Dev Tracker - Discussion

I think it is a near certain bet that they will do it again in May this year, it brought more players back to the game (read: revenue for SE) than anything in over 10 years. There is no way they won't do it again.

Did it last though? Iirc they did it during free login, how many resubbed, and for how long?

Following this free log-in campaign, we're sitting at a 109k active count, which is really good for a post-campaign period. Like 2nd best, only to the Bonanza campaign, in over a decade iirc.

And the Bonanza population boost was months ago. Keep in mind, there were a number of reasons for this population growth, between a down-tick in FFXIV quality, the Raid series introducing people to FFXI, and the Limbus hype around the same time as the Bonanza giveaway.

I don't have any hard data or numbers. But one of their main tricks SE uses to get people to resub is when a returner realizes all of his gear is locked behind wardrobes during a "Free Play" campaign. Dangling a bonanza weapon that the user can play around with for a few weeks is fun up to a point, but its basically bait to convince them to unlock their wardrobes (invalidating their free login and resubbing in the process). So in the end, far more people resub to the game when they do freebies like bonanza weapons or whatever, even if just for a month, because they can't really enjoy the game like they used to without access to their locked gear. I think it has a huge effect on player numbers, even if temporary.

I'm even more certain they would redo the bonanza weapon freebie this time around, because they can advertise all the new content updates they've pushed out since last year, which is a lot.

Can confirm, I redownloaded the game for free login and ended up resubbing because it was impossible to play without wardrobes.

Doubt I will continue past this month because the new Limbus is, without a doubt, the most dogshit lazy content SE has put out in years.

I'll probably spend the rest of my sub organising my wardrobes so that I can play all my main jobs with just the free ones next free login.

As a show of good faith towards all the customers that have remained faithful, SE should just make all 8 Mog Wardrobes part of the normal game.

As a show of good faith SE should recode the way inventory loading works so I don't have to spend 30 minutes downloading my inventory when I zone.

Better yet, replace wardrobe 1 with job specific wardrobes.

22 storages worth of space, but the game only has to load ONE, for whatever job you're currently on. Stick your all jobs or shared gear in 2-8.

I'll do one better. Just change the order that inventories load in so you don't always load Safe 1 (inaccessible) before Wardrobe 1 in every zone.

When you have rare tagged gear in any of your inventory and another in say, your delivery box, moogle slip, or an event storage npc, you can't pull the gear off those.
In this case, if you had rare tagged jse in this theoretical job storage while on another job and got a second copy in your inventory, I assume the game would simply stop you from being able to change to that job until you dropped the second piece of rare tagged gear?

You could solve it in two ways:
1. Only let JSE gear be placed in it.
2. Treat it as a normal inventory for the purpose of Rare, so rare gear can only exist in one of your inventories (including JSE wardrobes.)

2 is better value for players, but more confusing to use for the uninitiated. I would probably go with option 1. It saves maybe 15 slots per job, but there is no longer as much of a penalty for playing a lot of different jobs.

Yeah, would probably have to limit it to mono job JSE or people would be augmenting multiple sets of Nyame.

Alternatively, could limit it to existing storable JSE only, where you load gear into it like a storage slip but those items remain usable like a wardrobe. There's no issue with a player having multiples of those items.

That would be less useful since you couldn't stick ambu capes, most REMA(anything R15 should be storable, dammit), or things like Divergence Augment gear in, but it would still be a massive inventory improvement over what we have now.

Remember those old armor storage NPCs we had before storage slips? They gave you a KI that said you were storing a whole set? Wouldn't it be neat if they brought those back for JSE and the KI also gave you some kind of low-grade, always-active, cheer-like effect when you were on that job? Clean up your inv and get buffed doing it? Cause the math nerds to have something new to argue about? Sign me up!

Could give folks a reason to re-do them and keep +1, +2, +3 sets in storage while keeping the important +4 pieces out for macros.

Or hell, doesn't have to be based on a whole set. Call it "job equipment mastery" and for each piece of JSE stored, you gain a level of buff stored on a KI. Lots of creative ways to solve this issue.

This is a *wonderful* idea. Even something minor like, dunno, 2% permanent Double Attack boost by having 5/5 war af stored, 2% permanent Crit Rate boost by having war 5/5 relic stored, 1% change at double melee damage by having 5/5 empy war stored, would make this incredibly nice. Also a lot of money, which would make everyone complain :-P

Hot damn, Abyssea trophies are back on the menu, boys. 500 points each, so you can buy five per character. Rev up those alts and *** skip Chloris!

http://www.playonline.com/ff11us/campaign/login/login151.html

Something that actually matters

Empyrean drops

3rd time in history, SE needed those alts reactivated

I guess I'm going to throw my credit card down in attack mode this month with my army of alts, since Abyssea drops are too good to turn down.

And they nerfed the getting 500 on first log in so no more deleting mules after getting item to get extra points, just nice easy log in every day profit.

yeah, but at 500 points you get 80

Deleting and restarting every 5th day the old way resulted in less total. (and it was a bigger pain in the ***)

Ya im not complaining. When they did the change one of my thoughts was maybe we get empy drops again now that we can't game the system. The surprise is they lowered the cost so we get even more than we did before while being far less anoying.

What I hear you saying is that they've earned our money for alts and I reluctantly have to agree.

Hey now, don't forget Glavoid! This is the motivation I needed to make an Ukonvasara :P

Did my Chloris Buds for Verethragna last time these were on login points back in 2022 (and I was still a little salty to end up with 49 and have to farm ONE of them myself lol), Twashtar Glavoid Shells was the one before that.

