sense whatsoever, and SE once again bottlenecked themselves in regards to what they can implement later. It's either even more broken than the lvl51 equipment, or it is balanced when compared to the rest of the game's itemization. If SE doesn't want to break the game even more, I don't think they can be blamed for that.

Do you really believe what you type? Just wondering and stuff.

Note: if such simple to get items were truly so overpowered they would have never improved other equipment, or added merits, or added buffs to jobs that made them more powerful than they were before. There are better gloves for MNK/SAM/NIN btw as far as lvl 75 is concerned. Hai2u bandomusha kote, and MNK af2 gloves +1. Pretty much the only shit left in the game they haven't overpowered that should be is HQ ele staves, and even if they just made an all in one version of it that would be an upgrade to most people.

Yes, I agree they planned poorly. But there is nothing in actual reality to keep them from improving on some of those items. It's obvious because of the fact they have done it already.

[Hyan]

Note: if such simple to get items were truly so overpowered they would have never improved other equipment, or added merits, or added buffs to jobs that made them more powerful than they were before. There are better gloves for MNK/SAM/NIN btw as far as lvl 75 is concerned. Hai2u bandomusha kote, and MNK af2 gloves +1. Pretty much the only shit left in the game they haven't overpowered that should be is HQ ele staves, and even if they just made an all in one version of it that would be an upgrade to most people.

Yes, I agree they planned poorly. But there is nothing in actual reality to keep them from improving on some of those items. It's obvious because of the fact they have done it already.

That is irrelevant. They fucked up itemization with some gear slots, but that doesn't mean they can't release better items or merits or buffs. It just means they're not going to do that when it comes to those equipment slots. Especially when it comes to job specific equipment, widening the gap between the job with the uber equipment and the jobs without them is not a solution.

Yes, there is the bandomusha kote, +2 attack and a 41 level difference. Excellent itemization altogether.

Just because in the whole big picture of things those items won't make too great of a difference, at least at lvl75 (tell me o kotes don't make a difference at 34), it doesn't make them any less unbalanced. If they made the items more balanced, we wouldn't face the problem we have today (and just because there's an "upgrade" 41 levels after that gives +2 attack, that doesn't mean there's no problem- it just makes it more apparent that there is).

[Kaylia]

Two wrongs don't cancel each other

[Hyan]

And what are these two wrongs you're talking about?

[Crosius]

Maybe in 14, insufferably low droprates will go byebye, and new harder challenges will crop up every update along with stronger gear. This kind of system caters to everyone, from hardcores to casuals. The hardcore tackle these challenges in full force on day one of release, the casuals make a run at them after they become obsolete and boring to the elite.

FFXI didn't have this kind of system in place, because old gear remains the apex for far too long. It seems that the XI team had irrational attachments to bosses, and tried to keep 5 year old Gods/Kings as the ultimate challenge. The end result is an aging gamer population all growing towards the same endgame content and driving up competition. Couple that with a very poor drop rate, you end up with the mess that is Botting and RMT. Let the population grow up-to and out-of content. Add new content to slake the thirst of the elite. If you keep players focused on the same things for too long, the culture changes to hurt feelings and greed. The best pals you grew up with killing crabs and pugils, having a blast and a laugh with everyday, become your competition on the points list.

Increase the drop rates to 10x the current rate, and players will quickly be done with that content. But then, how do you keep people playing? Give the players stronger gear, dropped by new bosses, on a semi regular basis. Rinse and Repeat. The Dev team could also add some sort of token system to each boss, which rewards everyone who shows up to help equally....

This all sounds very familiar, alot like WoW. Wow still has it's flaws though. What WoW got wrong FFXI also got wrong, although in opposite ways. In WoW it feels like the sky has opened up and it is raining gold coins in a deluge. You only have to work towards a monetary goal for a short time. In FFXI, it feels like you are collecting pennies in a desert, and occasionally you get nailed in the head with a crate of gold bricks (gold bricks usually falling close to some god or king). In WoW you get new gear so fast, the price tags are still on your tier 6 when you start getting tier 7. FFXI has people running around in level 7 boots until they hit 73 or 75. My bounding boots must have smelled like hot wet shit by the time i hit 70. The point of these examples is that the pace of both games is off. WoW is too fast, FFXI is too slow. I am hoping that XIV gets it somewhere in the middle, with less sidegrading like FFXI and smaller stat boosts than WoW.

