Exceed Your Limits: Level Cap to Be Lifted! (06/11/2010)

[Spider-Dan]

SE did not make AU camps good on purpose. They have no idea what makes an exp camp good which is why the only common WoTG camp is...Colibri.

You're joking, right?

Within one week of TAU's release, every pre-TAU 75 camp was barren and forgotten. The TAU camps that are considered unacceptably pathetic table scraps today (mire, trolls) completely decimate camps anywhere outside of TAU. This is all an accident?

Your cited example of WoTG camps just serves to prove my point; WoTG was obviously not created for merit parties. It was created for Campaign. Whitegate is still the hub city for this game and has quick and easy access to virtually everything you need; splitting merit-seeking players back up into past cities (and Whitegate) would just be counterproductive.

[ronin sparthos]

Beastmen outside? Not new on SE's part.

Azouph Isle SP mobs? AoE Silence/Amnesia, -ga spells, True Sight mobs, Doomed, Flies(known to be the one of the least favorite mobs of exp PTs since CN became popular).

Mana-friendly monsters? If you mean the extremely limited number of puddings then yeah, sure. The other mobs in AU that BLMs can manaburn on are no more mana-friendly than mobs in the old expansions and that is exactly where the majority of BLM leveling is at. If SE designed Colibri for exp on purpose then they purposely cut BLM out of exp.

The exp bonus only means that SE hoped people would exp in AU. In theory AU mobs would be terrible for exp but players found a way to exploit their low HP and Def by changing the way they build and play in PTs. So, unless you're implying that SE knew exactly how players would react to these new types of mobs, it was the players that evolved.

Another thing is if SE now knows what makes good exp camps then why are they so sorely lacking in WotG when SE has acknowledged the severe overcrowding in AU camps?

Way to cherrypick negatives. How is adding an EXP Bonus to all areas within an expansion not a huge shove to go EXP there? Wut.

Pre-AU, where were these outdoor beastmen in abundance? Lemme guess, you're going to say (Hob)Goblins and I am going to say that (Hob)Goblins were not in such abundance as Mamool Ja and Trolls at the 75 EXP range.

Lets not forget Goblins have a suicide attack that severely limited how practical they were to chain.

On the other hand, Mamool Ja are densely packed in one area, have no damaging AOEs and are manageable by a competent healer. Trolls used to be as popular as Mamool Ja but due to needing mobs pulled in groups to spread Diamondhide they fell out of favor.

Point is, pre-AU beastmen were largely limited to dungeons (Newton Movalpolos) or were more dangerous than AU beastmen.

Staging point screams "this is a camp for EXP and look we even tossed in weak Puks to maintain chains!"

How is Azouph SP bad? Imps are pathetically weak, Jnun take bonus damage, Flies take bonus damage and that camp was lightyears ahead of anything in CoP. Your mage has to work but that doesn't mean the camp is bad.

It isn't a 75 camp but that doesn't dismiss it as a bad camp.

Regarding BLM and manaburn? For AU, SE tried to shift the dynamic back towards melee since so much thunder had been taken during the CoP by BLMs. This doesn't mean that Wamouracampa don't scream "I am a weak mage target with decreased movement speed so please nuke me.", likewise with Marids and flans take bonus magical damage. These mobs were designed with mages in mind.

Certain areas in AU were blatently created with EXP in mind and it doesn't end with Colibri.

People changed but so did SE after CoP ended.

Perhaps...but why no repeat performance with WoTG? The primary thing with ToAU camps is mob density in an outdoor area (hence the lower repops). There are many, many other parts of those zones that nobody XPs or merits in.

It seems a lot more to me like SE decided that Colibri, when plopped in a zone, would be in a "flock". That beastmen would be clustered around entrances to their respective dungeons. That sort of thing.
It just so happens that a handful of the resultant camps works well for XP, even if nearly all of them have annoying TP moves.

I blame the poor repeat performance squarely on the compartmentalization of the two dev teams. The AU team started a dynamic in one direction then when the WoTG team got the reins they went back to the old school of thought and failed miserably.

WoTG isn't all a wash with MMM being something extremely popular for EXP, Xarc (S) manaburn is a pretty solid way to EXP, Cointeach are easy to lowman for EXP etc.

[Spider-Dan]

Beastmen outside? Not new on SE's part.

Azouph Isle SP mobs? AoE Silence/Amnesia, -ga spells, True Sight mobs, Doomed, Flies(known to be the one of the least favorite mobs of exp PTs since CN became popular).

Mana-friendly monsters? If you mean the extremely limited number of puddings then yeah, sure. The other mobs in AU that BLMs can manaburn on are no more mana-friendly than mobs in the old expansions and that is exactly where the majority of BLM leveling is at. If SE designed Colibri for exp on purpose then they purposely cut BLM out of exp.

It almost sounds like you're arguing that TAU camps aren't, by far, the best 75 camps in the game. Like the comparison is even remotely close.

