A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

The airship fight was close to the conclusion of a very large and significant expansion that provided forty new zones, a wealth of adventuring content, and massive amounts of gear choices by FFXI's standards. While some parts of it were tedious like the climb up the tower for the individual race's Lights you were still travelling through new zones designed specifically for the expansion. Compare this to all three of the add-ons where the price is the same as CoP at launch and all you have is three pathetically thrown together storylines, artiificial level restrictions imposed in order to make tired old zones remotely challenging while forcing you to repeat content you loathed half a decade ago such as the climb up Delkfutt's Tower for Mission 4-1. No new zones, no new classes, only three pieces of RMT loot, and missions that are instantly forgettable with zero repeat value. So yeah, what was your point again?

Also, CoP wasn't released with the carrot dangled up front like the add-ons were. The ring reward didn't come out for over a year after the expansion was officially launched. Whereas the central selling point for the add-ons was the item you were essentially buying and jumping through hoops for.

Nice to see an actual attempt at a discussion, this is better than the "apologist" nonsense.

Here's the problem with it:

These were dubbed "mini" expansions FROM THE START. They were released to add some more existing mainland content, but made for a wide range of players (read: Not just 75s; 75s just assume everything is exclusively for them) to play. A specific set of people - no longer affiliated with FFXI on the development team level - was contracted to make new content for mainland areas. Writers and scenario designers - and I know this is hard for corporate-minded people to comprehend - do not work for peanuts, they like money, too. Yes, I know they're evil for wanting to be compensated for their work and ideas just like anyone else, but that's the world we live in.

You people complain about the "hassles" of these missions then jump right to the "OMG its RMT" bullshit. Either there's an effort there or there's not. If you object to buying the content on its own, then you might wish to consider the forthcoming collector's pack, where you get it with all the other expansions for $30.

People sit and wait til the end of a full expansion to "wait and see" what the end reward is and if it is "worth it" before they even touch the missions. They'll just do whatever endgame stuff is popular until there's a known reason to do them. How is that any different than what you're arguing against?

We're talking about people who get excited about server maintenance not for updates and new content, but for a chance to camp an HNM. Now you're faulting SE for waving incentive in front of their faces?

There's nothing wrong with either approach, but its sad both happen. On one hand, you have adventurers that aren't adventurous at all, on the other you have SE letting the cat out of the bag to get them interested. Ultimately, its reward that gets people moving. Why else do we get so excited about the .DAT mining the updates?

Play any Aeria MMORPG and I'll show you something far more shameless in terms of purchasing your way through an MMO. They charge upwards of $50 for some gear sets. I understand they have to make money on this stuff to keep the games running but that's just fostering unhealthy player behavior and game design. There's no content to quest it, no physical item to pair it with, you just get it, regardless of level or effort for real money.

The fact that people try to insinuate that this is what SE is doing with the mini-expansions is absolutely pathetic.

[Empedocles]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

The 'Scenarios' are actually cheaper for people like me who don't live in the US/JP/EU where the disks are programmed/manufactured and have to get either special shipping (like myself who got a North America FFXI copy before they released the EU ones here) or buy it from a store... that has their mark-up on top of a mark-up.

Also, I'm still on three paths for CoP (Rage), and stopped counting the failures on AU44 (Even more Rage).... but I've done ACP and am finishing MKE now. Point being, I've spent about 70NZD on CoP/AU and not completed, yet about 30NZD on two (Yes, I agree they are small) mini-expansion things and actually enjoyed them. To me, the Scenarios have been the better value for money. But I'm in the small minority of those people at 75 who are casual players.

Posting in an epic thread.

[Armando]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

They were released to add some more existing mainland content, but made for a wide range of players (read: Not just 75s; 75s just assume everything is exclusively for them) to play.

CoP was made for a wide range of levels too, and there's no way for 75's to brute force their way through most of it or even just the first missions, unlike RoZ and the mini-expansions.

People sit and wait til the end of a full expansion to "wait and see" what the end reward is and if it is "worth it" before they even touch the missions. They'll just do whatever endgame stuff is popular until there's a known reason to do them. How is that any different than what you're arguing against?

