The "New Direction"Follow

I actually like the fact that some of these delve pieces are as good as they are. Most of these pieces are best in slot for a ton of jobs, so instead of gearing many jobs individually with armor that only one job can equip, you're gearing many jobs with the same armor to use with the jobs unique abilities. However, the upgrade process is very resource intensive and requires the key item to get the stuff. Augmenting equipment is like upgrading atmacites where each successive level consumes more and more resources for pretty much the same increase in paramaters as the previous upgrade. A level 15 augment requires 600 airlixirs, which is 36 million gil at the current prices. Airlixirs are still dropping in price but eventually supply and demand will stabilize them to a point they'll pretty much remain a fixed price for a very long time. Whether you farm the plasms directly or just buy the airlixirs with gil the upgrade process is going to be very time intensive, and the more pieces you upgrade the more your limits are stretched.

While I like the upgrade process, I'm currently overwhelmed at the magnitude of the scope. Just getting the key items to purchase the base pieces is a pain in the ***, let alone the amount of farming necessary to upgrade them to the higher levels. I can only assume I'm in the same boat as a majority of players. My time is too limited to flesh out my equipment quickly, and I'm concerned that by the time I do have the current standard of equipment there will be another two or three levels of equipment beyond my status. The gear treadmill just got turned up from a leisurely stroll to a marathon sprint and I'm having a hard time keeping up with it, especially with the new mentality that if you don't already have the weapons and equipment getting a pickup group to obtain said artifacts will become increasingly difficult over time

Edited, May 12th 2013 7:59pm by Melphina

I like the idea behind delve but the execution was beyond poor. Guess it just par for the course from SE, they sure know how to mess up a wet dream.

At this time? Anybody who doesn't have a delve weapon or bard or ochain pld. I'm not kidding. Try to join a shout on Asura for plasm farming.

I think you and I are reading different forums, cause I didn't see the "love at first sight" from the people around here.

The only thing I remember people freaking out about over abyssea at the onset was the traverser stone recharge limit (30 minutes per RL day wtf?). But once people realized that traverser stones stocked up to more than 3-4, and that we could get time extensions inside abyssea that all changed. As soon as people discovered experience alliances the whole expansion was an instant success. The problems people are remembering revolved around individual job updates and the growth from 75 to 90 occuring unevenly. For example, I was unhappy that most jobs got some fantastic stuff in visions and thief got very little, then when scars came out all we got was aeolian edge when other jobs had better upgrades. But as soon as I got razed ruins I never looked back, and even up until that point I was loving the relaxed atmosphere where playerbase was easy to get along with, generally friendly, took turns at the paper farming NM camps far more often than not, and just having a good ol time experimenting with new stuff.

Adoulin is not the same at all. It's not relaxing like abyssea was, but instead it's a hard grind from the get go. And unlike abyssea the progress does not come in regular intervals when playing at a leisurely pace of a few hours per day. It also forces alliance grouping whereas abyssea generally held to single parties for its entire duration outside of the exp alliances and early day empyrean farming. Perhaps the biggest difference though, is that adoulin forces an elitist attitude that excludes a majority of the playerbase from joining any pickup parties, whereas abyssea encouraged grouping for simple stuff regardless of having sub optimal setups. Abyssea was extremely well received within a few weeks of the quirks being discovered. Many of adoulins quirks have been discovered by now as well, and they're not nearly as appealing to me.

Also in response to this below



Yes, I remember that. There was a general consensus that the game was a lot easier, but the number of players who quit the game over easy mode and level 75 content getting invalidated was countered by the number of players who returned to the game that had previously quit. At its peak abyssea had a more active playerbase than I remember before or after. The players who were playing were constantly doing things, whereas now many players stand around in town staring at the moogle spin a lot more often.

Edited, May 14th 2013 1:09am by Melphina

Nope. Sorry I just don't. These people who tout "Abyssea ruined the game" were going to quit anyways or already had and used it as a crutch.

Abyssea was the best thing to happen to FFXI since we rode the boat from Mhaura to Aht Urghan.

Probably better.

More of my friends re-subscribed than at any point since we were using HDDs on a PS2 to start this game.

I remember like, 5 or 6 of the same people posting over and over and over and over and over about how they were qutting because of "easy mode" when Abyssea came out. Right down to posting screenshots of them permanently deleting their characters.

