Dev Tracker - Discussion

Fangs of the Father and Shadowmourne. I also completed Warglaives but that's not really a "I did stuff" weapon(s) as much as it is waiting for the drop, so I don't really count those as far as effort. I never found the former 2 to be a lot of work but mileage may vary.

The point isn't about how many people you need, etc. It was about time you spend. FFXI is now all about doing most things solo. Compare original mythics with legendaries and it's even worse. It also depends on who you talk to. Someone who is actually there at their computer doing all this or someone who hits a start button and comes back to reap the rewards.

But the bottom line isn't about the comparisons. It's about how some gamers have shifted over from games that require effort to more "instant gratification" games. It sounds bad when you say it out loud and it's not really a "bad" thing. It makes more time sense for some of us older gamers. Some of us have families (that we do not alienate***) and just don't have the free time we used to.

*** Anecdote alert: Another guy I know (talk to once in a great while) is one of "those guys" who loves to say things like "lol wtf I have a job, wife and kids but I still manage to find time to do all those raids, why can't you?!" but fails to mention that his wife left him, took the kids who he rarely sees and his job is raking leaves part time in the fall while living with his parents.

Both Fangs and Shadowmourne are pretty "easy" I would say.
Similar but personally I would call them easier than FFXI and FFXIV rare weapons.
But, just like you said, your mileage may vary etc, that's just my take.

Azzinoth's dual blades don't count c'mon :-P
Now take for example Ulduar's legendary club or Atiesh from classic, both are similar in completition and... well, they're the perfect example of what I meant earlier.



And yeah I perfectly understand what you mean with the rest of your post.

I know they don't, that's why I said I don't count them as far as "effort" is concerned. But you asked what legendaries I had.

Effort aside, the one thing that did bother me about WoW legendaries (at the time) was that it was such a select small group who would actually get them. Not everyone had the same chance. I was just lucky but for some, it was a "who you know". REMA in this game, that's not the case, even for aeonic.

Iflt was the case for aeonic imho, at start. But things slowly changed and nowadays lolaeonic, right?

But yeah for a few months, even more, they had a pretty legendary status. At least on Asura but I assume on every server?

This is pretty much it, yeah. In XIV there are both relics, which are slightly behind the curve glamour weapons (until the end of the content cycle) that you can build up over time in grindy but PUGable and low-skill content. Takes awhile, but anyone can do it. Then there's the status symbol weapons (Think Master Trial weapons in XI) that are just glamour/lockstyle but you have to do a fight that most players will simply not have the time or coordination to do.

I think XI kind of has that division too, with older REMA being very grindy and soloable but Aeonics needing a team and coordination (or just merc it, I suppose). The difference is in the type of grind you do for the long-form grindy ones, I think. It's a lot of gil in XI to get most REMA if you don't want to go insane, and for newer players especially that gil could go to diversify their power in many more slots and for many more jobs than one REMA on one job would give them. In XIV every relic is in a self-contained grind loop that you can't really buy your way past. The grind loops are shorter to compensate for that, but you also can't be on the outside looking in to use those grind loops as a way to make gil off of other people. The weapons are also disposable glamour/lockstyle pieces after the expansion rolls over, which would also be a big difference that probably contributes to the lower total grind.

Aren't Odyssey R25 both? First you need to clear V20, which for many is fast coordinated fight, then you need to grind RP for ranks, which you can even do solo.

Could argue that, but it's kind of a unique case, and I still don't really think the way most people farm RP should be considered intended. It's barely above an exploit, just so few players who can consistantly beat boss that SE had to give handouts.

And wardrobes are not even particularly relevant for multiboxers with a lot of accounts, as even among the population of people who do have multiple accounts, it's highly unlikely that ALL of those accounts are seriously strapped for inventory and would need more wardrobes. It's very common that the multiboxed alts only have a few jobs geared, so much lower chance they have massive inventory issues.

I have two accounts:
1) Main with 15 very well geared jobs, so yeah, inventory is a struggle and more storage is almost a practical necessity at this point.

2) Alt has 8 also very well geared jobs (we're talking full sets of all relevant JSE armors, Su3, Abjurations, Ambu, Ody, etc...) and, while inventory is relatively full, doesn't really need more wardrobes. I can't imagine most people multiboxing even have that much stuff on their non-primary characters.

