FINAL FANTASY XI 2012 Roadmap Follow

Alexander is great, but Tabula Rosa is greater. Embrava is the single most overpowered buff in the entire game.

Edited, Apr 25th 2012 6:28pm by Melphina

No he has it right. Odin barely does much for a 2HR and Alex has his situational uses for PD. I'd rather have atomos be free floating like the maws, give him a few of his abilities and leave it at that.

LOL, exactly what I was thinking. PLAY AS A MONSTER!! DUNGEON CRAWLING!! is gonna be a massive disappointment if it turns out to be "hey remember Pankration? And MMM?" (surprised nobody else associated the dungeon crawl with MMM already, seeing as how S-E referred to MMM as a system to generate custom dungeons in all the preliminary talk about it, getting people irrationally excited for what was to come)



Gotta agree with that. DRK getting fast cast for dark magic? A couple new PUP attachments, and a reworking of one existing attachment? These are minor version update notes, not 8 month roadmap highlights! And hell, the PUP attachment stuff is scheduled for NOVEMBER. They're really talking about minor stuff like that planned for more than half a year from now???



I don't think they mean two main display windows. More like a separate chat log window, those kinds of things.



You mean other than 3rd party Windower? Does seem reasonable to think that the UI overhaul, multiple windows, font vectorization, etc. may result in the ability to have readable text in the official client on an HDTV though. And speaking of "that which shall not be named", nice to see S-E coming beyond fashionably late to the party on showing recast timers. Oh wait, they're just going to "explore the possibility of displaying recast times in the macro palette".

One can hope that they're just stretching these updates as thin as it seems because they're working on an expansion to be announced at Vanafest. I wouldn't get my hopes up too high though.

Edited, Apr 25th 2012 7:06pm by Anza

That is by far one of my favorite movie quotes of all time (Contact).



Agree. I was playing devils advocate when I wrote that. There is no such thing as any one "best" 2hr because different 2hrs cater to different situations, and there are many that are classified as "really strong".

Getting back on topic though, in my opinion the Alexander and Odin summoner 2hr style is a better way to handle Astral Flow than the terrestrial avatar rout. People have argued that S-E needs to stop making one shot summoner 2hr abilities. My question for you is why? Let's be honest now, the terrestrial avatar's 2 hr abilities are quite frankly pretty damn weak. Diabolos is laughable, searing light is pathetic, and the other 7 "main" avatar 2hr abilities don't do any more damage than a single target blood pact does. The justification is that they're AoE, but even then they're not bringing in the bread and butter they did at lower levels. A single BLM Ja spell outclasses any of the terrestrial 2hrs in damage (and then some) . You can argue hate mechanics here because the summoner wont be getting smacked by dozens of mobs, but if the additional targets are actually important you should be prepared to deal with them by some other means anyway because they can really hurt you. Otherwise they're just trash mobs in a burn environment and can be dispatched easily enough with some crowd control, like breakga and sleepga, and people probably wont care if the blm dies because its trash mobs in a burn atmosphere. Lets be honest..... we've seen all seen that happen A LOT by now and with exp rolling in or AoE burn rewards like 10-15 trial kills per shot raking up nobody is going to tell the blm to stop.

Alexander and Odin break this mold by offering a unique 2hr ability that benefits either the party with an incredible buff, or does some pretty nifty damage on a one to one basis (even versus NMs), although it doesn't hold up well to AoE because its accuracy is trash then. How is this different from other 2hr abilities? Manafont, Benediction, Perfect Dodge, Chainspell, Mighty Strikes, etc etc are all invoked once and after the duration is over they fade. Astral Flow allows the summoner to call upon terrestrials to use their signature blood pact up to 3 times in a 3 minute span, but at the cost of your entire remaining mana pool (not a big deal with temps and convert, but still a nuisance). If Cait Sith offered a unique buff that filled a desirable niche it would be much more appealing than a slightly more damaging terrestrial AoE attack. The only way to make terrestrial avtar 2hr worthwhile is to make the damage not suck, and s-e needs to make eagle eye shots damage not suck (and not miss!!) far more than they need to upgrade terrestrial 2hr AoE damage. I think if cait sith brings a new bag of tricks to the table it would make a great addition to the summoners 2hr repertoire. Once and done 2hr astral flow blood pacts aren't that much different than other 2hrs.

