Dev Tracker - Discussion

The fights themselves are somewhat varied between them, granted i'd say damage resistances that raise every rank does a fair bit of the work there along with limiting you by subs and 1 job lockouts but any fight that makes players have to innovate a bit is refreshing.

The RP/clear gate stuff is entirely separate and I think fumbled a bit but credit where it's due on the fights.

The cheese method came later, it was never part of the initial Release. I used to farm V15 Gogmagog solo on MNK for 360~ RP/clear, to finish out my Coiste Bodhar. I did dozens of fights this way before any cheese existed. SE threw all of us a bone by allowing amplifiers in the first place (and I'm certain they flubbed the execution so much but never bothered to fix it). In any case, absolutely none of the RP cheese method has anything to do with "depth".

You don't think Odyssey Gaol has any depth? Okay. Probably trolling but I'll bite because it's a slow Monday at my desk.

- You need 6 real players (not mules or alts) to have a chance
- You need 6 unique jobs per fight. Multiplied by how many successive fights you were willing to do (2 fights = 12 jobs, 3 = 18 jobs. Nearly impossible for plebs)
- You can't rely on your support job to supplement weaknesses in the group (i.e. if your healer sucks, your GEO or SMN can't help out.
- Everyone must be top notch geared, at least on the higher veng levels.
- You need to have appropriate macros and sets, or you will get exposed for being the weak link in the group.
- You need to know how to use your abilities properly, and you need to watch out for key triggers. Timing JAs was so important, if you used Rayke/Gambit/Subtle Sorcery/Wild Card/Soul Voice/Threnodies/TP Drainkiss/Impact/Helix at the wrong time, you might as well warp out. The fights were THAT strict
- You could change the difficulty for each boss slightly to challenge yourself. If you couldn't beat a certain tier, it was clear evidence you were not good enough.
- Each boss uses a very specific strategy, but before some of them were discovered, groups bashed their heads into a wall surviving things like Tiiimbeeer (looking at you Poseidon's Ring and Rampart RD rotations). It was incredibly frustrating figuring out all the mechanics early on.
- Positioning is incredibly important in certain fights (standing in front of Kalunga or Gigilorum = run over). Sometimes you need to employ a very different strategy (like kiting) to even have a chance. Even the Craklaw can one-shot a superbly geared RUN.
- You needed specific weapon types or magic damage to even hurt bosses past a certain veng level.
- You can't even be carried on some of the higher level bosses. There's some people know who still can't beat Kalunga V25 with 2 KIs (because they lack job depth and strength), even WITH primes and gear creep.
- *They give you three chances to clear one boss, with the caveat that you can't repeat jobs in subsequent attempts. Most players only have really good A and B jobs. PUGs struggle heavily with 2 KI fights because their secondary jobs are weaker comparatively. I've never seen a PUG 3-KI fight, because organizing that many people to have non-conflicting top notch jobs x18 is almost impossible. This forces people to level up all of their relevant jobs to even have a chance. If you refused, you simply could not clear (unless you "cheesed" out and bought the clear, your loss)
- *You could challenge yourself as a group by attempting to fight 3 bosses in one go. Not "cheese", but really trying to fight and clear. 99% of players NEVER attempted this not a single time. Amplifier cheese ruined people's desire to even attempt the challenge, but I'm certain the devs wanted players to challenge themselves. I was proud of my then-static that successfully did 3 V15s in one visit using all of our ABC jobs. It was an incredible test. Go back and read the first few stabs at V15s in the Odyssey thread and look how engaging all of the community was with sharing information.

You can't convince me that Gaol didn't have depth. Just because most players skipped past the majority of the event years later doesn't diminish the quality of the content (it did come out with a ton of bugs initially, but that's not a depth issue).

Compare all of this with Limbus, where you literally put 5 alts on follow, pull trash, sleep them, spam the same ws 15 times in a row, click a porter, and repeat 20+ times. The comparison isn't even close.