Does that count?

Splitting the playerbase is the worst possible thing se can do. outright 100% backwards thinking.
How they cant see that from a business standpoint is mind blowing.

I suppose they are content making a limited amount of income and keeping the game population small for so long,but just wow!
Add content for all playstyles at the same time with similar rewards not the massive differences like now (for shame SE)!!!! and allow the player to choose their path.
(i didnt say equal..or aquisition at the same pace.....i said similar rewards! so, r e l a x! lol)

Time to think outside that tiny tiny airtight locked steel box you have been trapped inside SE for so many years. Stop worrying about if a sword has a +1 str or a +2 (/gasp! oh no not +2....lower it!!) and start opening your mind and game to every style that plays and provide for all.
SE you have the potential..i can see it sometimes, and you have the talent

its a new team so please feel free to make the game super fun for all! radical i know, but try ? ;;

I respect all playstyles from some of the hardcore that never log out to a super casual who plays randomly and yet still pays consistently! I dont care how people play, as long as they do, and that there's fun for them all with very similar results.

We should not be competing, but encouraging everyone elses preferances and ensuring everyone is covered as so should SE.
I do.
:oD

Not sure I agree with the bolded statement. Bayld comes in measurable intervals playing at a leisurely pace, and the gear one can trade for it is pretty decent. And once you get your Delve KIs, your progress in gearing does come in regular intervals of (relatively) leisurely Plasm farming. Or even gil farming, if you want to just buy Airlixirs to upgrade all your new gear. Point systems were exactly what people cried for the last couple of years, and they got them in spades with this expansion.

I don't exactly disagree with your other statements though, but of course the expansion was marketed in a different way than Abyssea. To my knowledge, it was always intended as a high-level expansion. The elitist attitude I think will dilute over time as more and more of the playerbase gets their Delve KIs, and this WILL happen because shouts are increasing in frequency as more of the tricks and setups are being figured out. I liken this to Voidwatch at the beginning. When Voidwatch was first released, it was a niche event with no real /shout community, and the organized LS's were the ones who began to figure out the tricks. In my opinion, the primary difference here is the drops. The drops from Voidwatch's first stage of implementation were just "OK", whereas the drops from Delve's first stage of implementation are so good that people are clamoring for the event.

It would impress me if a DD had NNI gear and a Skirmish weapon.

I doubt most would notice, but Skirmish weapons are good between Magians and Delve, so that's probably your best opportunity for improvement.


Personally, if you have the time, I'd recommend leveling an additional job. On the rare occasions that I've organized groups, I really like to see people with a variety of jobs and not just a DD or even a list of only DD jobs. BLU is a great job, but unless there is a specific role for your BLU, it's usually just reduced down to a DD job. You don't need to level WHM or BRD if you don't want, but being able to fit multiple roles goes a long way in my opinion.

Delve is two stages all it's own too.

First stage: Enter fractures, kill a single NM within 45 minutes.

Semistage: Farm plasm.

Second stage: Get strong enough to kill NMs outside of fracture for beads and similarly strong enough to kill two NMs in Fracture with time to spare, kill boss in Fracture.

It is a very well designed event in terms of progression within a single event. There is a stark difference between a group that enters to kill one NM and a group entering with beads for a boss run.

Edited, May 14th 2013 11:17am by Raelix

As someone who has a 99 Aegis, I still havent started the ochain quest, and if you don't have a band of followers, getting the ochain quests done is a mega pain.

This was a concern of mine too because I was really busy with work the first couple of weeks of SoA. It's extremely disappointing that the company I've been paying money to for 10 years in a row for at least 1 account would pull a Leeroy Jenkins and then do an about face on the content after they realized they, gasp, allowed people to face it.

However, many of these KI aren't impossible to get in 20 minutes. There are good strategies already known for all of them. These can be beaten by PUGs. I've done 3 of them with PUGs after the changes, and one with less than a party. You must be prepared though to work with the known strategies. There is a small margin for error on some of them, especially T4/T5, and the age old "this content excludes my favorite solo job" or "elitists won't let me play the way I want" is neither practical or helpful to getting the KI. Heck, some of these strats even involve RDM!! Where's the rejoicing?