Dev Tracker - Discussion

I'd love a new Limbus, I had fun with that event.

I agree loved Abyssea back in day, even xping in there was fun. LS events half alliance would farm time,lights and boxes for ki's, other half would kill lesser pops for ki's for big bosses and when you have enough ki sets would pop them back to back and return back to farming.

Also i loved besieged wouldn't mind that with upgraded levelled monsters again.

I absolutely loved the magian trial weapons, (I still have like 40 completed in mog house. all magic staves all sm staves, pdt for my jobs str etc) waiting for day they decide to let the weapons become i119 versions.

Magian 119 would be very welcome.

The customization was fun and teaming up for grinds made friends.

Trial of the Magians was a good system.
Clunky, and more grindy than necessary, but good.
It was a way to have gear that could scale with us as level caps raised and power creeped. It was also good for making gear that the players felt more ownership of. Its what we needed when Adoulin thrust us kicking and screaming into ilvl content, but SE just dropped it like a hot rock and we never heard from it again.

I want more ToTM content too!

Mims is clearly being sarcastic but I'm starting to worry that some of these posters are being serious.

TotM > The random augment *** they do now

Damn right. I'd rather kill a ton of mobs for a known augment I want, vs killing mobs for a random set of augments.


The only bad part of the ToM was the initial kills needed for REM upgrades. 1500-2000 WSs on them per trial was ridiculous, for only a 2-3 damage upgrade.

Design-wise, it was a goldmine. It was grindy, but it was the perfect questline to keep players engaged for long periods of time. Didn't need silly daily objective gimmicks, just "kill 400 xyz". Or "kill this NM x times". They could have kept it going for years if they really wanted to, people would do anything for 1% increase. They could have even built quests into certain zones that never see much use (limbus, incursion etc), so you would have specific places and monsters to fight to complete goals together. It would have been an engaging way to revive older content.

SE figured it was too finite and decided that the Dark Matter hamster wheel and other augment systems were going to sink more of our time, and here we are

Or.. stay with me... they could just stick with Escha-Ru'Aun style.

I like what ToTM represented, a way to incrementally upgrade and customize gear over time.
The moogle interface was clunky, slow, and could use a way for one trial to have multiple requirements, but it was a step in the right direction.
1200 killing blows with Atonement on the other hand was and is a travesty that should never have gotten through to patch day.

The design space for trials is open enough that it doesn't have to be horribly grindy, that's just how SE has implemented it up to now.

Technically it was just weapons, we can't really count the Empy armor as "free customizable armour", can we?

Anyway I have mixed feelings about TotM, there's pros and cons and I think it's a double edged sword for both us and the devs.
A lot of those weapons required a huge and I mean huuuuge grind.
How does it feel when you spend months camping NMs, farming items, killing stuff and then a new weapon better than the one you spent so much effort on is released?
Yes, it feels bad, not all but most people get angry at that.
Which is why this makes Devs very cautious about releasing new, more powerful stuff. I.e. it becomes a self-imposed limit, for us and for them, double edged sword and so on.


I could be fine with this system if it offers many interesting (emphasis on INTERESTING) options and the amount of grind required isn't insane and it's about doing stuff in the world instead of just buying a plethora of stuff on the AH, which would be pretty dull and boring.
For this to succeed those weapons would have to either be niche or sorta utility stuff, that screams offhand? Doesn't go very well with 2H weapons I guess, but they could release TotM grips I guess haha.


So in the end I dunno, I liked the degree of "control" the system gave you, but the grind was excessive and it would feel even worse with nowadays' standards.
Would it be better than the random Reisen ***? For some things yes, for others no.
I find the Alluvion Skirmish system a better compromise, if you ask me.
Some randomness, some degree of control.
It was bad just for those stats which have a range that's too big (like acc/att)

The best "augment" system is the Ambuscade cape one btw, if you ask me :-P

I don't think we should look at the "grindy" aspect of TotM as a flaw. Possibly overdone with the current game community (as stated- 1500 kills for a 2-3 base dmg increase was ridiculous), but as a concept it was really solid.

I would critique that as a mage, I never want to go back to carrying 8-16 staves, and TotM originally tried to dethrone the lv51 elemental staves by adding Macc Staves, Affinity Staves, etc for each element...such an inventory bear. While many DD jobs had the benefit of testing to show a few best options for overall DPS, offensive mages often didn't have the option and needed to build a full arsenal of what should have been single "type" staves- a Macc staff, a Damage staff, possibly 2 variations on SMN staves (my apologies, I don't know the needs/wants of SMNs). Honestly, it took iLvl staves to get rid of that system.

My fear in implementing a new TotM type system would be generic paths across all jobs, the way that the Mythic and Aeonic weapons' RP system were approached.

I love what they did with the relic weapons conceptually. Various augments that would benefit each weapon uniquely for that job. Such as adding STP to the Annihilator to better compete with builds that a Fomalhaut can use. Or TA dmg+10% on Mandau, or extra Jump damage on Gungir. I'm not saying that these make them all the best- but they were individually looked at vs generic "+DMG,+10% WSD, +acc/macc" across everything.

I don't wish to see across the board generic augments. I want to keep seeing augments that show consideration for the strengths and needs of the jobs, and go after accentuating those strengths or addressing those weaknesses.

Plus- I just don't see any way to overthrow RMEAs any more. We screamed at the release of SoA when our babies were dethroned, so we're on this path by our own choice/actions. But there are other options for bringing back some of the JSE accessories seen in original Abyssea, then pair that with a choice among 3 aug paths. I'm thinking most of JSE waist and earring options.