I guess I should prioritize some empyrean weapons on my alts. It's not shown here, but I've mentally scored Empy weapons by their Must-Have ranking divided by how likely the Job will get invited to anything. Factoring this, I would say that Masamune / Torcleaver are the most-"Must Haves" given how popular SAM and DRK are today. I would venture to say that WAR's Ukon and Monk's Verethragna a close-second. (All other Empyrean weapons have their niche/fringe uses, but Ranger is limited-use today, BLM/SCH is for Death only, Club is for Cursna, LOLNIN, etc etc).

Folks are probably right to just use login points for the most annoying Empyrean items (Glavoid, Chloris)

Anyway, I made these spreadsheets years ago. I don't know if anyone cares or benefits from this level of organization, but here you go:

Empyrean Weapon Breakdown


All Empyrean Weapons by Zone/Drop:


Edit: I corrected some of the totals in the second chart

Twashtar is also excellent, definitely belongs on the list. Even moreso for a THF DNC who isn't interested in making a Prime dagger. And it's Glavoid path, so a great use of login point items.

Despite being great weapons, it's way harder to me to justify spending login points on Masamune or Torcleaver (or Armageddon) unless those are the only Empys someone has any interest in, simply because they're on by far the easiest NM path to farm the items yourself. If you have any other Empy that interests you at all, probably more valuable to use login points on that.

Chloris and Glavoid are easily the most annoying ones to build pops for, and it just so happens that some of the highlight Empy weapons use Chloris/Glavoid items: Verethragna, Ukonvasara, and Twashtar. Redemption and Rhongomiant aren't as wanted, but hey, if you're a DRK or DRG who really wants them, might as well skip making some truly obnoxious Chloris sets.

Personally, I'd rank the empy NM path annoyance as:

1. Dagger/GA: Glavoid blows. Itzpapalotl is a little more annoying than other second NMs, with more running around than a lot of other Empy NMs (thanks, Chigoe). Orthrus as the final NM is one of the trio of more annoying final NMs (needing 3x KI to pop a lesser NM to get your Orthrus KI, on par with Apademak and Alfard), as opposed to the other paths finishing with a really easy NM (Isgebind, Dragua, Azdaja).

2. H2H/Scythe/Polearm: Chloris blows just as much as Glavoid, probably more. But the next two stages aren't as annoying, Ulhuadshi isn't bad with only needing two KIs (a timed pop and a force pop), and Dragua is one of the trio of easy 75x item final NMs. I find it pretty easy to just farm these while I'm semi-AFK doing work or something.

3. Sword/Katana: Briareus needs a lot of running around, I think it's the worst non-Chloris/Glavoid first NM. Sobek isn't so bad, but needing three KIs is also not the best. Apademak is tied with Orthrus and Alfard among the x75 item NMs that are a bit annoying.

4. Club/Axe/Bow: Fistule is very easy, don't waste points on that. Bukhis is moderate, at least all of the NMs are relatively close. Alfard is the most annoying of the bunch, basically equivalent to Apademak and Orthrus. Fistule being a lot easier than Briareus makes me put this path below the Sword/Katana path, otherwise fairly similar difficulty.

5. Staff: The only path that shares no NMs with other weapons. Kukulkan's Fang is a little worse than some of the other other "first NMs" of the trio, but not that big of a deal (3 NMs to make the pop, flying eyeball is sort of irritating). Sedna only needs two NMs, but getting proc on the pugil NM is kind of annoying with all of its spell/TP move spam. Final NM is Azdaja, same stupidly easy pop set requiring only a single timed spawn NM (just like Isgebind and Dragua).

6. Great Sword/Great Katana/Gun: Pretty much the easiest difficulty for each of the three NM phases. Carabosse is just two force spawn NMs to make the pop and they're close to each other. Cirein-Croin is the worst on this path but it's not too bad, just a force pop NM and a timed NM, with a little bit of a run between them. Very easy final NM in Isgebind, one KI from a timed NM right next to the Isgebind pop (same as Dragua and Azdaja).

Not including Daurdabla/Ochain, because Iron Plates and Colorless Souls aren't available from login points. They’d prob slot in right behind Chloris path though, with Harp being harder due to worse final NM. Apademak Horns for Daurdabla wouldn't be a bad choice to get from login points though.

If your alt(s) have Godhands (or access to getting them), you can skip out on Verethragna. That hasn't been a contender in quite a while.

Hell, I would probably use Karambit over Verethragna these days.

...What? DRK doesn't get invited to anything specifically besides PUG Sortie.

I think it's a given that Tahrongi NMs are the worst but I've really come to hate Orthrus/Alfard/Apadamak over time. You have to farm so many items, the resentment really builds up over time.

Yeah, you are smoking that new 2026 pack.

This sentence is just insane.

I can see the argument that Godhands make Verethragna more skippable. Having both at R15, I don't fully agree and still think there are plenty of situations where I prefer Verethragna. I also get that it's a major investment to make an Empy for what might not be massive gains, and GH is pretty much always an acceptable choice. But come on now, Karambit isn't even in the conversation.

EDIT: LOL Buukki beat me to it, but yeah.


Diagree with this comment though. I don't really do much PUG stuff, but are people really turning down a Caladbolg DRK for most content if they need to fill a strong DD slot (assuming slashing is viable)? Ambuscade, Segments, Sortie, Limbus, Omen, Dyna, Gaol where slashing works... DRK is totally fine for all of these.