[Dev] Voidwatch: Response To Feedback

Yeah, it makes me laugh and simultaneously rage though when I see people singling out things like that Coruscanti.

The guy who spent a week of his and a few friend's time making a Kannagi only to never use it properly is more offensive, to me, than a random gimp that was for some reason allowed in a Voidwatch alliance and simultaneously got lucky on the dagger.

Luck is all that's left.

I wouldn't have enough harddrive space to take pics of all the worthless Empyreans I've ever seen.

You can fish bot for a relic, or just pay HNMLSs HNM drops at 75, your point?

Getting gear never has anything to do with skill, even at 75.

IMO the only gear that has something to do with skill is hard mission BC reward, since you can't buy them and some BC fight requires team work and skill to beat at 75.

As for that pic, maybe he just leveled dagger job after getting a dagger from Qilin. That's not really rare, I got a bunch of good items I can't equip, if I burn the job to 99 I'd have good equip for it but still gimp. How do you know that pink DNC isn't "contributing to the group" when the SS isn't showing him fighting Qilin but instead it's showing him doing campaign? How do you know that he doesnt have a WAR parsed 40% in that Qilin fight?

All I see is ppl getting butt hurt seeing rare items on other ppl.

Except that you need to have a group that can get the attestation or the fragment. This is why elite LS often made killings selling those because random shout groups were too shitty to kill those mobs.

As far as selling goes, selling is a terrible thing. I agree with that.


You should invest some time responding to that wall of text I dumped on you previously. But I'll humor you and prove you wrong once again.

There have always been people who don't deserve items skating by, it's a far bigger problem post 75 because 75 content was harder.

1. Skill requirement for healers and tanks dramatically lower. Cruor enhancements and Atma (or Temp Items and Atmacite) have increased the bounds of HP such that it is effectively impossible for a tank to be put in mortal peril from a single TP move/spell, or from a single attack round. This in turn removes three challenges from the game: healers having sufficiently quick reaction times, tanks being able to juggle shadows effectively, and tanks being geared appropriately (whether the gear be damage resistance to prevent close encounters, recast and haste to get shadows back up in time, HP to live through damaging attacks).

2. "Tanking" obsolete. Schezero and Earthen Armor combined with Cruor and Atma (or Atmacite and Temp Items) have resulted in departure away from the use of true tanks. Almost any melee class has the requisite survivability to tank so long as they can generate damage to keep the monster's attention. The consensus at most community sites is that the ideal tank is Monk and that Paladin is completely unnecessary. Effectively tanking now just means maintaining hate by doing damage through auto-attack and weaponskill damage. Generally every single damage dealing class an edge on Paladin in effective tanking because Paladin's extra survivability is useless compared to damage dealers' increased damage output. Paladin used to be one of the harder classes to play truly well; Paladin required not only proper cycling of job abilities and spells to generate hate, but good reaction time to mitigate the damage caused by an enemy on oneself and one's allies. Removing the need for a skilled Paladin lowers the challenge of most encounters dramatically.

3. Enmity control unnecessary. There used to be a great deal of coordination necessary from all members of the group/alliance such that damage dealer enmity remained below that of the tanks. Because most classes can effectively tank so long as they are appropriately cure bombed, the fine art of enmity control has been lost. This in turn also removes the need for external enmity control, mostly through Thief, through Trick Attack, Accomplice, Collaborator. This is further exacerbated by Enmity- Atma/Atmacite that make it virtually impossible for a healer to pull hate, thus making the dreaded "Healer pulled aggro and died and no we have no cures" scenario a thing of the past. Removing the need to control and coordinate enmity levels reduces challenge considerably.

4. MP Management unnecessary. In the past inefficient cure bombing would have been unable sustain a party in the past either because the healer would die or run out of MP to keep the party going. However due to new songs, new spells, Refresh enhancing Atma, non-relic Ballad+ instruments, and temp items the rate of MP regeneration has increased far more than what is proportional to our increased MP pools. In conjunction with the massive –Enmity bonuses available from Atma/Atmacite, it permits highly inefficient cure-bombing, thus reducing the challenge of playing healing jobs effectively. There is a trickle down effect: people no longer have to be nearly as self sufficient since one healer can effectively keep up with more, despite being inefficient. This means that a lot of group setups that would fall prey to heavy AOE damage and being unable to keep up with the MP demands of a fight can now win simply by damage blitzing the mob.