So, for the people with a bunch of multiboxed accounts, it's pretty likely they would maybe need more paid wardrobes on a single account but not the rest - which will actually cost them LESS money than something as simple as a $1/month increase in subscription fees that have been static for years.

This is the saddest part and one that really grinds the hardcore players gears. When I got back after my long summer break, I found that this has become the norm for almost every OdeC Goal run I joined, cheese 3 bosses with damage % consecutively and earn almost full RP. I want to highlight that this sort of manner to earn gear upgrades is unprecedented, and I would agree that it was most likely catered for the mass players who would have difficulty completing content consistently and efficiently, absolutely disgusting and low standards by whoever made that decision from the management. It even became so boring for me idling 15 minutes for each 3 rounds that I was on the brink of quitting. I consulted with my group of friends who I am currently farming V20 clears with, what they intend to do once the Bumba V20 clear flag is attained for example, and they certainly said damage % method and gg, no full clear.

I'm still hoping for a full roll back and/or mass ban for that "exploit"

I need that ***to happen.

I don't really expect it to happen, but I would thoroughly enjoy it.

Won't happen. Hell, the Japanese openly use pre-buffing with Entrust as a normal strategy...

Obviously. I'm constantly let down by inaction, but a man can fantasize.

Prebuffing with entrusts is not nearly the same. It's just a function of how the battlefield operates. It also doesn't wipe TP on entry, which some fights in FFXI don't do either. I'm sure entrust prebuffing works in other places nobody tried, but I doubt it's viewed as anywhere near an exploit on the level of RP farming damage%.

The reality is, SE botched the hell out of Odyssey RPing in Gaol and it blew up in their face. They wanted to make RPing easier, because they knew how much of a grind it would be (and it would suck really badly attempting fights and not being rewarded for it), so they thought people would try really hard, and be rewarded for their effort with less RP than max. What they got was the bare minimum effort by players for near max reward. And the people they wanted to help the most are still running around with R0 Nyame and have no interest in augmenting the gear to begin with.

Honestly RPing isn't the issue most of the time, it's getting the requisite clears. Not sure how many can be merced but I remember seeing someone trying to sell them for over 100M each.

The clear were meant to be incremental if you can't get them. You don't have to jump right to V15/20, especially if you're not geared for it. That's part of the problem. Players aren't doing the content at the level they can clear. They're just not doing it at all.

SE designed Gaol where lower tier players should fight up to the highest Veng difficulty they can clear, buy the gear and then earn RP through that to power their gear up. Then, when enough of the group gets higher level augments, attempt higher difficulties for higher rewards. It is another iteration of original Delve plasm farming and buying gear to venture deeper into fracture. Great concept, but currently, next to nobody bothers doing it this way. So now you have players who throw their hands up in defeat and just look at the gear and say its "good enough". You almost never see lower tier players shout for "V9 RP farm" or whatever, because they aren't going to bother grinding the content at all. So the mechanic everyone is currently abusing with RP/fail doesn't even benefit the target group SE probably intended it for.

I know tons of people with 400k+ segments with just V0 clears and are perfectly happy.

Few people have the ability to do higher tiers but some just do not want to fail over and over till they get it right unless someone is carrying them.

if ffxi was free to play everyone would 6 or 18 box and the community would be even deader than it is now.

Most players I know don't have more than minimal augments on Odyssey gear, and that includes those who have been strong players who have always been actively engaged in endgame content, getting clears, getting gear. A static with some of the best players I know is still stuck trying to clear Ongo on v10, for example.

The overly strict job requirements hurt the ability to make a static and be able to carry a player or two with less than optimal jobs or skill. I've been playing with a couple of recently returned players who are very competent and getting back up to speed quite fast, but if you have taken significant breaks over the past year+, you're way behind on Ody. If you only have a couple jobs geared well for current endgame, you're a liability for a group.

It also more or less requires a dedicated static that only allows for 6 people. Not much flexibility if you have a LS with, say, 9-10 strong regulars.

The segment requirements are a blocker for some people with less time to farm segments - and it's demoralizing for those people to lose a fight a couple times and lose segments.