Hard disagree. Gaol clearing on V25 was F-R-U-S-T-R-A-T-I-N-G for sure, but not ***. The issue was the fights were so hard at first, it made people upset because they were basically locked out of clears until all the good players figured it out for them. Personally, I formed my own group and lost tons of sleep over Gaol fights (ESPECIALLY V25 AREBATI FK THIS GUY FOR LIFE, but most fun I have had in a long time). The frustration with losing so many times led me to never want to form a static for these fights ever again, it was so frustrating. But that frustration wasn't because the content sucks, I sucked. We just didn't win. Until we did. Then it felt glorious. The content MADE me want to get better, more MLs, improve my timing and learn how to better anticipate moves, or even think of new strategies to deal with the challenges we couldn't overcome. Every single ounce of frustration was validated the moment we won a single V25. It was just a matter of were you willing to keep going after dozens of failures.

And I happily go back and help people with these fights, even to this day on fights where I am capped RP and get nothing from it. But I guess I'm in the minority of people who thought those fights were (except Bumba V25, absolute incredible horseshit, but maybe we stopped trying to figure it out) very challenging and entertaining.

The entire FFXI game is based upon "boss" battles.

Do shitty trash mobs for the opportunity to fight a boss that drops something cool.

HNM = Boss
Dynamis = Boss
Sortie = Boss
Limbus 1.0 = Boss
Savage = Boss
Meebles = Boss
High tier battles = boss
Legion = Boss
Odyssey = Boss
Ambu = Boss
Unity = Boss
Vagary = Boss

Limbus 2.0 = Trash only (hopefully its not done) (and no, zone wide fights that happen at lunch time only don't count)

My LS has pretty much stopped doing Limbus, a couple guys do a couple chest per week. The rest just pretend it doesn't exist, I stopped later than most and am glad to avoid it at this point. If it was good we'd be grinding it like everything else over the past 20+ years. I am still hopeful since the augmented gear has some sweet pieces.

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100% agree and I also geared up multiple non-main jobs just to get all my v25 clears which added a layer to the game.

Prior to Gaol, I never played BLM, never fought anything "hard" on my RNG (though it was well geared), only used DNC for cheesy Ambuscade months, and never really had many "Defensive" toggles (Dring, some -DT capes and accessories etc). When V20s became such a standard thing, I had no choice but to get all of my jobs up to speed. Leading a static meant I had to set the example and have most jobs prepared, so that group forming was easier. I would have never made as much progress on improving my jobs if not for Gaol. I went out of my way hard to put together top notch sets for fights, when I otherwise wouldn't have. When a piece of content makes you want to do that, that's depth/layer added to the game.

If you remember Geriond (was a DRK on Asura a few years ago), even he was forced to level other jobs if he wanted to get clears. If you knew anything about him back then, he was ultra stubborn, and only ever wanted to play DRK RUN RDM, but when Gaol forced him, he eventually gave in and got other jobs up to speed. Nothing has ever been able to get him to level another job, but V25 Arebati and Mboze did.

Same thing people said about Sortie or Odyssey before SE even completed releasing all of the event content. I bet your LS will go back once they add the (already mentioned by the devs) Limbus weapons to grind out lol.

Ahem.

There are people in this forum that have 6-boxed v25s.

The number of people who can successfully 6-box any V25: Probably less than 10 across all servers

The number of people who can't clear any V25s with 6 real players: Probably over 10,000 across all servers

The exception doesn't disprove the rule.

It depends what kind of weapon line it is. If they're on par with Odyssey weapons/augments, I doubt it. If they're unique like Ambuscade weapons, probably. Primes are already the shiniest/strongest* weapons in the game, so if Sortie doesn't move you to make one, Limbus sure as hell won't motivate people to grind one. The gear alone is barely motivating many people to grind, and the Sworn/Duty/Clemency sets already look phenomenal with augments

I still think Limbus weapons will be on par with Dynamis-D weapons.

What im hoping for since that will atleast possibly make them more than dmg sticks, though i assume you just mean power wise

Power, utility and uniqeuness. The augment path C was unique, along with two base paths that repeat for every weapon. You could make multiple weapons per job that served different purposes or opened up new builds, which kept them valuable for a while (still are). Some weapons like Crocea completely supercharged amagic melee mode for RDM when paired with other Enspell gear. Certain jobs like COR got straight up potency improvements, NIN got a phenomenal tanking weapon, BST got a Master/Pet option, etc. Subtle Blow cap was no longer locked behind certain jobs. They weren't all absolute hits, but neither were Ambuscade weapons. Some Dynamis weapons are very good, multiple are considered BIS, and others have at least a use if you really want a reason to make one. They're all buyable too, so long as you're Su5, a fresh player can get a pretty strong weapon for any job with little effort.