Since you can't solo your way through 2/3rds of CoP or ToAU, it's only natural that people will wait and see what's in it for them besides plot when it could easily take weeks or upwards of a month to get through an expansion. People have limited times and priorities you know. When the reward for an expansion is great, the reward pushes other things down in priority. When it's not, people can afford to put off the expansion. You should know that very well, having traveled the long and arduous road to Sea more than once.

If I could solo (with reasonable difficulty) my way through an expansion I would be the first in line to explore new zones and see the plot, but that's not at all how it works.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

CoP was made for a wide range of levels too, and there's no way for 75's to brute force their way through most of it or even just the first missions, unlike RoZ and the mini-expansions.Since you can't solo your way through 2/3rds of CoP or ToAU, it's only natural that people will wait and see what's in it for them besides plot when it could easily take weeks or upwards of a month to get through an expansion. People have limited times and priorities you know. When the reward for an expansion is great, the reward pushes other things down in priority. When it's not, people can afford to put off the expansion. You should know that very well, having traveled the long and arduous road to Sea more than once.

You're forgetting one important thing:

Players don't want that.

The majority of players bitched about the structure of CoPs and found them too cumbersome. Many still do. All the guides in the world have not changed it.

You and I do not have a problem with that structure, but that's because we know that - unlike other expansions- these are missions you don't just try to power your way through. They require planning and preparation. But the people who try and try and try only to continue failing at those missions never come to grips with that.

We've dealt with them, they bring the whole experience down. They just want in and then they want out as quickly as possible. This is who SE is listening to and unfortunately for us, we're in the minority.

I'm not defending how dumb missions are these days - I'm just pointing out the reality of things. I'm sure SE would love nothing but to make these things more challenging, but you and I both know what most people skew to - the easy way out.

Before level sync they were showing up in event gear or no gear at all. Level Sync only makes them slightly less retarded now.

But only slightly.

Then there are two subsets of hardcore players, one being the real hardcore and wanting stuff like CoP, wanting exciting, hard BCNMs and then you have the endgame hardcore that just want to get back to endgame as soon as possible so they can start ramming their head against the brick wall and hoping for chance drops. They don't even care about new content until servers are back up and all three kings are done and that's only if Dynamis or Salvage isn't up next. To them, endgame is the only hardcore element of the game, everything else is a distraction.

That's not how you see it, nor is it how I see it, but this is what SE is dealing with.

[Ziero]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

If you fail on Maat, gotta get a new testimony. Relic? Hours upon hours upon hours of senseless grinding even Zeiro has been known to defend!

Mythic? Prepare to flush more of your life down the toilet!

Maat: 1) Doesn't require a party of specific jobs to win. 2) Can be done completely solo start to finish. 3) Isn't as tedious or annoying of a fight.

Relic: Something you work towards for intended years at a time that very few are supposed to get, and only the truly dedicated will ever attain. Unlike the mini-expansions which are supposed to be accessible to everyone...as long as you can stack your parties with a single specific job.

Mythics: Same as Relics only these force you to participate in all sorts of pre-existing endgame content you should be doing anyway. For most people, the hardest part is getting the Alexandrite and the time limit on Assaults.

And most of the gear you can get from these mini expansions isn't all that powerful and is often highly situational.

Look, I get that some people hated the add-ons. They're very different from normal (read: combat-heavy) content. (Although not *that* different. Farming shit, what does that remind me of... oh yeah, Pso'Xja chips. One of which dropped from goddamn MIMICS. And if you failed the fight where you used those items, you did not reraise and try again, you reraised and went farming again. In level capped zones, before you could use equipment above the level cap. BTW, what's the difference between running through a zone under a level cap trying not to get aggro, and running through a level capped zone trying not to get aggro? Other than the fact that sneak and invis didn't work in promys and they had a mini-boss every floor, that is.)

You know what else features non-combat heavy content that can be experienced at a wide variety of level ranges? Assaults. I do them every week, many times with three people in ones I never pull out my weapon for, and have an absolute blast doing them. I started them at 60 a good 3-4 years ago (whenever ToAU came out) and still do them to this day, taking different people with me at different level ranges doing different missions each time.