Aside from Nyame, the gear sets also don't have THAT much of a boost from augments to make people want to suffer through the grind. This is, IMO, somewhat of a good thing - I'm glad we have real improvements for many jobs and the sets are still good at R0. But it's also less of an incentive for people to go for augments.

This isn't a post where I care about any responses explaining how people can git gud and get the clears/RP. I understand how, that's not the point. It's a reflection of what I actually see happening (minimal enthusiasm to grind Odyssey segments/clears/RP), and the people who aren't interested are not reading this so they don't care what you have to say.

The flaws are more fundamental design issues than they are things that can be patched by tossing easier RP at players who can already get consistent V15 wins. Those people are the massive minority from the overall population, despite what you might think if you only consider regular posters on this forum.

People don't realize how lucky they are to have a group able to meet the crazy flexibility and skill level to do V15-20 let alone able to do 3x amp kills.

This is an unfortunate truth. It's also not only if 1 person has a couple jobs, its if everyone has the right mix as well. I myself and another person in our static geared out a whole job just for Odyssey. I don't think someone should have to do that but at this point, what choice do some have?

odyssey also followed a era of quite a lot of bandwagoning that caused a lot of ppls available jobs to overlap.

The irony here is... https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/58187-Sheol-Gaol-rewarding-too-many-RP-for-failed-runs-when-using-Mog-Amplifier

They've acknowledged it, now 10 months later, the most end-game content is still botched, cos who gives a ***right lol?

It's hilarious because it looks like they don't know whether they should treat it as an exploit or a bug, or if they can't be assed fixing it, or they're turning a blind eye to it, incompetency at it's best, and yes we the player base are gladly putting up with that.

I completely get that the entry bar to Odyssey, especially this late in the game, is inappropriately high, in particular on the smaller servers. Trying to find 6 people who are playing at the same time, all with the same goals in mind for that playtime, is hard enough- let alone finding a proper job mix for handling the various setups needed in Gaol....let alone trying to attempt x3 fights.

But at the same time- what else are we doing? At best, 3 year old content? If I need to CP/gear up a new job for my Odyssey flexibility, I'm certainly not doing anything else these days other than building trophy/funsies ***, if we're completely honest- not things necessary to complete content.

I understand this creates two worlds within an already small game. But we've often complained in the most recent times about how there's no "skill" left in the game- its just Savage All The Things or Astral Flow, etc. So in the end, the only way to please the majority of players was what we're left with. Something that in base "unlock" form is still interesting/good gear, but in augmented form is borderline-gamebreaking at times.

I'd also re-iterate a comment made earlier- the playerbase isn't approaching this content in a way to slowing build up gear advantages with unlocking a V5 <insert A3 or Bumba>, RP'ing to get it stronger, and move forward. Its turned into get someone in your static a v15 unlock, and then beat your head against that until you win/get lucky. And that is of course going to lead to frustration with the content and burnout.

In that case, the problem is finding 5 other people in the exact situation you're in, with the exact level of progression so that nobody needs to double back and waste segments, but also with the ability to do it and the willingness to commit to segment farming every day so you can afford to slowly progress with learning-wipes.

Either this is something you're willing to make a commitment to or it isn't, and if it is, you most likely did it 8 months ago. Given the way unlocks are set up you'd have to be crazy to want to start from scratch now when you could just get the V15 clear for the precise bosses you want and exploit the RP bug from there.

Agreed totally. I'd go as far as to say regular segment farm statics are lucky for most, also. They are more common by far than groups running v15+ Gaol, but I think a lot of people don't see the desperation for segments that happens for people that do not have consistent groups. It doesn't help that most PUG C farms have absurd requirements and only want a handful of jobs.

IMO this is the harder part of getting into Odyssey content. I think you'd see people grinding the lower v-levels if it wasn't so difficult and tedious to obtain entry without a steady group.

All that said, I actually appreciate the job combinations required in Gaol. I don't mind gearing up another job to do content, but I can't stand the fact that farming in Sheol A/B/C is so grindy and slow. I really wish they'd just give us a rotating MPII every 72hrs or something, I think it would encourage more experimentation and participation, instead those without groups are locked out because the community driven meta for C farms is so restrictive and the cost of failure is too high. It wouldn't surprise me to find there are other strats for some of the fights, but no one finds them because failing and losing a bunch of segments is too costly.