And probably be the original white versions of the Dyna D weapons (blurred weapons).

Too late, I already bought all the blurred weapons for lockstyle, no further Rizz can be gained from same reskin models.

Limbus weapons will certainly just be removing the dt and be high base damage. Theyre not going to be an ultimate weapon line.

Each rank up removes 2% dt to rank 25 (or 15 or whatever)

So youll have to choose 99k with limbus weapon or 50k with PREMA

If those fights really make you happier, you're always welcome to show up for my v25 re-kills, i can get you super happy if that's the case LOL. Jokes aside, I came back to the game 2 months ago by now and joined/organized sporadical v25 sessions already. You know how many times 1 "helper with kill" joined us? only once (and *** it up), otherwise none.


But lemme tell you why that is the case after wasting enough time pugging etc: it's not that these fights are THAT hard as you remember back then (not even close i'd think), if that's what it seems superficially, is because most of the players left to kill em are often unprepared, overly casual when it comes to customizing toggles/sets/***for specific fights and unable to seriously coordinate with a team or following strategies correctly.

I rarely see pugs executing strats flawlessly and timing out due to not meeting dps check, most of the time ppl wipe to half-executed strats, dumb ***, trivial mistakes and totally avoidable and always deterministic issues. We can't compare these groups to REAL players, REAL groups. Real groups can communicate, coordinate and have difficult conversations when needed too.


Regarding this sentence: "The number of people who can't clear any V25s with 6 real players: Probably over 10,000 across all servers" is misleading. I'm sorry but most times you won't be pugging with 5 other "real players". We shouldn't think of v25 kills as individual achievements, you clear if the whole group is good enough to clear, it's NEVER up to you alone. You can be BiS with Limbus r30 set and you'd still wipe if 1 critical role sucked.

Tbh everytime I pugged v25 since i came back, i've never seen 1 helper with the clear join to have some fun... and tbh i think i now know why, v25 pugs quality is so low these days that honestly if they value their time enough, i can't blame them for not joininig nor trusting others over such delicate and strategic fights.

But ye, pls, lets stop making it sound like it has to do purely with the individual player. It's a *** privilege to find or form a PROPER v25 t3 group. It has always been about privilege and an extra layer of "rng" in order to find both a team prepared/serious enough that can also can play the same days/hours as you.

I am sure on paper many will say they love Gaol fights, v25, reclearing for ppl while sitting with capped RP etc etc.
But in reality I didn't see anyone of such players join any pug/v25 group personally since i came back, when 2 years ago it was a thing for sure. I also LOVE gaol fights and often help ppl reclearing v20-25 but i know it can be a miserable experience pretty quickly once you're stuck in there with a clueless team, so the risk of wasting a lot of time without having fun is still moderately high.

If that was the balance, the Limbus weapon would be a must have for people who care about upgrading much of the new Su Limbus gear. Obnoxious grind once for a weapon that could slash the grind for all armor going forward.

I had the same exact experience, and can we blame these people? Imho no.
As someone who has a couple of V25 kills, the few times I've been asked to join a group to help them get the win (thing that I've done plenty of times) I've been very reluctant, depending on several factors:

1) Which job do they need me as? Do I have enough EP buffer? Because there's gonna be a lot of deaths
2) Do I still need RP from that V25?
3) You need lotsa Segments to participate. Some people have gazillions and that's not an issue for them, but many other people are starving for segments and need them for themselves, can't "waste" them on other people
4) Most of the times it's not a matter of joining 1-2 runs and getting those people a win. Those strategies, at least some of them, are very complex and don't allow a large margin for errors. It's gonna take many, many, many runs for everybody to learn what they have to do. Even you yourself, maybe you've done the fight 2 years ago and you barely remember how to correctly do things. A lot of times something goes wrong (you fail) and you don't exactly understand what caused it. It's not always easy to see where the error was and who did it, and that only makes it more complicated for a party "leader" to fix it on the successive try

So, yeah. Those fights, at least some of them, can something truly incredible to experience.
But sometimes you just can't be bothered and I can't blame people who don't want to. You hardly have any incentives to do so once you're done getting RP.

Have said it before: Gaol fights is content so good that no one wants to do it again after clearing it once.

