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I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure there'd be a game between those two beers.

bah



Edited, Apr 27th 2016 3:54pm by Montsegurnephcreep

It was similar in ways to maintaining a rotation, but on a far smaller scale. The mechanics of XI allowed you downtime with the caveat of having to be ready for the few times you had to react quickly or understand what to do should something else go wrong. It was about as close as you could get to a turn-based game and that was a large part of the drew for me. That's also a big part of the reason why I'm skeptical of the remake of VII, but...

Wait, didn't you just close a thread and threaten another for straying off topic? Shame on you Thayos Anyway...


I mean, I guess I would have preferred a specific sound or graphic to show when I needed to do something, but glancing down at the chat was something I did frequently anyway.

Honestly, the settings that players have access to but are often ignored usually cover most of what addons do, at least on a basic level. As someone who was in charge of helping my LS mates setup their chat filters to only receive important information, I saw first hand the increase in performance even from doing something so simple. I don't think it really matters whether I heard <call15> or some horn stabs, I was still paying attention.

And a large part of that is because of the magic changes they threw in with ToAU. It depresses me that we can't even have dynamic arenas because "it would be unbalanced" in this game. The closest we get are abilities that chop down your movement (titan/Sephirot ex/thordan ex/Twintania etc.)

I think honestly the biggest difference is most RPGs you can beat without the best gear, items, summons, etc. They're nice bonuses but you tend to steamroll anything and everything in your path if you get the best gear before doing last stuff in the "vanilla" releases. This is why they usually add super bosses/side quests in the later versions like International, Hyper Sexy Version 2 etc. Generally, it makes sense to reward the best gear for doing the hardest content.

What would it drop that makes the challenge worth it? Minions? I would literally fly back home and cause...let's say, some chaos in the SE headquarters if they rewarded me with a USELESS minion for taking all that time and effort downing tough content. Mount? They're all the same with a different model.

This is where "Legacy items" as Yoshida called it would come to play. You want your STR+130 piece with nothing special added and advanced melding forbidden? Go for it, go do your (insert side content here)..meanwhile, let (Insert hard content here) drop the gear with special effects, no melding restrictions and so on. This game has a weird balance in the later content cycle, but within the current cycle, it makes sense. This is why Diadem Normal and Easy were terrible, not because of the design but because it obsoleted Esoterics AND Savage Gordias minus the weapons. Diadem Hard was fine because, well, you're putting in the work, effort and coordination with people on your server using your time dedicated Rank 50 airship(s) and rewarded handsomely for that time and effort. It doesn't change the fact it was a loot pinata, but Diadem Hard was the proper way to do it.

Even in this raid cycle, you have to spend 1000 Lore Tomes and 7 WEEKs of Midas 8 Normal to get the Lore weapon that you upgrade through Savage item, that's an alternate and somewhat links 2 systems together.

The rewards should be permanent unlocks and achievements that function in daily lives. Something that actually has a rippling effect in your gameplay, not something that can be discarded three weeks later because your crew cleared savage late and were still farming at the turn of the ilvl.

As much as we harp on FFXI, it's modern era stuff was incredible in the way they varied and fashioned rewards systems that work. A universal currency, stacking bonuses that unlock ease of life access for completing achievements new and old.

How about a 10% exp gain on alternate jobs, or a boost to *insert certain currency* rewards? Gear does not have to be an incentive. Crafting critical rate increase for each maxed crafting job. Raiding can have one-time boosts or effects to particular skills (some of which could be toggelable) that carry through. As stated before, Savage modes can come with currency boosts far and beyond the daily grind to access other content easier.

And yes, Glamour Items, Mounts, Furniture, all that can still be there. Then people, even when content gets old, will want to do these things, to get the unlocks, and thanks to the rising ilvl, these accomplishments become more and more accessible as time goes on for good rewards that don't have an expiration date on them.

I've always been of the opinion that gearing is preparation phase, and should not be the reward for top challenge content. It's redundant. It no longer is about challenge, conquer and achieve, but more about repeating ad nasuem like a factory worker, waiting for that bonus check to come in.

Ease of preparation, effort in execution. Clear goals, permanent achievements and the continual advancement of the quality of life for the adventurer. That's what challenge content should be about.

Regarding gear, I really prefer the way 2.1 did things. i90 from almost every activity. I enjoyed gearing up my jobs with extreme primals, tomes and Coil.

As for raiding, it's just way too freaking hard.

SpoilerQuick Fight Guide

Entry Bosses

The trash boss consists of two Faust + a Hummelfaust. You have about 50s to kill the two Faust until Hummelfaust will drop down on you.
You should save any cooldowns longer than 1m while killing the two Fausts. MT should tank both.
Ranged should all stack at max range from the Fausts. Melee should stay sort of stacked away from the ranged.
Hummelfaust will drop down on a random party member. Everyone needs to move as far away from there as possible because the landing does damage based on distance.
Hummelfaust begins an enrage count based on when it spawns, not when you started fighting the small Fausts. Burn everything you have now, potions recommended.