I'm looking forward to FFXIV maybe getting it right. Even if they don't get the pacing right, at least all the players are starting back at square one. We can all enjoy killing crabs and pugils again just for the fun of hanging out with our pals, and getting a level-up once in a while.

[Hyan]

Increase the drop rates to 10x the current rate, and players will quickly be done with that content. But then, how do you keep people playing? Give the players stronger gear, dropped by new bosses, on a semi regular basis. Rinse and Repeat. The Dev team could also add some sort of token system to each boss, which rewards everyone who shows up to help equally....

Assembly line content is not what I'd want from XIV, to be honest, although the guild leve system makes it sound like this will be the case, if they link endgame system to it.

There is a lot improvement to be had with XI's system, and WoW solves a lot of these problems, but I wouldn't want SE to stray too far from XI because there's a downside to everything, switching from one system to other will only change those downsides... and SE already has more experience with the system of XI.

[arus2001]

The only thing stopping SE from adding stuff to replace the old, tired gear was SE themselves (and in turn content that 'required' said gear). Yes, you risk obsoleting content by maybe the third or more iteration of upgrades, but steps can also be taken to guarantee people will still want to go to said areas. Appealing to greed is an easy one, but there's other simplistic stuff like city clears for Icelands Dynamis or a more fleshed out AF+1 sort of quest lines. There comes a point where people and the devs just need to let go, too. If things regularly held people for two years, I'd say it did its job. Anything beyond is pushing it.

[Lucavi]

I'm going to agree a bit with Hyan here. Pcharm at 30 is idiotic. Not simply because it was the best in slot until sea torques years after its inception, but also because SE allowed it to exist as the best in slot for that long. It was not a bad idea to implement hard-to-attain items that greatly enhance the power of your character, but it was an absolutely idiotic idea to allow those items that you can attain in the 30's and 40's to dominate their respected slots for multiple years. SE was foolish for that, and I hope to never again see it.

On that note, Kaylia makes a good point that RotZ items didn't exactly screw up the balance of the end-game in terms of killing bosses, unless you want to count kraken club or ridill in the hands of SE drks. However, those items did screw up Xp parties at those levels, as well as player perception. The fact that some jobs didn't have access to nearly anything of worth in RotZ meant that those jobs were shit out of luck for engaging in end-game activities in a meaningful manner. Sure, everyone can just switch jobs, but then you were justifying arrow burning everything from level 45-75 in xp to Kirin and Greater Wyrms.

Balance may have been preserved for fighting end-game mobs, but only for certain jobs. How many drgs were invited to HNM fights? It wasn't simply because of the penta nerf. Hell, how many 2-handers were invited, period, unless it was to spam weak skillchain openers for broken blms.

This, like everything else, needs a middle ground approach.

[Siatdiat]

IMO, one of the worst examples of itemization in ffxi was making a dual wield enhancing earring with sword skill, then making a sword so powerful that sword war/nin was so broken for the longest time. They didnt plan it that way, it was lack of really thinking about what they were putting on rewards and drops and the players naturally found the power of it. I think the whole thing of the armory system was to avoid players using weapons outside their class in a broken manor. Hell, even now people are using polearm on sam and war in certain situations. The only thing I wonder about now is if the armory system will be imbalanced and certain classes will have a hell of a time skilling up because certain weapons will suck and noone will want to use them in parties. Only time will tell if this will work for the better or worse.

[Plow]

Name me one monster, or event, or anything where having RoZ "overpowered" equipment change anything to your way of playing.

are you like... remotely serious with this?

how about every single mob in the entire game?

dusk gloves/boots/haidate changes absolutely everything, and not just for the person wearing it

have you really not realized that ele staves are flat out game-changingly good, even if you were going to them from the next best possible thing, from the hardest beatable mob in the game?

apoc in low man situations?

amano?

pros with bravura, even though it took forever for people to go public about how good it can be?

wlegs?

refresh bodies?

noble's?

fucking kraken...

dring...

even "vanilla" ffxi... striders, speed belt...

