DelveFollow

The non-NM mobs were mostly already like that, so again, not much has changed (aside from, y'know, the fact that the Embrava nerf will lower your potential WS frequency)

Again, mob levels in HQ Nyzul were never the main issue.

Every run I did before the nerf had 2x SCH, because *GASP* it worked amazingly well, and you needed to work amazingly well in order to win most of the time when you didn't get amazing floor jumps (which is probably often). I literally never even heard of a HQ Nyzul group that didn't use 2x SCH, back then it was absolutely unthinkable to go without.

The level nerf that they did does not make up in any way, shape, or form for what they did to Embrava. Yes, there are alternatives now that you have to use, but they are all decidedly inferior to what we had before. People didn't all run with 2x SCH for no reason, you know.

Related tangent: The price of Arise, Meteor, and Umbral Marrows have all been going back up on my server, and from my understanding, these are all things that had a heavy reliance on PD+Embrava to obtain. Not hard to see why the price has been going back up, but it is still somewhat disappointing to see these things going back up after people have started to get the hang of Legion+ADL and provided enough of a supply to gradually drive the price downward.

On my server marrows are the same or lower. Nothing seems to have changed on that front. Arise and Meteor have gone way up though. Personally, my LS is having growing pains getting through Mul without Embrava. On top of that I think the groups that have had Legion success are moving on to other things, and they aren't being replaced by new groups picking Legion up for the first time.

Also I don't think it's fair to compare the current state of NNI with just before the Embrava nerf. At that time, things were good. I told anybody who would listen to spam NNI because it would only get harder. To me, the difficulty now is about the same as when we had Embrava before they adjusted jumps and lamps.

I think it was perfectly eloquent if you understand the Japanese way of thinking, which in this case has a lot more common sense than the American way of thinking of entitlement. In their culture, it's okay to cut your teeth, and they would rather risk making it harder on newcomers (if not outright condone this) than offending their loyal, dues paying, members. This is the way practically all memberships work in Japan.

Fynlar, how many runs of NNI post embrava update have you attempted?

My group hasn't run NNI since the update, so I'm curious how it compares pre-update.

There is a glut of 10,000,000 Marrows on Lakshmi (almost 70-80 being bazaared) just waiting for someone to undercut and drive it below 9 or 8m.

I did my first 2 runs of it the other night, 1 sch, 1 cor and 4 heavy dd.

lamps are still the biggest killer (as well as melee running off before they can get buffed), got the 80 win on the 2nd run (did embrava the boss tho, but he went down easily with all bar 1 dd on him), first run was nowhere near due to ****** jumps

This is in response to those throwing out "hard core" / "elite" and other terms to attempt to justify thinking highly of themselves.

Earlier today I was in some company sponsored training and met one of the best tanks in WoW. I'm talking "best"as in ranked in the ton 10 worldwide and formerly the primary tank of a sponsored team. He quit to dedicate more time to his career in IT. It doesn't get much more "hardcore" / "elite" then that. We had a long conversation about MMO's and the culture around them. I only mention this because due to his focus on career and family (newborn baby) he had nearly no time to dedicate to WoW and had since fallen into the ranks of "dirty casuals" (FFXI speak). Like many "casual" players, his skill, intelligence nor capability were in question, he merely didn't have the massive amounts of uncommitted time required.

I believe this is important as often people think gear / accomplishment = skill / capability, which has been proven to be false. Most of the casuals in FFXI are not casual players due to any lack of capability, skill or intelligence but due to a lack of time. Any content that unfairly rewards those living in basements or without any social / career obligations will ultimately fall flat in FFXI. Other MMO's have solved this issue by implementing selectable difficulty levels, something FFXI sorely needs.

Don't those "selectable difficulty levels" also involve tiered loot systems? Like earning tokens or lesser gear for lower difficulty levels? Isn't that the exact same thing as NNI in that 5 x 80 wins = 1 x 100 win, as well as the gear that is a step down from Phorcys or Thaumas? I'm not trying to be a smart ***, I just fail to see the difference. But I also haven't played a ton of other MMO's so I'm not 100% on how it's handled. I just know from my brother that WoW is a giant gear check worse than FFXI in many cases.

Edit: Missed a "

Edited, Apr 25th 2013 10:40am by ChaChaJaJa

This is true. In fact, the only people using those terms are the ones using it disparagingly towards group (a) as you so astutely noted.

I, the "elitist douchebag" fall into category [a]. I also have a 60+ hour a week job and friends and a full life outside of FFXI. My playtime during weekdays is almost nonexistant (I might farm for an hour or two here of there).