And the only time I farmed any kind of Chip for CoP was for Diabolos. I killed a single Mimic solo on my mid 50s thf and it dropped a chip so I could get to his fight. When I did the Airship BC, I bought the pumps, and seeing as we failed a few times, we just went to the AH right there in town and bought more pumps. No farming required. I'm 3/8 on that fight, and every time we did it we just bought new pumps no problem.

The difference between climbing the Promy's in a lvl 30 cap and Climbing Delkfutts in a level 30 cap is simple. With the Promys you need a pt, a balanced one of level 30 players (at the minimum) to work your way up through it. When you get to the top, you and your lvl 30 party can then fight that lvl 30 boss and win with a completely balanced, normal party set up. If you lose, assuming you still have supplies, you can just try again while you're there. With ACP, you Sn/In your way through a zone you've climbed through before when you did Rank 4, and then when you get to the top you need to fight that lvl 75 boss with a party stacked with a similar type of job and if you lose, you have to climb everything again.

CoP is content designed for people of all levels starting at 30. ACP is content to force 75s to waste time on something they just paid 10 bucks for.

Besides they are not THAT bad, they are not well thought out, and the stories are alittle bland, but they are not horrible, and you get cool stuff at the end.

The problem is paying 10 bucks for mediocre content at best while we've gotten far better mission lines and repeatable events for pretty much free. In these mini-expansions the story was supposed to be their biggest selling point. So if their stories are "a little bland" (aka crap) then why in the hell are we actually buying these things? Oh right, the shineys at the end of the stick. (p.s. I only bough ACP because I thought it would have a decent story and engaging mission line).

You don't think you're that crazy. Karinya just dropped the slam-dunk example on you guys - Pso'ja/Airship fight, quite possibly the most tedious, tightest and frustrating fight of the game where even if you do every thing right you could still run the chance of timing out - and you guys are still pulling out the "buts. "

If those disagreeing with you are "apologists" explain how the airship fight is any different. A lot of people did it for a Rajas ring.

The airship fight is different because: 1) If you fail it, you don't have to jump through hoops to try it again. 2) It can be won with a balanced, normal Exp party. 3) It's difficult because it's actually difficult, not cheap and annoying. 4) It's in the middle of a massive storyline that is full of great fights, great cutscenes, a great story and rewards you with access to a brand new and very incredible zone. 5) You feel like total badasses when you win because those are some kick ass monsters.

RoZ - ZM13 - requires a large group of people that are not idiots since you can't get anyone for the other version. You are literally stuck there and can't progress the remainder of the missions until you can find a group for it.

CoP - Mammets, Airship and Pot fight. One made more frustrating by bringing back mammets. Not to mention those damned BSTs down there in Pso'xja making it even harder because they're arrogant enough to want EXP and avatar bloods from that area. Go somewhere else BSTs, you're not even getting a polite warning that we're coming to kill everything in your camp for chips. No, we're not reading your search comment about camping there or asking you to help. That lizard you charmed could have a chip in it, we need to kill that one, too.

ToA - Alexander and his BLU buddy, nuff said.

We're not quite there yet in WotG, nothing to speak of in terms of challenge aside from party members again not being complete idiots when getting to the BC.

ZM 14(13 is a CS): Can be done by a single, balanced party of 6. You don't have to do DM to advance the storyline, you just need DM to get the earrings.

CoP Airship fight: Again, no farming needed. Even if you fail the first two times, you don't have to even use all your pumps. The Mammets coming back was a good thing imo because it meant we could kick their asses straight up with no gimmicks, and those Bst down there are more then welcome to that Lizard and it's chip because they then turn them into Pumps and put them on the AH saving me some time and effort.

ToAU 44: Not only can it be done by a balanced party, it has to be done by a balanced party. Not to mention all the other fights, events, storyline, gear, zones and massive changes to the game that came with ToAU.

They have an earring the beats Triumph as a potential random reward. Why not try for it a few times at least? They have pet buff gear from that stuff to.

Because it's a cheap, annoying fight that requires a stacked party of select jobs to actually win.

These were dubbed "mini" expansions FROM THE START. They were released to add some more existing mainland content, but made for a wide range of players (read: Not just 75s; 75s just assume everything is exclusively for them) to play.