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Unrelated, but something I want to see done. We're seeing the return of "classic" battlefields and enemies being raised to iLvl status, with the releases of Odin, Cait Sith, and Lilith. How about bringing back the Promathia battle and allow us to get upgrade items to take our lovely Rajas,Tamas, or Sattva rings with boosted stats to compete with other lv.99 rings?

Take that Rajas from 2~5 STR, 2~5 DEX, 5 subtle blow, 5 STP to say ~10 to the stats and make it subtle blow II with 7STP? Or with Tamas again take it to +10 stats and add "refresh+1"?

Yep, they ended up getting it mostly right there - aside from the inventory burden (like Cele also mentioned about magian staves).

I don't see why people are acting like S-E totally dropped Magian system though. They really just refined that idea and applied it to lots of other upgrade-able gear: reforged AF/Relic (and presumably UNM Wanted gear), Ambuscade armor and weapons, etc. It's still a grind, but gets rid of the worst two parts:
1) Clunky as hell moogle trading system
2) Having to equip the weapon you're upgrading while you fight (though in some sense, needing to get AF upgrade cards on that job is similar - and people whined like hell about that, so they think going back to forcing use of an underpowered magian item while you do the trial would be acceptable?)

If you ask me, Ambuscade got it the most "right". Escha Zi'tah and Ru'Aun were fine too. 4 augment paths, static augments, change between them easily.


Love it.

One of the things I'm surprised has yet to get a "reforged" version are the original Lv. 40 artifact weapons. I think it would be cool if SE gave people a chance to upgrade their Lv. 40 artifact weapons to 119 versions.

Honestly, these not being a material for oboro weapons is such a lost opportunity.

Probably because some of the weapon types didn't match up. Case in point, WAR's AF weapon was a 1h Axe but it's Oboro JSE weapon is a Great Axe.

Also DNC, their AF weapon is the War Hoop, a throwing weapon. Not a Knife/Dagger

hehe ever been to a blacksmith? Melt that crap down and turn 'em into a decorative handle for the better versions! ;)

Don't forget that SCH got a spell for their AF weapon quest.

Did remember about SCH's AF "weapon" being a spell, didn't mention it in my post.

Should have, though.

All 22 of my af weapons have been upgraded to free inventory slots and I'm quite happy with that.

I know what you mean is different but technically we already got a Promathia ilevel battlefield.

For Caith Sith, Alexander, Odin and Lilith we only had the regular, pre-ilevel version.



I remember when they promised us an updated version of the CoP ring! But I guess they scrapped the idea in the end.
With time we DID get better rings though.

Some of the ToM system was clunky, like all the kills needed for REMs originally. But those were eventually lowered. The rest really aren't that time consuming, 300-500 kills with various conditions, like day/weather, avatar kills, or kills when the mob had an element specific debuff on it. But overall, there seemed to be some decent planning put into it. Staves had an avatar path, M.Acc path, nuking path, and each of those had additional bonuses, like casting time -% or recast time -%. Then the melee weapons had their own niches. Like PDT, MEva, mob MEva Down, etc.

As stated though, REM upgrading had too much of a universal approach to it. Why would they make mage weapons 2x-3x melee damage or multi attack. What would have been better would be something like
Tups/Laev
AM1 - MAcc+
AM2 - MAB+
AM3 - Spell deals 2x-3x damage

Yag
AM1 - Cure Pot2
AM2 - Extra Cureskin
AM3 - Ailment Immunity(when removing an Ailment under AM3, the target/targets have a 25% chance to become immune to it for 2 mins.

Those are just random, job specific AMs that could have been great, if SE went that route.

yay I get to nitpik Sechs! ;)

Black and White anyone? ;)

<3 ya man.

I want a 18 man master trial for Bahamut they can tie the cop ring upgrade to that :)

I hereby remove my request for a HTBF Promathia in lieu of this.

TOTAL LOVE HERE.

Since we *have* had new fights against the Zilart bros, Promathia, Alexander, and Lilith... how 'bout this group of possible fights for mission rewards redux?

Lion: upgraded Apocalypse Nigh earrings
Prishe: upgraded CoP rings
Nashmeira: upgraded ToAU rings
Lilisette: upgraded WotG nation quest rings (Zodiac, Griffon, Excelsis). Those are not very relevant now as opposed to the WotG main reward (Moonshade Earring doesn't need an upgrade).
Arciela: upgraded Reive necks (Adoulin's Refuge, Ygnas's Resolve, Arciela's Grace), without Reive-only restrictions. Again, main quest line final reward already has +1 rings that are still relevant, but the necklace rewards are currently of minimal utility and could be revived.

FFXI girls >>>>> any dragon.

Dammit, why did I think of that. Now I really want.

bah, I'm done w/ the girls in fights. Gimme Dragons any day. Hell, I want a true Dragon Arena battle alliance style where you enter at 6, there's Nidhogg at 3, Tiamat at 9, and Bahamut right smack at the 12. Bahamut in an "out or range" flying position even from shooters/magic, just raining hell down on ya, and when Nidhogg/Tiamat drop, BOOM ya got Ouryu/Vrtra. Sorry Jormy, you gotta sit this one out. Once those 4 dropped, Bahamut descends.

Gimme that, and you can cease updates. I'd be happy.

T13 anyone??? (Ffxiv bahamut fight)