Challenging, makes you feel like a boss when the stars align and you have a group dedicated enough to do everything needed to clear it. Clear it the once and never touch it again if you can help it.

While correct, as Amplfier was added May 2021, V20/RP25 was added January 2022.

With all due respect, everything you've stated was a gigantic strawman about how bad pugs are. The original claim from Nynja was that Gaol didn't have any depth because you could clear once and never do it again, conveniently skipping everything about the event that was very detailed. My wall of text explored the depth of Odyssey Gaol fights, and nothing you said challenged or disputed that. You are talking about how miserable Gaol is for PUGs. Almost everything in my post implied you need a quality group to even have a chance. I never even implied PUGs are the way to go (I cleared a few sub v20 with a couple straggler members). I even said this very clearly:




Your comments don't have anything to do with whether or not Odyssey has depth or not compared to Limbus (it's not even close). You're talking about how frustrating it was beating challenging content with PUGs who don't realize you can land elegy and slow on bosses and make things easier.

I'll even grant it. Cheese method still has zero to do with content depth (your original argument). They threw us a bone so you COULD upgrade your gear, get stronger, and finally clear the boss eventually. It was a helping tactic, it should have made beating the fights easier, or at least you made progress even when you failed. It wasn't a "oh we can finally skip all this content and just get the final reward by timing out 11 times". You still had to do the fights. Imagine how miserable it would have been for everyone to only ever get RP from bosses of you actually killed them. People would rage.

I never went out my way to cap RP on all sets, there's still some I haven't finished, for this reason tbh. I'm sitting on a lot of segments I'll probably never get to spend. I felt like if I capped everything, I'd kill any incentive I'd have to ever want to do these fights again, even though I can solo triple farm RP (this part is ultra boring to be honest).

I don't blame people for not wanting to do the fights or repeat them because they're hard. Some people don't like hard fights, see Matter Trials. So I get it. Most players get what they want and they are out. The sense of team grouping and accomplishing a common goal is non existent in FFXI anymore. Gaol forced you to play with other coordinated players for your win, which is why pugging is atrocious. And most players didn't like having to bash their heads against a wall repeatedly until they finally got it.

This is why SE shifted to this open world Limbus nonsense. Everyone can do it, everyone gets wins, everyone's happy right? Nope. You either get engaging content that challenges you like hell to three point you hate your life, you're running through purple hallways for 30-60 minutes for 5 months to glow fuscia, or you're running and killing trash for a key to open a box 10x a week. No in between. Fun.

This is still true though. Just because "well I go back", my statement isnt invalidated. For every one of you who "goes back", there are how many who got their V25 kill and said "*** this, never again"? 40? 50? You're likely in the < 1% in regards to this. I can name one person who got their V25 kill and said "*** this, never again" and went to the SE account portal to deactivate their account lol

What you're talking about is the repeatability of content. You can repeat Aman Trove endlessly, even after you've gotten everything. That's not content depth. The event itself is very simple, no depth. Sortie has endless repeatability, and some depth you can argue with the objectives. Even Omen has repeatability and depth. Gaol has layers of depth through the entire process, like... Everything about it is detailed and very intentional. From Moogle Mastery to auras to even amplifiers. It's all very purposeful. The Sheols play an important part into Gaol, everything fits together. Even the NMs in the Sheols hint at the aura gimmicks for the bosses on higher veng levels. Whether someone wants to repeat doing it is another thing. You can say Gaol has high depth low repeatability interest, but that doesn't take away depth. That's two different things.

Limbus on the other hand is endless repeatability but it's incredibly plain. The entire thing can be completed with a 6 box, except for maybe Omega and Ultima

My brother in christ, Trove isnt content. It is the closest thing to a Gacha game SE will put in FFXI.

I will even grant it for the sake of getting back to your original point (because these are all besides the point). It still doesn't make what you said about depth true. Odyssey Gaol may not have the replay value, but it is loaded with depth. Limbus has practically no depth at all, but is loaded with endless replay value.

All right, Level 13 Besieged confirmed for April update let's gooooo. Am I gonna get something decent to spend all these Imperial Standing Accolades on? Probably not, but I still hope so!

That new item that allows you to get invi and sneak at the same time and stacks at 99 would be nice! But you can't buy multiples, just one by one... so I kinda gave up the idea lol.