You people complain about the "hassles" of these missions then jump right to the "OMG its RMT" bullshit. Either there's an effort there or there's not. If you object to buying the content on its own, then you might wish to consider the forthcoming collector's pack, where you get it with all the other expansions for $30.

The problem with these "mini" expansions is that they're FAR too "mini". Despite being made for a "wide range of players", once you get past those first 2-3 fetch quests, you have to be 75 to Advance. Another problem is how horribly set up the stories are. These "mini expansions" were pegged as a way to add more stories to this game and that got a lot of players excited. FFXI is known as being one of the few MMOs with incredible storylines, and so far these Mini-Expansions are amongst the worst FFXI has to offer.With such little content and such crappy stories, it's hard to see why I should pay 10 bucks at all for these things. And at this point, even if I did buy the new collection it would still come out to being 10 bucks for these things since I have everything else but MKT and ASA.

The majority of players bitched about the structure of CoPs and found them too cumbersome. Many still do. All the guides in the world have not changed it.

I'm not defending how dumb missions are these days - I'm just pointing out the reality of things. I'm sure SE would love nothing but to make these things more challenging, but you and I both know what most people skew to - the easy way out.

Isn't CoP hailed as being the greatest expansion this game has seen as well as having the most enthralling, engaging and entertaining storyline? Partly because of it's difficult battles? And aren't the WotG missions seen as some of the most unique and fun fights to be added to the game in a long time? Hell, the only complaints I heard about ToAU's mission line were about all the JP Midnight waits to force people to take longer to finish. People want good missions. They want entertaining stories and interesting fights. What they don't want are fetch quests and time sinks. Two things the mini-expansions are built around. If each mini-expansion had a ToAU-esque story line, something interesting and epic with numerous entertaining and unique fights with little farming, light travel times, and a straight forward presentation (with no JP Midnight waits) I guarantee people would have a lot less complaints. Make each fight sync you down to the lowest level member of your party, and throw in some repeatable side-quests that will allow you re-access to an uncapped version of the fight which rewards you with random items and augment gear and you'd have a great mini-expansion that could satisfy a much larger portion of the playerbase.

Instead, we have to do Ranks 1-6 all over again....only in a more tedious fashion.

[ShepardG]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

AUGMENTS GO!!!!!!!!! Movement Speed +8% for sammmmmmmmy ^^

[Armando]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

Players don't want that.

They very obviously don't want the sort of content found in these mini-expansions either, so you're getting nowhere with that argument. And while people did whine about CoP's unrelenting difficulty, they didn't call it garbage or reject it outright.

The problem with CoP wasn't so much the difficulty but the logistical nightmare that it is. The locations took time to get to (as opposed to ToAU where every location is a skip and hop away), the dungeons could take up to 2 hours to traverse and practically none of the level capped missions could be done alone or in a small group. There's no way to do CoP unless you know 5 people (with the right jobs) that are all free on the same 3-4 hour time span.

I wasn't a big fan of getting rid of dungeons altogether, but ToAU had a lot of good ideas - zones were just a Runic Portal away, there were hardly any menial timesinks designed purely to stretch out the plot artificially, and many of the early fights could be done with 3 or 4 people, but the difficulty of the BCs ramped up quickly to CoP-like levels. It was condensed plot, no bullshit in between. (Following your logic, since no one complained about ToAU missions, they should've followed this model.)

U/O wouldn't even have been so hard for a lot of people if the wiki didn't leave out so many critical details about it.

[Clever Ninja]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now



Honestly, while I didn't buy the other mini expansions, I might REALLY buy this one just cause of the Haste option

[KingOfZeal]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

Pet attributes are nice, perhaps even enough to offset my Mirke... in face, that entire 3rd column is rather nice, but I don't know if they would offset any gains that would normally be used in the leg slot.

Song recast time is... meh. I wish it was song casting time instead.

The rest of it... I don't know.