We don't spend substantial time leveling anymore so the only true time investment in FFXI nowadays is obtaining gear. Thus, most content centers around obtaining gear. The rewards for completing content is better gear. And while I agree that certain content such as NNI has a gear-check element to it, 99% of the content in the game does not. Furthermore, as was noted by previous posters, the gear required to become competitive in an event such as NNI isn't all that difficult to obtain. It might be time consuming if you can only play 3 hours per week, but it seems silly to think that the game should be adjusted to allow a person who plays 3 hours a week to gear as quickly as someone who plays 15 hours a week. Well, it seems silly to me at least.

The standard order nowadays is
[a] Get a job to 99
[b] Farm Abyssea for gear
[c] Use your Abyssea gear to tackle the "harder" content such as NNI etc.

The fact that some people move through this progression faster than others does not make them bad people.

Point missed, apparently, but I'm not terribly surprised.

I seem to recall some whining in the context of, "What about the people who are better geared and organized? They need stuff to do, too! If not, they'll quit too!" Of course, my early warning on the subject was rooted in time requirements and how persistent progression without alternative progression will translate into people being left behind. "Type A" as you want to call yourselves, in turn decrees, "We don't care, suck it up and lern2play!" And now it's official, Delve is an 18 man event. Absolute requirement? Remains to be seen, but all that "luck" associated with manpower acquisition is still very real, and still very much a hurdle for players. And it will remain that way until the content is severely nerfed in the future, if it ever is. Congrats, content a fair chunk of players will never see. But, ah, who cares if they quit over it, right? FFXI is Type A's game. GTFO and quit whining if you don't like it.

As for implementing difficulty levels, as I tried to bring up earlier and Saev rehashed, you can't create separate gear out of it and not expect a rift to form between the users. All tackling the higher difficulties should allow is progressing faster, and at best, titles and glowy effects on gear with the same stats. NNI fails here because you can't upgrade the NQ/1/2/3 into the HQ. Objectively, you could try to treat it as people who get NQ should then be able to get 1, then 2, then 3, but this is impractical if you multiply 25 runs to upgrade a single set against the tiers, nevermind wanting multiple sets. What SE could and should do to ease this burden would be, for the +3 armor and 2 KIs, you get the HQ. Otherwise you can do the 5 KI route. Progressing via F80 will thusly go a bit faster through the incremental (and long term useless) drops from the boss itself. And of course, carry that system back through the tiers.

Now, let's say Delve got an Easy Mode (My bad, EZ Mode if using disparaging MMO rhetoric). More people are on the same page, talking about the same content and not struggling so much to find people to do the older stuff. In 3 runs, the Hard Mode peeps get an upgrade. Easy maybe takes 5-8 while mobs aren't as hard and take less people. Here's where the ego and haughtiness comes in, though! "Why do they deserve the same rewards?! We worked harder!" To which I pose, "Why do you care?" If it's just about wanting people to think you're better than the rest, then yeah, you've got that elitist snobbery thing going you're trying oh so hard to disassociate yourself with. There are tons of people you'll never play with, never associate with, on your server alone. What's more, as they're better geared and more confident with the event, maybe they'll actually be able to do the hard version, too. Perish the thought, though, of new blood being mired in the old content. You're off your rocker if you think every new or returning player is 99 in a few days and decked out in Abyssea gear within a week or two. "Type As" losing touch with the rest of their peers is an entirely too common an occurrence in the MMO scene and I'm sorry that pointing this out might make you feel uneasy. Unfortunately, as long as you advocate the segregation of players who don't play your way, you're part of the problem. Christ, you're even luckier than you let on if you're working 60+ hours a week, have a social life, and still drop time on XI. Real alpha up in here, yo.

Edit: And just because Matsui threw up a post clarifying on Delve a bit more:

So, not even Bayld farming is a qualifier. Add another hurdle to the process.

Edited, Apr 25th 2013 11:34am by Seriha

Refusal to adapt is a terrible problem. "I'm right, "I'm good, I'ts not my fault I keep losing, but the only reason you keep winning is because you have so much more time than me!" Or how about, maybe?, the people who keep winning use their time more wisely? Learn to network better. Try communicating in a different way. Are you really, really the best player among your friends, the one who takes the lead and doesn't give up? Try a different approach to motivating them. Do something different, because ******** about the difficulty of content on a forum isn't going to make you win any more than you are now. Meanwhile, there's a bunch of players who went out and got it done.

I have maybe three or four days to play a month and have kept up just fine with everything. This Chachacha guy is in the same boat apparently. So you know what? People like us (retorical us) are better than people like you (rhetorical you). That is our fault. We are bad people for being open minded and critical of ourselves, for being able to deal with new situations. We shouldn't have learned how to make friends easily, how to reciprocate kindness, or the importance of teamwork. Surely we will burn in a fiery hell for having the gall to claim that the only thing standing between us (rhetorical us) and you (rhetorical you) is ... you.