VanaFest 2010 Wrap-Up (Via Elmer & Zam)

[drwaffles]

Ok so I was one of the people that said we should be open-minded and not get hysterical when it came to the level cap increase, but my hope is quickly dwindling now. If they don't increase the difficulty of existing content then everything is going to become an absolute joke when people hit 99, and I don't believe the developers know enough about how their game is played to make content that's challenging but not impossible for level 99 characters. They can barely get the balance right at 75 for God's sake, how are they going to manage it for players a whole 24 levels higher than that?

[Gergall]

o_O Sounds like a chance to augment your weapons with 80 shitty stats.

Yes, the two specific examples they gave in the text you quoted (DMG and Delay) sound really awful and useless.

[TacoTaru]

Yes, the two specific examples they gave in the text you quoted (DMG and Delay) sound really awful and useless.

Sarcasm, you gets it.

[Spira]

Ok so I was one of the people that said we should be open-minded and not get hysterical when it came to the level cap increase, but my hope is quickly dwindling now. If they don't increase the difficulty of existing content then everything is going to become an absolute joke when people hit 99, and I don't believe the developers know enough about how their game is played to make content that's challenging but not impossible for level 99 characters. They can barely get the balance right at 75 for God's sake, how are they going to manage it for players a whole 24 levels higher than that?

i got the impression that they kinda wanted to make existing endgame become 'easy mode' so that those who never ever got to try it will now be able to do it without as much difficulty / need for people.

serious end-gamers on the other hand, would get to move on and try all the new challenges ahead. Seeing as they managed to add over 100 NMs in the last update, I don't think they'll have any problem adding new NMs that will actually be challenging and occupy people's time when the cap is raised..

Also, it allows current super-hard NMs to move into just tough or farmable status.. more people will get to try PW. More people will get to (possibly) kill AV, more people will get N Sashes and Hachiryu stuff.. and they won't have lost that much value since they're still good pieces of eq, that will possibly be buildable upon

[Acturus]

the new Pixie NM will make it where if you kill it all pixies go away forever, and never come back.

what I do not understand is that FFXI seemed to be slowly getting so little. Then two updates back they just blew our minds with adding like over 100 new NMs to old zones, a full new guild system to make new items, and now this news. Its just so odd that they are working so hard on FFXI. Tons and tons of new end game stuff seems to be coming out this year. It is just really mind blowing the amount of content we are looking at.

SE acknowledges that FFXIV will be their primary focus starting very soon.
SE has discovered that the player base will pay money for mini-expansions.
SE would be stupid to just shut the servers down on FFXI, given how profitable it is and how damaging it would be to the Final Fantasy PR Campaign.

Therefore,

SE is bringing a ton of new content in a very short time at the end of the game's life.
SE is changing the focus from leveling to endgame, enhancing the existing playerbase and their experience, but not providing much for new blood.
SE is consolodating resources in an effort to streamline the cost to profit ratio.

FFXI has reached retirement mode. I don't doubt that there will be an EQ-esque fanbase that plays for 2, 3, 5 more years, but there's not going to be much more content offered, unless the expansionettes are really that simple to design and implement.

The trick is now to give the remaining population a ton of new stuff, fufill some wishes, offer some virtual blowjobs for staying with the game this long, and then stablize the game so that it will take a "long time" to play it all out.

[drwaffles]

i got the impression that they kinda wanted to make existing endgame become 'easy mode' so that those who never ever got to try it will now be able to do it without as much difficulty / need for people.

serious end-gamers on the other hand, would get to move on and try all the new challenges ahead. Seeing as they managed to add over 100 NMs in the last update, I don't think they'll have any problem adding new NMs that will actually be challenging and occupy people's time when the cap is raised..

Also, it allows current super-hard NMs to move into just tough or farmable status.. more people will get to try PW. More people will get to (possibly) kill AV, more people will get N Sashes and Hachiryu stuff.. and they won't have lost that much value since they're still good pieces of eq, that will possibly be buildable upon

Don't know about you, but I'm not really ok with all old content being made into a joke when they clearly don't have the manpower to replace it with an equivalent amount of higher-level content.

[Draylo]

SE acknowledges that FFXIV will be their primary focus starting very soon.
SE has discovered that the player base will pay money for mini-expansions.
SE would be stupid to just shut the servers down on FFXI, given how profitable it is and how damaging it would be to the Final Fantasy PR Campaign.

Therefore,

SE is bringing a ton of new content in a very short time at the end of the game's life.
SE is changing the focus from leveling to endgame, enhancing the existing playerbase and their experience, but not providing much for new blood.
SE is consolodating resources in an effort to streamline the cost to profit ratio.

FFXI has reached retirement mode. I don't doubt that there will be an EQ-esque fanbase that plays for 2, 3, 5 more years, but there's not going to be much more content offered, unless the expansionettes are really that simple to design and implement.

The trick is now to give the remaining population a ton of new stuff, fufill some wishes, offer some virtual blowjobs for staying with the game this long, and then stablize the game so that it will take a "long time" to play it all out.

Could have just summed this whole post up as the retarded saying, "dead game".

[thetruepandagod]

Who is willing to wager that Shadow Lord is campaign op that you can only get access to when you have control of xarcabard?

[Araelus]

Great info source from Elmer as usual!

