Dev Tracker - Discussion

In general that is, sadly, quite true.
Not sure if Ambu is the best example to demonstrate that though.
It's one of the few content where I still notice a certain degree of flexibility in the requirements people demand while assembling PUGs.

Some months more, some months less, depending on how "difficult" that month's Ambu is, but still, probably not the best example to show what you're talking about, which in general I absolutely agree with nonetheless.

I fully get what you're saying. But I truly feel sad for the folks who think they need +8 rolls or an iGEO just to beat VD Ambu in any existing month.

It's not that the need it. They don't even know what +8 cor means.

They're just parrots. They hear +8 cor, they repeat +8 cor with no actual context.

So play jobs you actually want to play instead of what is the ideal setup

It's actually quite amusing to join groups like this, then purposely leave these buff enhancing gear or other items in your mog house and see if the group even notices (9/10 they won't). Then blatantly troll by informing them gjallahorn wasn't equipped for any of the songs and you only lost fifty seconds on the clear time.

I very much enjoy lockstyling Idris/Rostam but casting in +0 or rolling in +0 in those shouts.

It's harder to sing +0 they have timers and notice 5 minute songs.

On most servers it's hard enough to find people that want to do ambu at any given time, then figure out jobs. Most people have passable cors and what not.

No one shouts for +8 Cors not even for sortie. Again is more a feature of plethora of options on some servers, combined with a poor understanding of buff requirements for the content being done.

Now they've listened again by adding an expansion to the Far Least!

and here I thought I was the only one who rolled in his FUA rostam to *** with people.

Periodic currency caps are a better way to handle that kind of player behavior, and Primes have that built-in with Psyches.

Even if you could farm 8.5 million muffins in one month, you aren't getting to stage 5 faster than anyone else, and you have to stay subbed to get Psyches.

It's not like Sortie adds gil or other resources to the game. The only reason for the daily limit is preventing the potato instance server from baking itself, and Asura players from whining about queues.

Not necessarily quitting the game, but quitting sortie. Once you got your 10 million muffins.

Everyone would pile in, finish their muffins and tank the metrics. Showing 20,000 daily entrances for a year is better than 200,000 for 2 months then 2000 for 10 months. (or everyone waits for their psychs then all flood into sortie later, either way, it front loads or backloads and looks bad)

And yeah, the part of stressing the servers into explosion should have been implied, poor hamsters.

v25 challenging or just stupid?

Pretending Landing triple 7s on a slot machine and then saying that it required skill is kind of laughable

I think removable of atk down and magic down auras along with job balance changes/ QOL changes would be nice but they already decided on making a game content scale that high with luck that 1% of the player base would ever want to do it, would be defined as terrible content, not challenging. How is entering a fight and just auto-losing a challenge?

If you have the jobs and strategy down so that you do everything in your control correctly every time, you'll beat it in a week or 2 of daily attempts, max.

If you have minimal coordination or a poor strategy and only perform at the level required to win 1/10 of the time, that will multiply with the luck rolls and you'll give up long before getting the clear.

I'm not saying it's peak design, but it's acting as a soft filter for consistant performance and dedication.

Exactly what Thorny said. It rewards consistency in being good during all attempts. Beside Bumba all other V25 has very little scenario of bad luck that you couldn't overcome with top performance.

Just put your dam Luzafs Ring on for the love of Altana

You'll never make me.

This is not true, and unrelated to what Nickeny was saying.

If you do everything correctly in Ongo, for example, and you get MACC down on second aura you are done for. This is a slot machine, unrelated to your skills.

There are skill-unrelated randomness associated with these fights that will considerably increase the difficulty.

Also, 2 weeks of daily attempt seems like a very exaggerated claim. It will take you a couple of tries to get a feel for the fight.

And then comes Bumba... I wanna see you beat bumba without getting the proper aura and a good Wild Card.

I think you missed the premise.

if there were no random auras, it would be too easy. "two weeks"

There needs to be random auras, so that it isn't too easy. Whether or not you like that. When there isn't some random *** you button it's just practice. Instead of practice and lucky. Without the random auras everyone (that wants to be) would be done already.

I think Thorny and Simon are taking into account exactly that when they talk about "consistant performance and dedication".