5. Restraint and crowd control unnecessary. In the past when a healer ran out of MP special adjustments sometimes had to be made until a healer could rest their pool back. However in the worst case scenario temporary items make it possible to immediately replenish an MP pool instead of resting. Within Abyssea, the existence of martellos makes this even worse. This removes the need for a group to be able to adapt on demand and employ crowd control tactics (sleep, bind, gravity kiting; moving people outside of the range of damage to reduce healing demand) and lowers the challenge considerably.

6. Skill requirements for damage dealing greatly lowered. Melees reach the accuracy ceiling and capped fSTR very easily through Cruor Enhancements, and Atmas (or Atmacites and temp items). Black Mages reach the requisite INT to avoid resists by default through Cruor enhancement and Atmas, and the amount of Magic Attack Bonus gained through Atma absolutely dwarfs the amount their gear gives. Player shortcomings, either in gear or style, are easily masked through crutches and thus reduce the challenge inherent in gameplay.

7. Even for the few fights that are appropriately scaled in Abyssea to be hard despite the numerous changes in mechanics, there is the existence of Primordial Brew. Any challenge in Abyssea can be bypassed by farming Cruor and purchasing a brew. This makes the challenges that do exist in the game irrelevant.

8. Fafnir, regardless of what you may think, has had MORE than his fair share of body counts when inexperienced groups walk in there thinking they can handle it and when they actually claim they get curb stomped. Then they never return. That's partially why I'm don't see a need to make things easier for people. They give up camping. In other games when someone isn't willing to complete the "side quest" you don't just magically get given the item or something better? So why in FFXI should they get the gear from mobs they aren't willing to camp, much less mobs they many people can't beat?

9. World Spawns are far from perfect, but are much better at it than any instances. World Spawns blend a bit of "most time dedication" (in a communal sense; the group that puts in the most hours, when you consider each individual member's contributions separately, tends to have a claiming advantage) with direct competition and skill test (you don't get to wipe and try again, you mess up if someone's better than you they will kill it instead)


1) And my point is that arbitrary item distribution with people who can't use incredibly rare items getting them first is a bad system.

2) Because if he was a WAR good enough to parse 40% in a Qilin, then he would be good enough to be ashamed to have that poor quality of gear on DNC.

I got bored reading that wall of text, but by the 3-4 paragraph I read. it all sum up to one thing. you want a big nerf from SE and lets all go back to level 75. end of story. let me ask you one simple question, why you bother to upgrade? just stay at level 75 and every time you farmed up 99 KS you can start calling your pasi to start running to behe dom, aery, and valley to level sync and you'll have all your glory on raping those beast again and again. problem solved.

btw I know a shitty whm who wield a damn mythic.!!!!

There are times I think we got nerfed going from 75 to 99.

Our damage may be higher, tanks may be able to stay alive longer, support jobs may be able to do their job better, healers may be able to heal better, ect, but you know what that all translates to me?

Things got easier.

Things at 75 had a harder difficulty then than they do now at 99, that is for sure. I don't even think content at 75 was even that hard, but it was certainly more difficult than what we have right now.

So theoretically if we all suddenly got sent back to 75 would that be a nerf?

Not in my opinion, because SE didn't adjust the rest of the game with us. Everything is the same as it ever was, except there are a few groups of monsters that are randomly level 80-99+ on our maps outside of abyssea. That isn't balance, that is pathetic. The challenges at 75 didn't get upgraded with us, and level cap battles had their cap removed. Just screams nerf to me.

Because that would still lack the zero-sum competitive aspect of the game at 75, which if you read previous posts, is the whole point to me.

I like how people seem to imply that FFXI wasnt easy at 75, lol. The game got easier once we started to get merits and COP gear came around.

What exactly was SO hard at 75? AV and PW need not apply.

People's biggest problem with abyssea was it took away HNMLS's power over the people. Suddenly, you couldn't monopolize gear and decide who it goes to.

Its like you are all Roger Smith from american dad who got all butt hurt because he was no longer "the decider"

Then defend your thesis point by point. I will repost for your convenience.

1. Skill requirement for healers and tanks dramatically lower. Cruor enhancements and Atma (or Temp Items and Atmacite) have increased the bounds of HP such that it is effectively impossible for a tank to be put in mortal peril from a single TP move/spell, or from a single attack round. This in turn removes three challenges from the game: healers having sufficiently quick reaction times, tanks being able to juggle shadows effectively, and tanks being geared appropriately (whether the gear be damage resistance to prevent close encounters, recast and haste to get shadows back up in time, HP to live through damaging attacks).