there's game changing shit all over in zilart that they were never able to offer even close to equal, let alone better, even disregarding "less" insane shit like black belt, ebody, nhead, nlegs, ridill, assjammer, aegis (post all other shields getting buffed, prior to that... yeah), etc.


oh, and somewhere, some guy is singing a song... or should I say "blowing"

[Kawfee]

I'm hoping SE does a better job with making items interesting in FFXIV. For example, to steal ideas from WOW:

• Equipment that you can activate during combat to do certain things (ie: click on your ring, it gives you +20 attack for 30 seconds), stuff like that.
• Equipment that has chance-on-hit or chance-on-cast, i.e.: chance on cast of a Fire spell to make your next Fire spell cost 50% less mana.
• Equipment with meaningful stats on it (lolCharisma, lolWaterResist+5).

Probably a lot of other things I'm not thinking of. SE did a little bit of this on AF1/AF2 gear (i.e. affecting job ability recast timers/job traits) and on thinks like Jailer weapons or i.e. Gust Dagger (equip windfan and deal wind damage) but it was pretty poorly implemented and never really felt like it was part of the game in a meaningful way.

[Lucavi]

Actually, a good point is about how craptastic en-spell damage is, even today with enspell IIs. Why even have enspells when you're going to do an additional 5 damage per 75+ a hit? The only good additional effects were the status effects on things like Mezraq. SE should have just thrown additional elemental damage out the window, and allow rdms to cast en-enfeebles, like en-paralyze or en-blindness.

Timid little SE, so afraid of breaking their "balance" that they broke it through negligenc and underestimating the ingenuity of their playerbase anyway.

[Kaylia]

are you like... remotely serious with this?

how about every single mob in the entire game?

dusk gloves/boots/haidate changes absolutely everything, and not just for the person wearing it

have you really not realized that ele staves are flat out game-changingly good, even if you were going to them from the next best possible thing, from the hardest beatable mob in the game?

apoc in low man situations?

amano?

pros with bravura, even though it took forever for people to go public about how good it can be?

wlegs?

refresh bodies?

noble's?

fucking kraken...

dring...

even "vanilla" ffxi... striders, speed belt...

there's game changing shit all over in zilart that they were never able to offer even close to equal, let alone better, even disregarding "less" insane shit like black belt, ebody, nhead, nlegs, ridill, assjammer, aegis (post all other shields getting buffed, prior to that... yeah), etc.


oh, and somewhere, some guy is singing a song... or should I say "blowing"

So, you're saying you couldn't beat Salvage chariot or fafnir without these items? You're saying that kirin is impossible without this gear?

Gears help, but don't fucking tell me it makes a huge difference compared to other "non zilart overpowered" alternative. Haste for blink tanking is probably the only significant upgrade you can get, the rest just speed up the fight slightly.

And staves arent particularly "overpowered" since they are pretty much a part of any mage job after 51.


[edit]
Actually, after rereading your post, I have the impression you didn't read mine at all. I never said there was no good zilart gears, I said they barely won't allow you to do much more than someone who doesn't have this "overpowered gears".

[Alderaan]

The point is, all of those remained end game items for 6 years, with only side grades as replacements.

[Plow]

So, you're saying you couldn't beat Salvage chariot or fafnir without these items? You're saying that kirin is impossible without this gear?

You're not clearing Ein with a bunch of mages with no staves and melee with no haste.

You're not low manning high end ENM or other major bosses without haste gear, staves, etc. Relics also change low man situations dramatically.

Gears help, but don't fucking tell me it makes a huge difference compared to other "non zilart overpowered" alternative. Haste for blink tanking is probably the only significant upgrade you can get, the rest just speed up the fight slightly.

You're right, there's not much different between what you can get done with a kraken drk and any other character in the game.

And staves arent particularly "overpowered" since they are pretty much a part of any mage job after 51.


[edit]
Actually, after rereading your post, I have the impression you didn't read mine at all. I never said there was no good zilart gears, I said they barely won't allow you to do much more than someone who doesn't have this "overpowered gears".

If you think lv 51 cheap crafted staves are *not* overpowered because *EVERYONE* with access *MUST* use them through the entire endgame for fucking ever, then I believe we're approaching this with different logic.