I'll close by saying that I know the reason people don't want new 2hr only avatars is because they want new avatars to perpetuate fulltime, but at this point I don't think s-e will ever do that. They have one avatar of each element, and diabolos is sort of like a wild card that doesn't conform to the standard avatar rules with his emphasis on dreamworld statuses and debuffs (like death that almost never works...). In my opinion they should focus on making the terrestrial avatars better at utilizing their elemental powers before they need to add duplicate avatars of any element (because they'll probably @#%^ it up completely). New 2hrs that call upon familiar faces once and done to bestow unique buffs works, and if cait sith brought something with similar power as embrava but with slightly different mechanics (like mage embrava.....fast cast and massive MaB and refresh... O.o) that would be pretty cool.

Edited, Apr 25th 2012 8:28pm by Melphina

Seems like every bit of news out of SE raises the same question: What is wrong with SE?/ Why can't they make games like they used to? They hear time and time again from the players they want an expansion (new areas to explore, a whole new land/region, no reskinned zones, new storyline, new features). They give the new features but keep plugging it into an ever-more-crowded FFXI Vanilla. They get the trees but not the forest. Keep planting trees ahead on that roadmap but they aren't carting a new course, just an endless continuation of the present. The graphic artists have been busy and creative from the many monster reskins and new monsters, but give them the cherry blossom forests and sacred mountains of the Far East to illustrate, the wild plains and exotic rock formations of the Far West to bring to life, the tribal motifs and tropical jungles, veldts, and volcanoes of the Far South to paint by pixel, or the harsh cryoscape of the Far North. Let them create the long-salivated Mithran civilization or Tenzen's kingdom and Mikado, or the unknown civilization in the Far West. A few years ago I posted a bunch of ideas on what they could do in each direction. If I can excavate it I'll link it. It's like they have little imagination.

And given FFXIV 2.0 is a huge gamble, still hasn't made money and who knows how much the monthly subs are offsetting 2.0 dev costs since 6 years of 1.0 dev costs weren't even dented, one would think any business with its head screwed on right would not want to risk both and lose both and cautiously bolster FFXI since that is still their online MMO flagship. They are still treating FFXI like the past and FFXIV like the future. It's like what we're seeing in FFXI is what they had planned the entire time and the failure of FFXIV 1.0 hasn't changed their course. FFXIV has no future until 2.0 launches and until it gets huge numbers of subs (because 2.0 needs more subs than 1.0 needed due to the 2 years inbetween of f2p and no revenue) meaning FFXI is still their present and their future until that time.

Yeah, with Avatars, they definately need to create some new non-2-hour ones. And through Avatars they can expand the lore of the game. Create Remora, the Magus Sisters, Golem, carve out a role for a new category of avatar in the history of Vana'diel.


Edit, found the post:
http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=29&mid=124432563094143776#21



Edited, Apr 25th 2012 10:27pm by zoogelio

Some of those additions excite me, others bore me. I've never really gotten on well with Voidwatch due to the crappy drop system and complete lack of group invites for the lower tier stuff so I never actually get my Abyssite upgraded, I just tag along with others for the items (read: junk) and cruor. Those cells are apparently supposed to do something, but as of yet I've had no discernible results from them so I consider them merely placebos.

The game mode where you play as a monster seems intriguing though, but I'll reserve judgement until I've seen it in action. I still remember how the 'monster catching' Pankration ended up compared to my initial expectations. The only reason to use those catcher thingies now is for Zeni NMs. Maybe it'll be fun though, so I'll keep an open mind about it.

The new 2hrs, from what I've picked up, will likely share the same recast timer as our existing 2hrs, forcing us to pick between one or the other. That's fine, but it does mean that the new ones need to be pretty spectacular to warrant using over things like Tabula Rasa (SCH) or Benediction (WHM) especially considering that so many additions have strengthened the original 2hr skills since their inception. Though, I wouldn't mind an AoE 'Reflect' 2hr skill for WHM which bounces offensive magic back at the casters!

