Dev Tracker - Discussion

Lol, that reminds me. I used to feel bad to miss days during Dark Matter campaigns. Now I can go full months and not really care, although I do still need some Phalanx+5 pieces, but I don't feel bad that I missed out. And yes, as you said, there is a positive to campaigns. Mostly for returning players to get caught up by taking full advantage.

Youre still not connecting the two

You said something akin to “you dont have to do sortie and ody every day, youre not forced, skip a day and go touch grass”. You then said that you rarely do Dyna-D outside of statue crusher, and you feel forced to do it when the campaign is up.

I dont have the numbers, but im pretty sure a full clear of Wave 1 and 2 is like 50-60 of each card if i remember correctly. An extra 900k per char is the motivating factor from “i dont need to do DynaD” and “i have to do DynaD while statue crusher is up”.


Its perfectly ok to skip Ody/Sortie, cant miss any DynaD during stat crusher, gotta take advantage of that campaign.
You see the connection now?

The real answer is skip all of it, it's hockey season now

Sortie is the worest content ever and designed for no lifers.

The rewards are locked behind RNG(Ear+2) or Time Gate, the Prime weapons are average, and few are good not best, Horn is exception which is not considered a Weapon anyway.

Bro ur wrong the shield is a game changer for paladin

If it's locked behind RNG, just level it up. It's a really fun job.

He said its locked behing the ear+2 of RNG, so, given the common sense the +2 only drop for jobs you dont play, its actually the opposite: you shouldnt touch the job to increase the odds of RNG ear+2 to drop.

But RNG can proc Recycle on a drop chance, so it rolls few times until it's really used and that increases the chance for something good no? Can't you also reroll stats on earrings with RNG, by shooting them away with Decazoom_Mk-XI in Aminon's room and using Scavenge to get them back?

Kinda, although my message was about players feeling more inclined to do content during campaigns. I don't set up dyna d events for every single crusher campaign. I don't feel bad if I skip a month. But if I am going to set up Dyna, it is far more likely when a campaign is up.

I don't understand why this is being connected to what I said about those obsessing over entering sortie every single day. I commented about how some are stupidly addicted to the game that they absolutely must do sortie every day or it is bad. I don't give a crap if I miss dyna d during statue crusher. Or if I don't do voidwatch, or HTBs, or whatever else during those campaigns.

But am I far more likely to do that content during those campaigns? Definitely. And that's what was being discussed. The lack of motivation to do content outside of campaigns and how sometimes leaders will favour events for some months over others, which leans players to doing certain content over another.

That has its good points, but it also has the negative of leaders feeling more restricted on the events they set up. They want to do what is more rewarding for the group at the time. If all campaigns were up all the time, you'd just do whatever and prosper. It's definitely not the game controlling what players do, but you can feel inefficient for not taking advantage of a campaign when possible. Dyna-d was just an example. I could have said the same thing about almost any other group content with a campaign.

I feel shitty going to this length to explain this. When I said forced, I didn't mean it as literally as it may have come across. I am done with this back and forth anyway. I am sure it is helping nobody.

"Game changer"? What content can be done with it that cannot be done without it?

Oh yeah, nothing. Not a game changer.

Lol if you want to use an egg timer for UO instead of enjoying playing it then you deserve your own disappointment. There was so much to do in that game and skilling up wasn't hard. Touch digital grass? Is that where we've gotten?

Oh the shields great, you just get the bulk of its value at s2, so 20k and youre done, best prime 10/10

I think the only item you could possibly consider "game changing" is maybe Aegis? Which item is absolutely essential to be able to beat, say, any V25 Ody boss, or any basement boss?

Please try to list all the single items that you absolutely cannot beat content without. I'll wait.

People constantly parrot this *** attitude towards prime weapons that they're not job-changing and don't allow you to beat content you couldn't previously beat before you got them, but never for a second apply that logic to the rest of the items in the game. It would be impossible to be excited about getting any piece of gear if the bar against which you measure your excitement is "now what content will I be able to clear SPECIFICALLY because I got this single piece of gear?" or "how differently will I play my job after I get this item?"

There's a distinct difference between, exited for, and underwhelmed by

Primes are the latter. There's a lot of shinies that you're happy to get, a prime really ain't one of em.

They're not bad, they're just not that good. Weapons. Specifically.

(I know, you think "this weapon" is the greatest thing ever created and you Stan for it until your fingers bleed, I don't care)

The DPS and skillchain opportunities granted by primes are substantial, they are as 'exciting' as most other RMEA were at time of release in my opinion. Obviously, there are a few things that have been more exciting(daurdabla, idris, early era aegis/ochain, etc..) but I don't think primes are underwhelming because of the stats they provide.

The issue isn't the value of the reward, it's that you have nothing to use it on because by the time you get one you've pretty much finished all other content in the game. Of course, if you're one of the addicts, it doesn't matter much because you'll still grind Sortie until the end of time.

Lack of a good use, is tantamount to useless.

Beating the same content 20 seconds faster is deh awesomesauce.

