Relic Weapon Revival (06/06/2012)Follow

I really wish people would just stop using the term skill for MMO's, there really isn't much involved at any given time, in any game. The only games that really require skill, are probably fighting games like Street Fighter IV and such if you get to a competitive level. Even people who say FFXI was tough back in the day, it wasn't, it required lots of people, and have those people read...(pay attention), then hit two buttons for a macro to stun, or heal, or...etc. Most RPG's heavily rely on gear, stats, not how skillfully you can maneuver your char around while hitting macros.

Let's just admit MMO's are really never hard, they just require time, patience and for you to be able to read and pay attention to what's going on.

After giving it some thought, I'm inclined to agree with you on the basis that XI was about as engaging and entertaining while you were leveling up as watching paint dry. It did take some special focus to be able to pay attention, make sure you kept your shadows up(or not.. it's not like colibri or any merit camp mobs were dangerous) and select from one of the 7 macros you were required to keep track of. I guess we'll call that skill.

Ifrit was never a difficult encounter. If SE can figure out how to rework the battle and encounter mechanics so that the encounters are actually difficult, maybe you'd see the benefit of getting a weapon or piece of armor that would aid you greatly.

I agree, so until such a time I'll keep chipping away at it, and even after they become a big deal I'll still be chipping away at it until i have it. This isn't a competition who's going to get it first.



If i may I'll got down the list.
Well the reverse side is, if it cost me 500k to a mil to get the double meld why isn't it costing you the same? It' cost me 500k to get my weapon double melded... i gathered the item's, had weapons crafted, S.B. items for materia, had a +1 weapon double melded at the cost of 500k... If your friend needed 60mil, that's his choice to go that path.

If said a person chooses to cry that life isn't fair, that's a decision they need to live with. In XI it wasn't "time" only, i had my relic there in 1.2 years at cost 40mil, next person had it in 6months at cost 110mil, guy before took 2 years at cost 20mil. It's all in the ability to manage what's going around you, and not bite hook, line and sinker every time.

Edited, Jun 11th 2012 2:21pm by TwiddleDee

It took me close to 6 attempts, in total 5 weapons and 10 T4 material was lost. If i do the math that's 6 x 2.5mil on weapons, 12 x 1mil on materia, 12 x 10k on catalyst. So ~30mil all together. This is why i decided on not going for relic's, to much money to be made on the crafting/gathering side... I may have my x2 meld, but i have never had more then 5k grand company points, and hamlet is annoying so I'll just pile coin for now.

Go kill AV in xi at 75 level cap, and tell me it needs no skill.
Go do one round of Veil of Alaris in EQ, and tell me it need no skill.
(I got nothing for xiv lol irony, though am sure something is coming)
WoW needed skill until Cata was launched after that gong show
TERA miss on block or dodge you are paste under foot

And so on, all MMO's require some skill, some event's more then others for sure. But saying only the game's you like need skill is just ignorance... A blind man can tell you the relic's need no skill, they were implemented as a way for gil to pass hands, for time to sunk, and so on.

To be fair, Filth was talking about leveling, not boss fights. And in the not-so-distant past of FFXIV's powerleveling craze, his assessment is spot-on, because you really did level by standing still and not paying attention.

Edited, Jun 11th 2012 6:17pm by Xoie

You didn't, nor do you know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone... who beat AV at 75 legitimately because it was a gimmick fight that was never meant to be beaten. It never was and to this day, never has been beaten at legit alliance of level 75 characters.

The argument is that XI and XIV don't take skill to defeat encounters, just paying attention and using the obvious abilities as needed. Even if paying attention was the only measure of skill, nearly all other MMOs take more focus to be successful.


Why do people keep using AV as if it's some sort of measure of skill? It's still undefeated at it's intended level because of poor(or perhaps intended) design.The post you quoted is regarding merit groups and not boss encounters.

I don't play XIV because it isn't worth the time or money right now so you'll get no streams from me, sorry. The funny thing is, you couldn't be bothered to pay enough attention to the post you quoted which is about merit groups and not bosses, but I bet you'd have no issues defeating any of the other bosses you listed because it takes that little focus.

Pretty much. I remember watching DoctorMog's streams of his groups attempts. After seeing them run through it twice I'd seen everything I needed to see to understand how the battle worked and what needed to be done to defeat it. The rest is just execution...

Don't stand in fire.
Move away from the direction he's facing before he charges.
Zerg spikes to reduce damage.
???
Prof... aww fu¢k, screwed by RNG drop rate again!?

To be honest, the mechanics in most MMOs(XI excluded) are similar, but in every other MMO it requires more attention, quicker reaction time and more communication on the part of the group. Call it skill or don't, whatever you call it though; SE's MMOs require much less to be successful.

When you put it that way no, there's no chance to win. No one does that though and the problem with SE's design again shines through here. There were several of these fights that were near impossible without top-notch gear and the ideal setup. I don't recall any of them requiring you to find the mobs weakness outside of sleep resist or the 60 BC with the ghosts(though you had a choice of weakness).

Too often the fights required you to keep everything asleep(or kite) and zerg. Nothing is challenging when players are able to master the 3 techniques needed to defeat nearly every encounter in the game. The 'recipe' as you called it wasn't really anything special. There were few rare occasions where there was a creative strategy employed. Tank and spank, kite or bind/nuke/sleep/nuke worked on almost everything.

