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They had a public test server in XI later on but only like 5-6 people ever used it.

@Callinon

I do agree that having a test server may help, but it is not quite as simple as subsequent replies to this thread shows.

It may be possible to have a dedicated external test players. How easy to get them and to have them to give useful feedbacks are another question. Somehow I think smaller and indy studios are probably in a better position for getting useful external testers. People who follow specific indy studios tend to show real love of specific indy studios, and are more likely to provide useful feedback. For large studios, it is far more likely that you will run into the problem Theonehio mention. For bigger studios, players are far less loyal, and they just want instant gratification. The same instant gratification is also a major driver of behaviour in that new area.

If there is anything, the 210 gear inflow has lead some unintended consequence. I don't think the new Knights of the Round is intended for players to have full ilvl 200+ to clear. ~190s are probably good enough for that if the player understands the mechanics. It would be Catch-22 nonsense to do a battle for 200+ gear if only people with ilvl 200+ can clear. But thanks to the inflow of the pink stuff, that really happened; the ilvl "minimum" is getting imposed not by the dungeon ilvl minimum or DPS checks, but by players who organise raids to the new Knights of the Round!

Great (in sarcastic tone). I will still enter level cap dungeon and the Ark with average ilvl 180s-190s via the Content Finder with no pink gears. If the other folks don't like it, it is their problem.

Edited, Nov 25th 2015 5:25pm by scchan

Edited, Nov 25th 2015 5:26pm by scchan

Edited, Nov 25th 2015 5:51pm by scchan

Sadly, in the long run that simply means the content will die out, because unless they make it part of the relic questline, it will die out extremely quickly. Just like how Ravana Ex died out once the majority of people went through and farmed up every weapon as that was part of the only content in cycle 5 months ago.

The ironic thing is - it wasn't even the 'uncultured masses', it was said 'casual players', because they went on the typical: "This is the best spot" whereas the raiders were the ones actually using the content strategically (and usually premade.) So if anything - It'll just slowly bleed out until it finally dies because I don't know about you, personally, but not many people went to Diadem for ilvl 150 and ilvl 180 gear as you can't even use the gear for glamouring.

Sure you may be in it for the mount, but that's part of why people despised "Dino island" because for those times you can't run in PF or with a FC, you have to rely on the DF.

Also: For the times you do actually end up somewhere other than dino island...if you're a bard for example..and things need to be silenced and you're not silencing (or singing songs) it's not really drama..it's...you not doing your job. This is part of why there's such a "rift" between the playerbase because "just having fun" isn't an excuse to slack off or perform poorly lol. The ONLY time i've ever seen someone get yelled at in DF is because they were busy auto attacking or using straight shot only and not popping Foes while watching their positioning or singing ballad for a few ticks so the mages can keep the tanks up if they get swarmed. Yeah your DPS hurts a bit, but it shouldn't hurt as much to prevent chests (only time I can see someone get testy.)

Edited, Nov 25th 2015 3:56pm by Theonehio

Yeah, kind of why I enjoyed pre-made on HM since we rotated islands kind of like how you rotated camps in Dynamis Xarc during the farm portion vs clear sections. It had the premise of dynamis but the execution just wasn't there.

If they do want to keep this content, they definitely waited a bit too long to make changes because once you take the honey pot away..you kind of shoo people off. Everyone got soo used to getting free top tier gear, for example gear like this:

http://i.imgur.com/9ZJTMuI.jpg

Basically trumps anything raid will drop, the only thing raid gear would have over this? Melding Accuracy in 3.2. That's why I may seem cynical about things rather than positive, but situations like this is exactly why I rather look at it in the long term than "in the moment" because I had a good feeling that a lot of fears I had with this system came to light and would be realized far too late because when they change something, it tends to be a little heavy handed.

We even tried a premade alliance for HM tonight..significantly less gold chests and it definitely feels they're forcing..something now.

That and the expectation of some kind of reward. FFXI and FFXIV were and are very different games.

If FFXIV did that, it would go differently.

I'd say more than 5-6 people used the test server. I mean it wasn't flooded with people, but testing things isn't really everyone's cup of tea. Most people wanted to spend their time earning things they could keep, but there was quite a lot of information about the game that we learned through the test realm.

As far as the download... well, we already play FFXI. It's not like we weren't already used to going to sleep while clients downloaded and updated. Actually it's more just an SE thing. I remember it taking nearly an entire day to patch XIV. Some people reported their patch running well into that second day too.