2. "Tanking" obsolete. Schezero and Earthen Armor combined with Cruor and Atma (or Atmacite and Temp Items) have resulted in departure away from the use of true tanks. Almost any melee class has the requisite survivability to tank so long as they can generate damage to keep the monster's attention. The consensus at most community sites is that the ideal tank is Monk and that Paladin is completely unnecessary. Effectively tanking now just means maintaining hate by doing damage through auto-attack and weaponskill damage. Generally every single damage dealing class an edge on Paladin in effective tanking because Paladin's extra survivability is useless compared to damage dealers' increased damage output. Paladin used to be one of the harder classes to play truly well; Paladin required not only proper cycling of job abilities and spells to generate hate, but good reaction time to mitigate the damage caused by an enemy on oneself and one's allies. Removing the need for a skilled Paladin lowers the challenge of most encounters dramatically.

3. Enmity control unnecessary. There used to be a great deal of coordination necessary from all members of the group/alliance such that damage dealer enmity remained below that of the tanks. Because most classes can effectively tank so long as they are appropriately cure bombed, the fine art of enmity control has been lost. This in turn also removes the need for external enmity control, mostly through Thief, through Trick Attack, Accomplice, Collaborator. This is further exacerbated by Enmity- Atma/Atmacite that make it virtually impossible for a healer to pull hate, thus making the dreaded "Healer pulled aggro and died and no we have no cures" scenario a thing of the past. Removing the need to control and coordinate enmity levels reduces challenge considerably.

4. MP Management unnecessary. In the past inefficient cure bombing would have been unable sustain a party in the past either because the healer would die or run out of MP to keep the party going. However due to new songs, new spells, Refresh enhancing Atma, non-relic Ballad+ instruments, and temp items the rate of MP regeneration has increased far more than what is proportional to our increased MP pools. In conjunction with the massive –Enmity bonuses available from Atma/Atmacite, it permits highly inefficient cure-bombing, thus reducing the challenge of playing healing jobs effectively. There is a trickle down effect: people no longer have to be nearly as self sufficient since one healer can effectively keep up with more, despite being inefficient. This means that a lot of group setups that would fall prey to heavy AOE damage and being unable to keep up with the MP demands of a fight can now win simply by damage blitzing the mob.

5. Restraint and crowd control unnecessary. In the past when a healer ran out of MP special adjustments sometimes had to be made until a healer could rest their pool back. However in the worst case scenario temporary items make it possible to immediately replenish an MP pool instead of resting. Within Abyssea, the existence of martellos makes this even worse. This removes the need for a group to be able to adapt on demand and employ crowd control tactics (sleep, bind, gravity kiting; moving people outside of the range of damage to reduce healing demand) and lowers the challenge considerably.

6. Skill requirements for damage dealing greatly lowered. Melees reach the accuracy ceiling and capped fSTR very easily through Cruor Enhancements, and Atmas (or Atmacites and temp items). Black Mages reach the requisite INT to avoid resists by default through Cruor enhancement and Atmas, and the amount of Magic Attack Bonus gained through Atma absolutely dwarfs the amount their gear gives. Player shortcomings, either in gear or style, are easily masked through crutches and thus reduce the challenge inherent in gameplay.

7. Even for the few fights that are appropriately scaled in Abyssea to be hard despite the numerous changes in mechanics, there is the existence of Primordial Brew. Any challenge in Abyssea can be bypassed by farming Cruor and purchasing a brew. This makes the challenges that do exist in the game irrelevant.

8. Fafnir, regardless of what you may think, has had MORE than his fair share of body counts when inexperienced groups walk in there thinking they can handle it and when they actually claim they get curb stomped. Then they never return. That's partially why I'm don't see a need to make things easier for people. They give up camping. In other games when someone isn't willing to complete the "side quest" you don't just magically get given the item or something better? So why in FFXI should they get the gear from mobs they aren't willing to camp, much less mobs they many people can't beat?

9. World Spawns are far from perfect, but are much better at it than any instances. World Spawns blend a bit of "most time dedication" (in a communal sense; the group that puts in the most hours, when you consider each individual member's contributions separately, tends to have a claiming advantage) with direct competition and skill test (you don't get to wipe and try again, you mess up if someone's better than you they will kill it instead)

And note, I don't even have to win that 75 XI was hard, only that it was harder.


I gave reasons why this is good. You need to disprove me.

Well, that just proves my point. Its not about you getting gear. It's about making sure others can't.

Im seriously not going to read your 30 page novel of crap. I'm sorry you can't throw bodies at mobs now and then decide who gets the gear :(

I agree with most of your pointers up there gredival, as a mage I wonder what went through SE's mind introducing refresh 2 and ballad 3.

Where the hell did HMP gear go? I don't even bring mine along with me anymore 90% of the time because I know that I'll have temp items to do that for me, instantly.