The problem with experimenting is that it rarely worked and always had a high cost. It's not like the seals were easily farmed. Try to imagine what the price of Utsu: Ni, Blitz Ring, Peacock Charm etc. would all be if instead of having a choice, you were thrown into a random battlefield...


Edited, Jun 12th 2012 3:20am by FilthMcNasty

I don't understand the drama here.

Don't we want unattainable content? I played XI for 8 years and never even thought of getting an Relic/Mythic/Empy weapon. It wasn't for me, I'm not that hardcore.

This didn't bother me at all, and I liked having that disparity between players. I loved that feeling when you realize one of the chosen people joined your random merit party.

If this looks like a lot of work, good. It should be. To me, this looks attainable. A long term goal while I seek all the short term goals. Even better, it doesn't require 1 person to benefit from many other players work, like Dynamis or Empy weapons. We can do hamlets together and not hear "everyone pass your seals to XXX, he funded this run."

Amen brotha!

Allow me to question the number of people who share your definition of sublime.

P.S.:
If SE's definition of good endgame dynamics is doing the same fight over and over for hundreds of hours and content
that is available only for a 3% "dedicated and entitled" (read: poor sob) elite: @#%^ you SE. You deserve to die.
It's 2012, I play games to have fun. Dinosaurs died out for a reason. Evolve, adapt, or die.

I just thought of an idea. How about when SE reaches the point of introducing a merit system. They take a page from Abyssea. Instead of all merits being earned through experience points. They do a blend of experience points & a karma system?

1. The drop rates are still pretty rare on endgame content.
2. They offer a form of steady tangible progress towards most drops.
3. You earn karma merits for repeating any PvE event with multiple clears.

These PvE events include expansion packs, dungeons, artifact quests, hnm, etc. The solo or self merits come via limit points & the merits earned via group content come via group clears. There will be less grind repeat for gear. There would still be a behind the scenes merit grind you get for repeating many things & maybe in the process. People always have a better chance at finding people to clear milestones?

If the relic is costing you truckloads of gil then it's working as intended.

Something needed to be done about the upcoming 2.0 economy and the relative worthlessness of the overabundant gil. Consistently repeatable levequests with huge rewards were to blame, and anything that functions as a massive gil-sink is just what FFXIV needs (from an economic perspective), lest the game become almost completely unworkable for everyone who hasn't been at the uppermost echelons for the past year. Players are here complaining about losing money, but the mere fact that they were able to gamble 1,000,000 or 10,000,000 or 25,000,000 gil strongly suggests that such an over-saturation exists.

Everyone wants to keep their pre-2.0 progress, yet they also want the game to be fixed and for new players to eventually play it. These things are most difficult to reconcile.


Edited, Jun 13th 2012 12:08am by KaneKitty

The thing is, this is the exact reason why we disagree on these games taking 'skill'. SE's battle system in both games is the barrier that keeps them from developing the exact content you mention.



I guess it depends. I would consider myself a hardcore player of XI. It took several years for me to attain a relic. These days you can do it in a matter of months farming all by yourself. The funny thing is while most hardcore players would like to have their hard fought gear remain unattainable for most, I wish they'd nerfed it sooner. In the same vein...



This is the reason why I always fly the progression flag. Don't create static content aimed at hardcore, normal and casual players. Build content that scales over time to ease all of your playerbase into it. Why spend years developing content that the majority will never see or participate in? Example: WoW...

New expansion comes out with overtuned raids > Hardcore players snatch up a few pieces of gear first and start to progress while normal players struggle and casuals are content to soak up token gear here and there > Content is adjusted after a little while > Hardcore players are now starting to get full clears on normal raids and farming to start hardmodes, normal players are pushing for full clears in normal raids and casuals start getting their feet wet in pick up groups > Content is again adjusted slightly > Hardcore players are starting to clear hardmode content, normal players are farming normal content to start hardmodes and casuals are starting to get wins in normal raids... progress and participation.

This just feels right. Hardcore players get first crack, normal players get to play through all the content and casuals get a taste of victory as well. You scale your content so that everyone eventually gets to experience it even if they aren't clearing on a regular basis. Say what you want about WoW and Blizz, but they have worked out(for the most part) what the capability of their playerbase is and this is no small feat considering how many people play. They overtune and scale the difficulty down so that eventually everyone gets the full experience. Even if you hate it with a passion, you have to appreciate that.



This only applies to the current playerbase which we should all hope will be the minority once 2.0 goes live. It sets any prospective new player back even further than they would have been had it just been a 30 month headstart and is another huge reason why I support a fresh start for everyone. Even if you don't want to reroll, you have to understand that this is a large factor in why nearly none of the new players come 2.0 will be rolling on established servers.

Edited, Jun 13th 2012 1:42am by FilthMcNasty

Copper ore goes for like 70 gil at a NPC, so you might as well sell all the ores from that NPC to the market wards and become multi millionaire!!1

so what you're saying is there is no reward for being a gatherer. Awesome.

Maybe instead of bringing in relic requirements that people starting at 2.0 will not even want to touch, they increase the price of crap from npcs until 2.0 starts as a gil sink? It isn't like there are more than 10 new players at any one time.

Also, good to see the official forums is still ruled by sneering arses....

Amen!!