Phase 1

Boss turns big.
Boss uses Gobjab 4 times. 4th hit adds Concussion debuff to tank and forces a tank swap.
Boss does "tank buster" which is one of two mechanics chosen at random. Gobstraight = tank only, Gobcut = Stack on party.
One DPS gets marked with Prey and then boss uses Gobdash (a charge) toward the target. No one should stack for this, shield the Prey target.
This phase can be pushed if you get boss to 90% HP before the Prey is marked.


Phase 2

Boss turns small.
Two people are marked for Glupgloop, just make them walk away from party to place an AoE on the ground.
2 snakes spawn. Each tank should get one. Make sure people are sort of spread out for this, though not terribly important.
Snakes will put poison on people. People marked with poison will need to go to green puddle (north) to cleanse it. At the same time, one person should go in red puddle to become a gorilla for next mechanic.
Boss will spawn bombs. There is one spikey bomb and two small bombs. The gorilla needs to knock the small bombs toward the spikey one and everyone stack in the diagonal corner from the spikey bomb.


Phase 3

Boss turns big.
Everyone needs to go in the purple puddle (west) and turn into a bird.
New bomb pattern spawns. There will be 4 spikey bombs that spawn in a diagonal line. You should stand on top of the last bomb that drops. Once the first bomb goes off, run into the now-empty corner.
Exit bird form.
One DPS will be marked with Prey again, and there will be another charge just like first phase. Make sure everyone is out of the way for it.
Immediately after the charge, the boss will wind up a 180 degree AoE. Everyone needs to run behind the boss to avoid this, just like Ain in Sephirot Extreme.
Boss will use Gobjab 4x again and stun the main tank, forcing a tank swap.
There will be a tank buster and it may require the party to stack.


Phase 4

Boss goes small.
A chimera will spawn in the southwest corner. It begins with being tethered to a DPS or healer. That one player will need to go into the blue puddle (south) to lose aggro. Off tank should then pick up the add and face away from the party.
Position the boss near the middle of the arena.
A Glupgloop goes out again, just place it in the south where the blue puddle would be.
Bombs go out. Stand just outside of the corner where the first spikey bomb dropped, and then go into the corner after it explodes. Gorilla will need to push away the small bombs to the opposite corner.
Boss does 5 Shock Therapy AoEs. This is easy DPS burn time.


Phase 5

Boss goes big.
Go in puruple puddle (west) to become birds again.
Stand near the middle to prepare for dodging bombs, do not focus on DPS right now.
New bomb pattern. This drops 3 spikey bombs. There will be one safe area to stand. See phase 5 section for more details.
One DPS gets marked with Prey. They need to run to a different corner.
Right after player is marked with Prey, a second will be marked. Have them stand away from the rest of the party.
Everyone else in the party except the two people marked with Prey need to stack up for a tank buster.
Everyone move out of the way for a charge toward the first Prey. Second Prey player needs to move back into the corner to bait the second charge back again.
Right after second charge is another 180 degree AoE, get behind boss.
Boss uses 4x Gobjab on MT again, forcing a tank swap.
Tank buster goes out, might need to stack.


Phase 6

Boss goes small.
A bunch of adds spawn here. Off tank should pick up the Minotaur and move it to northeast corner. Everyone else should be with main tank in southeast corner.
Two goblin adds will use Oogle, similar to Petrifaction where it will petrify you if you are looking at them when they use Oogle.
A ranged player should focus the goblin in southwest by themselves.
Recommended to use mage LB here.
One player will be targeted by Glupgloop. Recommend placing it east, west, or south.
Shortly after lb, 3 more Pig adds will spawn. They should go straight to the healer. MT needs to take these off the healer ASAP.
Someone should spawn the colored puddles again and everyone needs to go into a puddle (any puddle) to refresh the duration on their debuff. We recommend green (north) for the OT if they're still tanking Minotaur, and blue (south) for everyone else.
Boss uses Shock Therapy 5x again. Make sure to keep everyone healed through them.


Phase 7

One Shabti add will spawn. OT should pick it up and face away from party (it cleaves). This needs to be killed within 30s but faster is better.
Boss goes big
Boss does Gobjab to MT again 4x until stunned, forcing tank swap.
Boss will use tank buster, which might require party to stack.


Phase 8

Boss goes small.
Chimera will spawn in southwest.
Bombs spawn again same pattern as in phase 4. Generally just ignore them and try to burn boss because you are about to die to enrage.


This isn't acceptable for the very first boss. Can you blame people for not wanting to memorize all that crap, most of which are what I call "bloat" mechanics that have nothing to do wih the boss' theme (syringes)? Look deep inside and think, "Is it ok to spend dozens of hours memorizing and practicing this"? You bet most people's answers is "no". I had my fair share of raiding during Coil. Now I'm tired of the "mechanic memorization" grind.

The difference between hardcore raiding and PvP is that the later doesn't interferes on my character's progression. People do it for fun and rankings.

Meanwhile, anyone who wants to progress their character ilvl has to raid. Don't want to raid? Quit and come back in 3.3 or something.