Dungeon-crawling events make me instantly think "Moblin Maze Mongers". To this day I've never fully understood how that system is supposed to work, or really cared much to find out. It seemed like a lot of hard work just to get enough pieces for a proper custom map, and even then the rewards aren't particularly noteworthy. Here's hoping this one is better thought out. Again, trying to keep an open mind here.

Cait Sith. This is the big one I've been looking forward to and the one I'm genuinely excited to use! I'm really hoping they've stuck with their original plan to make her a Carbuncle-esque summon, and I'm highly curious to see what unique abilities she will bring to the table. Here's hoping she makes a huge splash on her first outing.

I have to totally agree, it seems people will just not be happy unless they got a new expansion - with new areas (not revamped/copied/pasted etc etc). And people just dont seem to realise that takes months and months - its all a lot of work. With lets face it, a crowd which is becoming very fussy and hard to please. SE Should just continue doing what they see fit - I may not like the whole update but there is a lot there I like and a few things I worry about (Aka RNG changes).

Its so hard to keep everyone happy, the game balance and give content which makes people want to play, stick around and come back for. If people are really not that happy only thing I suggest is you quit the game, stop playing and come back and check in 12 months (and I mean 12 months not every 4 weeks expecting something new). I did the exact same thing with Star Trek Online, after paying it in BETA/First release - a great game and stopped playing after about 6 months. I returned not that long ago and the content level and feel of the game is so much better. 12 months really made the difference, I am currently taking a pause of XI but only because since EU release it has been the main game for such a long time. I have been playing it majorly over that whole time, some updates made me furious, mad, insane but others made me love it. Each time I took a break it had nothing to do with the content it self just the fact I played it so much and its good to take a break from something that you play 3 hours a day most of the year.

I thought it was a waste of resources until I viewed it from a different perspective. These "reboots" all coincide with the jump from level 75 to level 99. Retooling each event for level 99 strength and rewards isn't a waste of resources so much as it is a prudent use of them. Why have mountains of content hogging up space on your server that no one is ever going to do? And you don't want to delete the content, since some of it is integral to story lines, and others will want to at least try it once.

There are new and returning players coming in all the bloody time. We get a post at least once every other day, and that's just from the folks that know ZAM exists....

Uhhm that's not what they said, exactly. How I remember it, they said, they are considering adding gear that would enhance pet TH and that other pet jobs would be on it not just beast. Meaning that smn and pup could get th for their pets as well. I don't recall them ever saying they attach it to any pet for either job.


Also, Glitterhands, Your right about sch two hour but whm? I can't tell you the last time I used my whm two hour besides a rare," there's to many debuffs to remove" moment. seriously. It's a good two hour but in today's events were mages are just oozing mp it's a bit dated.

I don't think anyone actuallly expects an expansion to show up in a month or two. They could make an announcement at Vanafest that they are planning an expansion or series of addons targeted for release next year and I'd be thrilled. At least we'd know its in the works.

The dissatisfaction I have is we're level 99 now. It would be nice to have a level 99 playground. I don't get raising the level cap just to play old content adjusted for the new level. And honestly given how SE setup neonyzul I'm not holding my breath for limbus 2.0, salvage 2.0, etc.

I am looking forward to details on the new dungeon crawl system. Play as a monster - yeah I just don't know what to make of that.

I dunno, man. My fondest memories of the game, in retrospect, was just after ToAU was released. Everything was fresh and new and exciting. I suited up WHM, tossed on sneak and invis, and explored every inch of Wajoam Woodlands and Bhaflau Thickets (or what was accessible, anyway.) That first boat ride to Aht Urghan was downright magical. People were gleefully shouting out locations of NPCs that started cutscenes, sold maps and goodies, or had interesting tidbits about the history of the place.

It took us about a week before we settled down into the meat and potatoes of the expansion, which at the time was Assaults and Besiged. But that first week was just amazing.

New zones make the world of Vana'diel a more tangible place.