I say this as someone who has a (mostly steady) C static, I still remember how desperate I was to get segments before we started though.

ppl aren't experiment happy doing different HTMB strats, hell they aren't even with ambuscade where you can reenter as many times as you like when you fail.
1 MPII every 3 days isn't going to change ppls distaste for experments in odyssey in the slightest.

i don't blame solo farmers not beeing up for experments tho if it takes the average soloer like what? 3-4 days for 1 MPII?

not to mention going for segments (or MM in order to have easier time solo segmenting later on) also means passing on gil opportunities.

Grinding Segments was even worse before! Now it's tolerable, but it's still grindy as *** and requires you to waste 30 mins every day because you can't even do it at your leisure, like concentrate your segments efforts with 3-4 runs in a day and do Gaol the other days when you have time.

I've said it countless times, but that's the key issue that resonates with other choices that probably wouldn't be problems alone but become such with their conjunction with segments farming.


What's more irritating is the lack of communication. Granted FFXI has more or less always been like this so it's not like we can suddenly complain because of a change.
Some of the choices behind Odyssey might have a perfectly understandable sense, one you might not agree with, but at least you would understand their reasoning.
As it stands now for many game design choices we're left to wonder if:

1) Is it a matter of them not caring?
2) Is it a matter of things being this way because of a specific reason/game design direction?
3) Is it a matter of them being so out of tune they're not even aware of the situation?


It really irks me. If Matsui were to tell me "we planned it this way because X or Y" maybe I would understand their choices, even if probably disagreeing with them.

Anyway, said this 2000 times already but I already have a list of pretty small changes to Odyssey as a whole that they could easily deploy (we're talking like a couple of hours of work) making the event more accomodating to all sort of audiences without removing the challenge aspects for those few of us (myself included, thankfully enough) who have a group to tackle the hardest part before anybody else.


1) Make Moglophone Stackable, like Omen
This would allow people to plan more properly, reducing stress, burnout and increasing their average income of segments.

2) Make Sheol A and B more relevant for Segments
It's cool to have them as easier options that give less segments, but the difference is so large atm that's not realistic to consider them options, especially A. How to fix it? Increase the bonus at the end for B and even more for A.
This would also have the positive side effect of slightly increasing the price of Wings and slightly reducing the price of Hides and Scales.

3) Allow other methods to gain segments
Trade Wings, Hides or Scales to the Mog to gain Segments. With a weekly cap, not sure what a good amount would be, probably no more than 5k per week.
This would furtherly reduce the stress and burnout to maximize that segments income, without completely removing the necessity to actually enter Sheol A/B/C to a certain extent (which I imagine was their initial goal)
This would also have the positive side effect of making Wings slightly more relevant. Atm they're pretty much useless, alas.



I have other ideas in mind, but with these 3 points deployed I don't think they would be necessary.
This would create a scenario where Segments flow more into your wallet, making you more willing to spend it. This would also have the positive effect of making people more willing to help others.
Like for instance many times I've been asked to help friends get some V0 clears and I've been very reluctant because Segments is so scarce I don't really want to "waste" it to do something I don't need.
This also applies to farming RP on a boss I don't need. Why should I waste my precious segments to kill this NM when I need absolutely zero RP from it?
Etc etc.

they forced the job diversity for mogwardrobe reasons although if you asked them they'd probably say the community has been asking for more job varity (which is true even tho odyssey probably wasn't what those asking for it had in mind).

the reason they made solo segment farmers at that much of a disadvantage compared to group farmers is probably the same they did for ambuscades gallantry penalty if you go lowman/solo. they think it's incentive for group play and at the same time lowers queue times, but as ambuscade has already shown, despite how painfull the penalties are, alot of folks still prefer to go solo.

I think they should leave Segments as they are in A & B and instead increase the Gil payout in A & B with A being increased more than B. This makes A a more Gil focused run, B a more balanced Seg/Gil run, and C the Segment focused run.

The easier Gil run helps newer players in various other ways (purchase REMA mats, AH gear, duskdim, snowtip, hide, scale, etc).

This would at least add incentive for A & B which serves a purpose of adding availability of those UNM upgrade materials.

If they wanted, they could even decrease Gil earned on a C run if they thought it would help keep a balance of Gil brought into the economy.