I think it's very ironic how so many people thinks that the raid = top status quo will somehow improve participation, when we, Final Fantasy XIV players, already saw that it didn't happen. First Coil had the highest participation rate, yet outside of Allagan weapons, nothing was exclusive ilvl. FCoB had the best reward in the game (closure of the Bahamut storyline and Dreadwyrm gear) yet it still had low participation.

Considering this, let me talk about difficulty. What made the first Coil so successful to me (considering Wineprt activity shouts, which I always joined with random jobs) was that a random group of people had chances of clearing. I cleared from T1 to T4 all with pugs, spending one night to learn and clear each. Since then, there has a focus on high mechanics rotations, all of which you need to know to not kill your group. And thus, pug raiding started dying in the NA. Why would I make a "A5S" pug when I know I won't have a chance of clearing and will be, effectively, wasting my time? If it even fills, that is,

Now, to raid, you had to give up on all your other jobs, set apart fixed time to play, and only play with the same 7 people everyday. Is it a wonder it got so unpopular?

Extreme primals suffered the same fate, too. Why in the world is Sephirot two times harder (read: more team jump rope mechanics) than Ifrit, while rewarding the equivalent of 2.1's i70? It's insane. No wonder I never manage to get a clear party; nobody wants to spend so much time on unrewarding content.

Square-Enix and hardcore players thinks that people will raid if they're bribed with progression. What I'm seeing is that people just quit. Honestly, I'm very close to quitting myself. It's very hard to pay 13$/m (which, to my country, is more expensive than full steam games) to be treated as a pleb receiving raider's bread crumbs on the odd patches.

I think, honestly, there's nothing wrong with A5S. Yoshida told us there would be no Faust or DPS checks..instead he gives us 3 of them (thus he lied, straight out.) but that's not really the big problem. When you REALLY get down to it and I'm being blunt when I say this: A lot of people simply do not want to have to apply themselves after you spent so many years of MMOs just HANDING people gear and rewards out of "fairness."

As for further elaboration on A5S, it only sounds worse than it is. Truthfully, as someone who's been farming 5-7 most of this cycle already, A5 Normal is harder, especially with people who are, as said, more used to not really applying themselves or even good at their jobs. Yeah you can auto wipe a lot in the Savage version if you mess up "crazy bombs" or get steamrolled by being in his dash path, but it's basically the same fight considering the Savage version is the actual fight.

I don't like the design particularly, but I can definitely say the only terrible design is A8S, much like A4S because it's supposed to stonewall us until the next raid cycle.



Incorrect. I play every job I leveled because other people may want to learn it on Tank/Heal/DPS they normally don't play and the whole purpose of the armory system, much like XI, is flexibility and I can safely say I went through most of my raiding career in pickups. The main reason it isn't popular is because the general playerbase can barely beat easy ex primals. If they can barely handle content you can't even consider midcore content at this point..how do you expect them to handle something that the game didn't prepare you for, at all?

I agree about coil because I even said Coil+Ex Primal setup back in 2.x was perfect, but it still required the same prep work since it was still a step above what the game usually threw at you but it wasn't ridiculous like Savage.

Edited, Apr 28th 2016 7:22am by Theonehio

This is exactly what happens.

It has been happening since the launch of ARR, when people quit in droves because Titan HM was too punishing in PUGs. So many of my friends struggled to get their wins, then said "no thanks" and walked away from XIV immediately after -- and they never came back.

Since then, I've seen the same thing happen repeatedly. People who don't have statics get frustrated with PUGs, give up and leave. People who want to make statics aren't able to, then they get frustrated and leave. Even I just recently tried to make a static so that I could try to make headway on Sephi Ex and Thordan Ex, but I just couldn't find those seven other people whose schedules matched my own... and while I haven't left, I've definitely pulled back from the game... because why keep wasting time?

Or course, I disagree. You're assuming that everyone who wants to raid will raid, which isn't true. Many people who want to raid end up either quitting, taking a break or just giving up because they're unable to participate in a fun or efficient manner.



Again, I don't know why you keep implying that anyone here shrugs off FFXI. Most of here loved FFXI, and some of us still play it!

I loved the team-based battles of FFXI. Can't say that enough. It's a shame that XIV's battles lean so heavily on jump-rope mechanics that really don't allow teams to come up with unique strategies. And yes, the current homogenization of the classes is definitely a big problem that affects that too.

Edited, Apr 28th 2016 10:00am by Thayos

I've got to say, Hio... it blows my mind that you keep repeating things like this even when several of us have told you, straight-up, that we WANT to spend time raiding. We just don't want to waste time raiding.

Really, it's on SE to either provide a fun, accessible endgame experience or be satisfied with only appealing to a very small sliver of the playerbase, which certainly results in the loss of subscriptions.

Also, Hio, you seem to criticize just about every single aspect of FFXIV except for its endgame structure -- with that, you seem totally content.

Just seems a bit weird.

There is one server that has a 10 percent A4S completion rate, and there's another handful with 5 percent completion rates, and then it drops to around 3 percent for the others.

I see 10 percent as an incredibly low completion rate for content that has been outdated now for several months. And if that's the best-case scenario, then I'd hold onto your $25 or however much it costs to change servers.