The exp bonus only means that SE hoped people would exp in AU. In theory AU mobs would be terrible for exp but players found a way to exploit their low HP and Def by changing the way they build and play in PTs. So, unless you're implying that SE knew exactly how players would react to these new types of mobs, it was the players that evolved.

And the cool thing is, the players "evolved" at exactly the same time that TAU was released, when they started infinite chaining in mire and MJSP practically on day 1.

Another thing is if SE now knows what makes good exp camps then why are they so sorely lacking in WotG when SE has acknowledged the severe overcrowding in AU camps?

Because WoTG is not an expansion for meriting?

The fact that they know how to make good merit camps does not mean that they want every expansion to be geared towards meriting. Given that Abyssea is specifically a "battle expansion," one would hope that exping would be given a fairly high priority.

[Baelorn]

In theory AU mobs would be terrible for exp but players found a way to exploit their low HP and Def by changing the way they build and play in PTs

I was saying the camps are good but not because of anything SE did intentionally.

You're both retarded. It's not even fun arguing with you for the hell of it.

Edit: For the record, I don't even care if SE made AU camps good for exp intentionally or not. It doesn't matter because they failed to repeat the success of Au camps in WotG. They acknowledged that AU camps were overcrowded and did nothing about it. If you're right and SE knows how to make good exp camps then it is even worse.

[Spider-Dan]

I was saying the camps are good but not because of anything SE did intentionally.

Yes, it's a total random accident that a) everyone bailed out of every other LV75 camp by week 2 of TAU's release and b) no camp from any other expansion even challenges TAU's LV75 camps to this day.

If you're right and SE knows how to make good exp camps then it is even worse.

?????

The point being made is that SE knows how to make good camps if they want to. If they DON'T want you to have camps as good as TAU, then WTF does it matter whether they know how to give them to you (in theory) or not? You aren't going to get them.

[Snick]

The other mobs in AU that BLMs can manaburn on are no more mana-friendly than mobs in the old expansions and that is exactly where the majority of BLM leveling is at.

I didn't realize Vunkerl Inlet [S] and Xarcabard [S] were from an expansion before AU.

[Baelorn]

that is exactly where the majority of BLM leveling is at.

Reading: It's fucking hard.

@SD: Explain to me why SE wouldn't want to alleviate overcrowding in AU areas that they knew existed and knew was a problem. You said that SE wants AU to be the central hub of the game but you're completely off base. They've made multiple adjustments in the past(and fairly recently) to get people the fuck out of Whitegate because it was so crowded.

[Snick]

Reading: It's fucking hard.

Once you hit 55 BLM you lvl in Vunkerl til 75 and Xarcabard if your party isn't stupid. Majority in old zones, like what? Give examples, I'm patient.

It's gay and lame and slow and boring but it's just what you're stuck doing.

Edit: My buddy started playing in December and leveled BLM first so this is how I know all this shit, he did random synch parties and shit til 35 or something then I showed him how to solo pets, and he did that mostly til 55, doing 52-55 in Pso'Xja, then I don't think he got any other pt invites outside of Vunkerl til 75. I'm no mathologist, but isn't 55-75 the majority of your leveling?

[Carth]

ToAU zones are superior to other zones, not because of Colbiri, but because of the Astral Candescene which gives +EXP%. This gives VT mobs give more EXP, comparable to a low IT mob.

Colibri aside, we as players just got smarter. Remember in Sky/KRT zones, we were already doing TP burn parties because we believed it was unacceptable pre-74 due to a lack of shadows, when in fact this was already doable with just Ichi and effective hate-bouncing.

When we learned that the current God Job (BLM) were terribly worthless due to mobs, not limited to Colibri, in ToAU. People had to think differently. Remember that the pDIF formula was not formally known back then as it is today, and people had the Big Number Syndrome. Players would've just went back to Conquest zones if it weren't for that +EXP%.

Based on that, I believe SE made ToAU with the expectation of players leveling there, but I doubt they wanted to completely neutralize the Conquest camps. The mobs in ToAU are how they are because SE were simply sick of BLMs manaburning everything.

[Baelorn]

Once you hit 55 BLM you lvl in Vunkerl til 75 and Xarcabard if your party isn't stupid. Majority in old zones, like what? Give examples, I'm patient.

It's gay and lame and slow and boring but it's just what you're stuck doing.

Edit: I'm no mathologist, but isn't 55-75 the majority of your leveling?

Outside of syncs from 60-66 you're not going to be staying in Vunkerl.

For your edit, got caught up in the semantics there. I meant majority of time spent leveling, not the majority of your exp. Even so, the levels spent in non-past areas is ~430k and inside of Vunkerl ~350k. Let me know if I totaled that wrong, did it quickly.

[Forte]

...Honestly? Wow, the level of stupid I just read is beyond even my mind.

Here is what SE is going to do. You hit 75, you get the option of either getting EXP or getting Limit Points. If you are in Limit Point mode, you can't be the level sync designate. This way, if you get to level, say, 78 and decide "I want a limit point", as long as you aren't the sync, you can switch, and get limit points.