Maybe so, but if you acknowledge there will eventually be a 'last' major event, and Sortie is that last major event, there really isn't much you can do about that. If the issue is lack of additional content to use it on, there isn't a reward that they can make that would get people thoroughly excited.

I apply it to everything the same.

I'll even lower the criteria for "game changing" - are there any fights that with the shield PLD is now better for that RUN was better for than a PLD without the shield? Still a bit fat nope.

The disappointing thing about primes IMO is that for both Empyreans and Primes the best weapons are Gsword and GKT and dagger... *** unfairness. Prime Gaxe and Polearm should have been the best ones. Even would have been good if was the sword and I don't really care about any sword jobs.

This is why the logic is stupid, though. Apply the same thing to any other item in the game:

Are there fights where the fact that you have a Caladbolg means DRK is better than WAR?
Are there fights where the fact that you have a Ukon makes the difference between WAR being better than SAM?

The question is just fundamentally flawed. It's the wrong bar for items and makes no sense.

Every prime weapon occupies at least *some* space for *some* job as the best weapon they can use.

Why would you get upset that the item which is the absolute best item your job can possibly hold isn't changing the meta? It's not about changing the meta, allowing new strategies, or allowing you to clear content you couldn't clear before. It's about improving your character's performance.

Rostam is best-in-slot for rolling, everyone pays shitloads of gil to get one. Is it because without that 4% attack or 2 STP they couldn't clear the content? No; it's because it's the best at what it does. If you want the best rolls, you get a Rostam. You don't get upset when it doesn't revolutionize the job.

Suddenly when prime weapons come out everyone throws up their arms in disgust at the fact that getting 1 new item doesn't entirely flip the meta on its head and allow you to clear some content you couldn't clear before.

It's pants-on-head logic that makes no sense. As Thorny said, the only content that hadn't been cleared before were a couple master trials. How in the world was any item, regardless of its attributes, supposed to pass that test?

Primes are by and large the best in their weapon category in terms of dmg, exception being sword cause SB which also overshadiws some of the other 1 handers cause naeglings job pool

My list for "can't complete high end content" is every single piece of REMA, Ody and Empy armor.

The gear progression is pretty clear, IMO. Primes are toys, since there is no content created after them.

Yes, I am sure everyone will do the new master trials. Sometime in the next 40 years.

Everything that has a beginning has an ending. A last tier etc.

The last ultimate weapons should be super fantastic blow your socks off FUmazing.

But they're just generic *** weapons. Underwhelmed.

(I know, they can't be fumazing, cause everyone will throw a hissy about their other weapons and/or barancu)

-A guy who's never held a prime weapon.

In a one-player game, sure. If you make the rest of the game too easy in a MMO, you just give RMT an incentive to farm a prime or 2 and use them to carry other content. This makes the game as a whole worse, not better. So, there is a clear ceiling to how good they can make the weapons without ruining the balance in Sortie, Odyssey, and MTs[not that people even do MTs].

A good comparison would be the early delve era, when the majority of players wouldn't even try Tojil without already having an Oatixur MNK. It creates a poor balance of power and encourages carry culture.

Afraid I'm going to have to give you an F- on your reading comprehension test. I asked for a list of *single items* without which you couldn't complete endgame content. Pick any fight in FFXI and tell me which single item is required in order to beat that fight. You can do this as many times as you're able, to create a list, if possible.

I was going to say Apoc/Foenaria could enable certain things with their HP/MP draining, but that's not really true for anything difficult. We used to do Aminon with DRK but you can just cast Aspir, use medicine, or kill it slightly slower; or, it turns out, kill it with DNC which is even faster.

Really struggling to come up with any content that requires a specific item to be able to beat it. Even the BRD instruments and Carn aren't really required IMO. Certainly very helpful and beating the content without them would be more difficult, but definitely not groundbreaking. If they never released Daurdabla, people would still beat Kalunga without it. Then if they released Daurdabla people would be moaning about how there isn't any content that requires Daurdabla to win and it's just a stupid toy...

Ya know the big selling point

There was no such thing as occ triple damage pre relics, exciting
Very few instances of OAX pre mythics, exciting
Never used tp bonus mainhand (hagun) before aeonics, exciting
They added PDL and stacked the ***out of it before primes came out (and WSD was already prevalent to the extreme)

Killed the vibe they wouldve had

Would've been a perfect opportunity to throw in 'Break Damage Limit' or whatever, nice callback to other FFs. But, even if they considered it, I'd guess they're too scared to alter the damage code to that extent.

1 dmg lockstyle daggers enable RDM w/ shadows to solo some fights. :p

Single items. Fine.

Idris. Pick any fight with Geo in Ody/Sortie, idris is required.

"Couldn't complete" and "this is the minimum requirement to make it feasible/let us do it competently" are not the same.

Doesn't matter though, apply this stupid logic to them. Which content couldn't be beaten without a mythic weapon in 2010? Which content couldn't be cleared without a relic weapon in 2006? Which content couldn't be cleared without an aeonic weapon in 2017?