[Clever Ninja]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

1/2 of the augments seem to be stuff you dont always get in those slots, like the pet things or Phantom Roll reduction, and the other half just seems to be sidegrades for stuff, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Haste 3% and either Accuracy/Double Attack(if you happen to be acc capped) is gonna be a nice placeholder until one is lucky enough to get Kitty Haidate. Stat wise it might be better than Homam pants for jobs who could wear it but don't need Fast Cast.

Very tempting really >_<

[Malacite]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

Holy shit this is perhaps the best set of augments yet!

Deciding which two to get is going to be such a pain in the ass, so many of them are just stellar;

MAB +4 is sexy for BLM & SCH

Haste +3 paired with Kick Attacks +5 could be insanity for a Black Belt MNK

Critical Dmg +3% might be interesting for a THF, more so if they have X's Knife (could also make brave grip worth using)

SC damage +5% is interesting but should have been at least 10.

Conserve TP ? I think they meant to say Store TP?

Physical damage down 4% is interesting... paired with haste could be amazing for PLD.

Not sure what to make of Magic Crit and MB +10... I thought magic crit sucked?

Cure Potency +5 wtf /drool for WHM.

Song Recast is interesting, though I'm more intrigued by the Barrage +1 (new cap of 8 shots? O.O)

Elemental Siphon +20? wtf is that? If that's just +20 MP then that's a waste. Phanatm Roll -5 though WOOT potential 45 second Phantom Roll!

Pet buffs are kinda weak this time I find, except maybe the MACC +7 (why no MAB wtf?)


Waltz cost down could be epic for DNC (again paired with Haste, or Cure Potency if you really like soloing lol) and I'm curious about movement speed +8%... aren't most movement items 15%?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

Wait, wait, wait...

Conserve TP +5?

Did the Moogle augments have something like this?

Also, Movement Speed +8, Barrage +1.

Boo that they didn't add another slot for Snapshot, though Ranged Attack +7 and Barrage +1 kinda make up for it, I guess.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

Seriously, why don't they just charge you $10 every two months and give you a new piece of gear. I can't begin to vocalise how disgusting I find this concept and the rapidity with which players have lept at it. I mean, this game was always about earning your rewards over other much reviled "easier" MMOs and yet you still have to put some effort in to achieve upgrades in those games. FFXI is now just selling you shit that is barely a step removed from items many people took literally years to obtain.

Be very careful because precedents set in FFXI will almost certainly be carried over to FFXIV.

[Aksannyi]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

Oh wow, these augments don't totally fail. If I were still playing, they'd definitely go toward my WAR until I could get myself some kitty pants, though I'd probably look gimp as hell with no kitty pants and ebody. Lulz.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: A Shantotto Ascension Rewards... Pre-Sale Going on Now

Seriously, why don't they just charge you $10 every two months and give you a new piece of gear. I can't begin to vocalise how disgusting I find this concept and the rapidity with which players have lept at it. I mean, this game was always about earning your rewards over other much reviled "easier" MMOs and yet you still have to put some effort in to achieve upgrades in those games. FFXI is now just selling you shit that is barely a step removed from items many people took literally years to obtain.

Be very careful because precedents set in FFXI will almost certainly be carried over to FFXIV.

Why you're wrong and overreacting (again):

All of this stuff still isn't as potent as endgame gear.

+1 to Barrage, for example, is cool but easily beaten by the +2 more Snapshot given by Zha'Gho's Barbut in contrast to the various RNG-style bonuses granted from both MKD and SA end rewards. I shouldn't have to explain haste to you, but that's essentially what Snapshot is for ranged attacks.

More snapshot and more haste will always be better. Zha'Gho's Barbut will give RNGs more than either piece ever could just for that +2 more Snapshot

+3% Haste matches Barbossa's Zerehs, but still is two percent less haste than Byakko's Haidate.

Hell, just look at Ak's post, she would still want the Haidate, +5% Haste +15 DEX. There's reason to still want it. These new pants are not giving that at all.

All this shit is optional gear. No one is going to stare at you like you're gimp for not having it.

Also, to the surprise of no one, you made the insane leap to implying RMT/buying your way through the game when there is content provided that you have to clear to gain the reward.

The only difference is you know the reward in advance and it isn't strung out over the course of several updates. Many people would sit back over the course of those several updates and just not do the content if they didn't know the end reward anyway.