There, no problems, no "fairness" issues, everyone is happy. The ONLY confusing thing is how they are going to handle things like Prot V.

[Snick]

Outside of syncs from 60-66 you're not going to be staying in Vunkerl.

For your edit, got caught up in the semantics there. I meant majority of time spent leveling, not the majority of your exp. Even so, the levels spent in non-past areas is ~430k and inside of Vunkerl ~350k. Let me know if I totaled that wrong, did it quickly.

Unfortunately, in this day, that really is the only BLM camp, and level synch pretty much makes sure of it. Until you can do Puddings anyways, which are usually overcamped :/ Unless there's a camp or few I'm totally missing.

I figured you had meant majority as in, exp, because the experience needed stays the same, but how fast you get the exp is directly within your power, put the effort forward and it'll be quicker etc. But yeah, misunderstanding, I got nothing else to argue.

[Baelorn]

Unfortunately, in this day, that really is the only BLM camp, and level synch pretty much makes sure of it.

I did Goblin's rarab in Bibiki bay from 60-66 then bats in Newton until 68 then I went to Tigers in Vunkerl.

[ronin sparthos]

I was saying the camps are good but not because of anything SE did intentionally.

You're both retarded. It's not even fun arguing with you for the hell of it.

Edit: For the record, I don't even care if SE made AU camps good for exp intentionally or not. It doesn't matter because they failed to repeat the success of Au camps in WotG. They acknowledged that AU camps were overcrowded and did nothing about it. If you're right and SE knows how to make good exp camps then it is even worse.

I blame the poor repeat performance squarely on the compartmentalization of the two dev teams. The AU team started a dynamic in one direction then when the WoTG team got the reins they went back to the old school of thought and failed miserably.

You cant understand that SE is the reason that TOAU dominates for EXP and Im the retarded one? lol

Like I said, WoTG has some camps that are of use to the community if you seek them out but the change in dev teams is why AU failed to flow into Wings.

Players only evolve when they have ideal conditions to and TOAU damn well was an ideal condition. Weak Imps, weak jnun and fast repops in mire. Combine that with Colibri, Marsh Murre and other monsters that aren't defensively oriented and you get the ideal playground for EXP.

The new camps lead to a new standard of how EXP should be done which leads to today.

Abyssea is being made in mind as a place for endgame content which boils down to events and EXP. Hopefully this brings about a new standard much like TOAU did to XI. There are plenty of mobs SE could use to create that standard and Colibri aren't the end-all.

[Baelorn]

I said you were retarded because you turned "AU camps were unintentionally successful" into "AU camps are bad".

I already said I don't care if SE designed the mobs to be as good as they are for exp. I was just arguing that it could have been accident/coincidence that AU camps were so good for the hell of it.

The real issue was whether or not SE will be able to repeat the success of AU camps so that leveling at 76+ isn't a total nightmare.

[Spider-Dan]

@SD: Explain to me why SE wouldn't want to alleviate overcrowding in AU areas that they knew existed and knew was a problem.

Campaign?

You seem to have confused "alleviating overcrowding" with "allowing everyone on the server to get 30k/hr in any zone they want," which wasn't going to happen. They provided an alternative way to exp; one that is drastically different from previous methods and that any job can participate in at a reasonable capacity.

TBH I've never even heard an SE employee acknowledge that TAU camps were overcrowded (i.e. not working as intended). When did they do so?

You said that SE wants AU to be the central hub of the game but you're completely off base. They've made multiple adjustments in the past(and fairly recently) to get people the fuck out of Whitegate because it was so crowded.

And none of those adjustments would have mattered worth a damn if they were not accompanied with a quick and easy way to get to and from Whitegate (see: Taru nation warp, enabling the Wildcat warp from Jeuno, etc.). Why do you think no one sets their homepoint in the past?

Whitegate is quite obviously the hub city of this game; it's not even arguable.

[Baelorn]

So, SE didn't add new camps because they didn't want people getting exp at the same levels they purposely allowed them to get in a previous expansion?

Ok.

[Spider-Dan]

Um, yes?

Is it some amazing revelation to say that SE intentionally did not make mythics as good as the weapons that players were already able to obtain for many years?

[Narol]

Once you hit 55 BLM you lvl in Vunkerl til 75 and Xarcabard if your party isn't stupid. Majority in old zones, like what? Give examples, I'm patient.

I got a distressing amount of exp in Qufim (in fact I dinged 75 in a Qufim burn). It's the easy place for BLMs to exp/merit in (even though syncs outlevel their usefulness quickly) because of how easily accessible it is and how mindless the grinding is. Qufim, Gigas's Tigers, and Cointeaches don't hold a candle to how good the exp is on fleas though—but unlike the others I listed, flea burns require a competent, dedicated out-of-party puller.

[Priran]

I'm happy to play the Katie Couric to your Sarah Palin.

hahaha, oh wow

You really just cannot read at all can you