Really hate what they did with MP management. I didn't even use refresh atma's most of the time because it was getting too damn boring. A mage shouldn't have that much MP coming in.

What should that promote in character development? You can cast as much as you want and never have to have restraint?

...? Just wtf

Oh so mages can act like how mages do in every other MMO? How dare they.

You seriously believe that Abyssea was more difficult than content at 75?

...seriously?

No it's about game design reflecting appropriate rewards to both skill and effort, rather than being a HELP I AM TRAPPED IN 2006 PLEASE SEND A TIME MACHINE short-bus lottery.

Ideally in a competitive and zero-sum fashion, but ANY sort of skill barrier is preferable to none.


Then why post your opinion? Why have an opinion if you aren't even willing to evaluate whether or not it's right?

No, I dont believe that content took as much "skill" as you all believe.

Most content could be done with 6 people. Guess what? I still see people *** up and wipe in abyssea. Go check out BG random fail thread and see how many people still wipe and lose NMs.

Seems there's no uniform opinion between any players, even within only this thread.

What was this thread about, again?

opinions are opinions, not facts.

I've read your long winded posts before and its all the same crap. You so badly want FFXI to go back to 75 era and you hate abyssea SOOO much, yet it seems you have done your fair share of stuff in abyssea.

Are we still arguing when and how ffxi was ever hard?

This is about relativity though. How many more people who would never have succeeded in the HNM era succeed now because Abyssea is relatively easier? Or because VW has no skill ceiling beyond the ability to use temp items?


People who hated HNMs didn't quit. They bitched until they ruined this game. I will do the same to get this game good again.

And yea, this.

Only challenging content at 75 cap was AV/PW. PW we made zombie methods to beat and AV was never even remotely close to a decent reliable win. (both of course being before Alexander was released)

I honestly think something needs to be changed about VW loot. Players can come up with any solution to it, but none of that matters unless SE decides to meddle with it. Aside from that, VW is terrific.

Not being sarcastic. I love VW, except how it handles loot.

Skill has nothing to do with it. Skill hasn't been needed for a very long time in normal content.

I'm talking about difficulty, you know... scale of 1-10 10 being most difficult and level 75 content being 3 while abyssea is 1.25.

Abyssea provided no challenges or story-line. The only thing that was unique and "good" from abyssea was it's light and proc system except they had to go and use the proc system to to death on all their content the past 2 years.

Abyssea was a failure in my opinion and I think there was a dozen or so more possibilities for them to choose that would of brought life back to the game without destroying its fundamentals and keep costs low.

Take away how often we can use temp items in VW and creating more difficult challenges and you could make VW the most challenging normal content in the game. I'm in favor of reducing our handicap with temp item burning, and am in favor of redoing the proc system for VW where you can be more casual with jobs.

The adjustments, in my opinion, are heading in a better direction even if the reward distribution is still *** up.

Bringing back 21-24 and 72 hour HNMs isnt going to make this game good again, sorry.

Giving you a good reward to effort ratio will.

Yes my point is, the game was hard or difficult at 75. Need to take those nostalgic glasses off.

id say a good 90% of HNMLS just had large numbers and threw bodies at things which was in no way difficult to do.

I think that the time for a reward should be adjusted (except time isn't the factor for VW, it's how often you use stones. Unless time really is the factor and people are just wasting stones trying to get what they want).

Abyssea's reward to effort ratio was *** up and spoiled so many players who expect that to be future content. I hope there is nothing ever that easy and pathetic introduced in this game ever again. The rewards were too powerful for how easy it was to get them.

random observation. Events that the community deemed to be "successful" never had the same heated debates surrounding them that voidwatch has now.

unless its just really late and i am forgetting something obvious

One week to get a stupid powerful set of armor, one week to get a stupid powerful weapon, one week to mop up and get miscellaneous drops such as Epona's Ring and Zelus Tiara. Abyssea.

abyssea also wasnt end game content. Which is why I had no problem with it being the way it was.

I like the VW system, but not having an actual goal you can plan for is way to messed up.

Once people get in their head that abyssea was not end game content, the sooner they will get over "how easy gear was to get"

Infact, they really did them self in more by making abyssea gear as good as it was, and then making 95-99 gear barely better then it.

I agree, but only because most players are spoiled and are use to handouts which was the whole point of abyssea. Spend a few minutes killing something and get a great piece of equipment. Spend a few days-weeks killing some monsters and get the best weapon in your class. Abyssea was nothing but a handout.

Voidwatch is the complete opposite, and players wanting a handout are furious.