I'm going to sit back, take care of other concerns, and see what the actual update notes say. It could go horribly wrong, but the more concrete information that rolls out, the more exciting it seems to me.

let's all be nostalgic for a day

[ronin sparthos]

Who is willing to wager that Shadow Lord is campaign op that you can only get access to when you have control of xarcabard?

Granted the other 3 BCNMs where you face the leaders of the Beastmen require you to have control of all their zones (Darkheir, Za'Dha, Suu Loma), having control of of Beaucedine/Xarcabard seems right on the money.

I predict the SCNM being against the Shadow Lords inner circle of Demons and the equivalent Campaign Op being to take out the Shadow Lord or at the least prep him for his historical defeat at the hands of Cid and co.

The real question is: Will Northland campaigns be more often? Cause they need to be.... and move that god damn Amphiptere from the spawn point in Xarc (S) >.>

Don't know about you, but I'm not really ok with all old content being made into a joke when they clearly don't have the manpower to replace it with an equivalent amount of higher-level content.

What content? All they need to do is hammer out HNMs every update and keep the veterans happy.

The devs are now free to do whatever they want now that the spotlight is on XIV. This is good news for the playerbase since they really have no reason not to do what we've asked for over years.

[Araelus]

I predict the SCNM being against the Shadow Lords inner circle of Demons and the equivalent Campaign Op being to take out the Shadow Lord or at the least prep him for his historical defeat at the hands of Cid and co.

They better not retcon Cid out of the final battle - I was always intrigued by Lucius' comment that Cid helped Volker and Zeid when they stormed the castle. Yet we haven't seen Cid at all in the WotG missions, as far as I remember.

Then again some of the people I was doing WotG quest/missions with couldn't remember the Shadow Lord's real name (one of them thought it was Zeid...) so I guess a lot of players wouldn't notice the change.

[Spira]

Don't know about you, but I'm not really ok with all old content being made into a joke when they clearly don't have the manpower to replace it with an equivalent amount of higher-level content.

i have my worries too.. there's about 6 years worth of 75 capped content thats suddenly going to become much easier. but I think the greatest value in it is making stuff that previously required a ton of people require far less.

I welcome the changes to Dynamis since it'd always been too much of a timesink, and Limbus will likely become enjoyable 6man fun even in central Temenos.

Some assaults will get easier, but the balance in Nyzul will be completely ruined, and I thought it was perfectly well tweaked. I wonder if some of these events will remain 75 capped, as they already appear to be.

Salvage will become less strategic and more casual.

Einherjar will actually become more fun, I think.. since the strategic elements would have been lessened. Also more low mannable.

Sky will become a playground. Sea will probably end up slightly easier than Sky already is, and we'd still have Absolute Virtue. Zeni NMs will be much more soloable at lower tiers and probably tier 3 will require a PT, tier 4 a PT or 2, and PW will still probably be a decent challenge.

Oh.. ANNMs will be fun to do now. And we can probably start killing Vrtra for fun/title.
Come to think of it the game will be much more fun since content that was never worth the effort:reward ratio will now fall into that range, not by raising the reward, but instead lowering the effort lol.

The only problem areas I really see are existing heavily camped stuff. Kings will see far more competition especially as smaller pickup groups come in to wrestle for abjs and drops.
The economy will also go haywire with the value and rarity of existing equipment changing...

As for new content.
I really hope they introduce enough events to substitute whats going to be 'phased out'. They don't seem to want to make existing events redundant thru eq obsolescence, but as the challenge in them decrease, I'm sure some will be put off by it.

Hopefully a lot of new worldspawn NMs and popped NMs. a sky/sea/zeni system for WotG, and Walk of Echoes...

This makes Sandworm, SCNM and ANNM more enticing to casual players.. and hopefully means that we're going to see more allied dominance of strongholds cos I really want to do the Bastok and Windy Ops that never ever appear.

[Spira]

I'm thinking its more towards Campaign Ops style (take over Castle Zvahl + Beaucedine + Xarca?) more than SCNM style..

It'd preserve the rarity of the battle (for now) and its difficulty in unlocking. SCNMs can be spammed at a pretty steady rate.

Then again, SCNM BCs each drop that Beastman headpiece.. and Shadowlord has a headpiece too..

God. whichever it is, i can't wait to try it.

edit:nvm i read poorz

[Eanae]

I imagine the same thing will happen as what did to Vanilla WoW content when BC was released. Limbus, Einherjar, 3 kings, Khim, Cerb all become obsolete and no one will do them. Dynamis will still be done unless a new method for obtaining currency gets released.

[Baelorn]

Matsui feels it will be beneficial for players to be able to complete such content with smaller numbers.

Someone should tell them challenge isn't what keeps most people out of existing endgame content.

[Reapz]

Thanks for the translation Elmer & Zam, bunch of stuff in there I wasn't aware of yet, nice read!

[Beave]

It really almost feels like this update is FFXI.5, or a completely different game altogether.

[ronin sparthos]

Someone should tell them challenge isn't what keeps most people out of existing endgame content.

Actually hes right.... halfway.

The challenge does keep most casuals from ever attempting content, the upper-crust HNMLS' were just one obstacle.

By moving the old-timers onto new content in Abyssia, the idea is you give smaller the groups the chance to fight things they would never had got the chance to.

[Indalecia]

aaaand....I'm back :<

[Avarice]

Spoiler: show

http://www.zam.com/Im/Image/158693.jpg

Oshi-

Nice.