The auras are one thing, they will certainly make or break runs if you get a bad aura, but I've had far more runs be problematic due to mobs spamming certain TP moves below 20%. I never got around to confirming it, but I can't help but feel like they get some kind of regain effect below certain %s, because it really seems like the pace of TP moves increases near the end, even if we largely keep the same pace of damage and TP feed.

Kalunga with Lahar, for instance. At least a half dozen times, probably more, we'd get below 20% with 6+ minutes remaining, then he'd just spam Lahar repeatedly and weaken the entire party for the remaining duration of the fight causing us to time out. No manner of TP denial or Subtle Blow seemed to cut down on it. If you combine that with the regen effects near the end, it goes south quickly to the point you can't recover. We tried a lot of different things to mitigate this (different bubbles, buffs, etc), but kept having to redo the fight because this happened with such frequency. Auras were barely an issue unless we got attack or defense down, but the Lahar spam killed way more attempts and there was nothing that we found we could do about it except try to do enough damage while weakened.

Ngai has a similar issue. If he spams puncture, he'll end up hate resetting off the entire party and running around the map. You can mitigate this by having everyone draw in near the end under the bubbles, but then they are exposed to the rest of his AoE damage and you have to deal with peoples HP dropping due to puncture damage. I also know Tidal Guillotine is supposed to only KO you if it does more than 50% damage, but I don't think that is correct, because I've been on MNK in full Nyame with Mantra up and full HP, having it drop me to zero. I've seen the same happen to others, also, so I can't help but think there is another element there. If he decides to spam either of these, then there is little you can do to mitigate it especially near the end, it's just gonna end up killing someone eventually.

So while consistency is key and eventually you'll win, I think the auras are only one part of what you have to deal with. It's less frustrating getting a bad aura than it is having two good ones, only to be kept weakened for 5 minutes straight or getting KOd randomly. I also think if the auras were the only random element holding people back, then we'd see more clears a lot sooner, there is just more to it than the auras alone.

Personally I have very mixed feelings about Odyssey.

On one hand I really despise the incredibly large amount of artificial constraints they created to make content "harder" (especially the no subjob part really irks me, in game that always had the choice of MJ/SJ as its fundamental core element).
The completely random auras fall in this category and create a random aspect that's appearently very liked in japanese culture, I can't stand it.

On the other hand though it's undeniable how having a more controlled environment (through constraints) truly helps the devs creating a smaller number of possible scenarios, and that should at least in theory lead to more creative and "balanced" fights.

So yeah, mixed feelings on my end.
My one and only concern is that content this though should slowly be made slightly easier through several means to invite people who didn't bother with it yet tackling the content, or to help returning players catch up.
Not immediately, not soon after, but some time after the release, it's what I think they should really do.
I'm still hoping they will, within the next 6 months. I truly, honestly think it would be good for the community.

I agree. I won't say I disliked it. Bumba V25 was definitely a let down for me because it was too random, unrelated to the group's skills.


Very true, I remember Kalunga landing 30 sec weakness back to back at certain times while the two adds spin around murdering everyone. Was it the whm's fault? Was it the tank's fault? Can it be prevented through skills and strategy? no.

A 33% chance of getting a “haha *** you you lose no matter what gear or strat you use” is a shitty mechanic to implement.

If it was just random and unrelated to the groups skills, then groups would do the 10 or so attempts to win. It's not like you need to repeat it forever, you just need to win once.

If you don't have the strategy ironed out, a consistant group with the jobs to do it, and at least 20 losses under those conditions then complaining about the random element feels like cope to me.

You don't need to spam the boss forever, though. You only need to win once. If you are good enough to win without the RNG, then you only need 10 or so runs to get good RNG and confirm the win. Then you're done.

The people complaining about the random element are obviously not good enough to win even if they had the correct rolls, or they would've done the handful of runs and gotten the win.

If it were a NM with a 10% droprate on a great item, and you could kill the NM, you'd just keep killing it and not cry about the droprate too much. But, in this case, it's a 10% 'droprate' on proper RNG rolls and the entire party gets a massive reward for that win. Obviously people who are capable of doing it would be doing it.

There is really only few Auras on selected A3V25 that can really break a run. You can overcome most of what you think are run breakers with perfect execution.

EDIT: Our static got few clears with pretty bad auras eventually and our execution wasn't even close to perfect.

Like you said though: “win once”

No ones doing R25 cause of the garbage “you lose” mechanic. Its more efficient to use R20.

You mean V25 and V20? Im confused.