What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

[Armando]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

Just to chime in, I don't buy into any of that "ToAU mobs have no Def" thing either. They follow the same Defense formulas as any other mob. Maybe their HP levels are off. I haven't checked. I don't think anyone's bothered to check. I doubt that anyways. Point is that the level correction in the damage and accuracy formulas is harsh. Very harsh. If you're only fighting mobs that are 1-5 levels higher than you at best, though, and add to that a BRD, and merits, and great gear, and low recast timers, then of course they'll seem weak to anything.

You should be able to do the same things against non-ToAU mobs, but as far as I know there aren't any camps within 5 minutes of any major nation with non-crab mobs that are level 80 at best on 5 minute respawn timers, plenty of pop points, and a free 1 MP/tick Refresh.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

The other expansions were RPG-smart. The further out you travel, the harder things get. That's standard stuff. ToA is RPG-stupid, it puts the hard (and I'm being generous wit that term) mobs right outside of the hub.

I just loathe the hub design for the laziness it breeds both in game design and players alike. SE is now going to have to implement that fugly hub design into the expansion if they have any hope of budging players from the ToA EXP camps.

But there are 30 Zones this time, so there's hope.

[Legal Fish]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

The other expansions were RPG-smart. The further out you travel, the harder things get. That's standard stuff. ToA is RPG-stupid, it puts the hard (and I'm being generous wit that term) mobs right outside of the hub.

What are you talking about? The monsters outside Aht Urhgan were the weakest in the expansion.

And you are still wrong about ToAU monsters being designed to take more melee damage.

[Malacite]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

The other expansions were RPG-smart. The further out you travel, the harder things get. That's standard stuff. ToA is RPG-stupid, it puts the hard (and I'm being generous wit that term) mobs right outside of the hub.

I just loathe the hub design for the laziness it breeds both in game design and players alike. SE is now going to have to implement that fugly hub design into the expansion if they have any hope of budging players from the ToA EXP camps.

But there are 30 Zones this time, so there's hope.

I hate the hub design as well. It defeats the purpose of exploring the world IMO, and ever since they implemented Al Zhabi the local economies of the 3 nations (not to mention populations even for jeuno) have gone all to hell.

I miss being able to actually sell things and talk to people in San d'Oria. I also miss going to Bastok for competitive prices on smithing and goldsmithing instead of the global standard that ToAU has created.

In retrospect, putting all 8 guilds in 1 city was a very big mistake.

[Legal Fish]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

Anyone who doesn't set their HP in Windurst/Bastok/San d'Oria instead of Aht Urhgan is being very stupid(tele-whores aside). For 300 gil you can be in Whitegate instantly.

[Amele]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

The other expansions were RPG-smart. The further out you travel, the harder things get. That's standard stuff. ToA is RPG-stupid, it puts the hard (and I'm being generous wit that term) mobs right outside of the hub.
I just loathe the hub design for the laziness it breeds both in game design and players alike. SE is now going to have to implement that fugly hub design into the expansion if they have any hope of budging players from the ToA EXP camps.
But there are 30 Zones this time, so there's hope.

excluding for a minute, endgame areas that are only unlockable after significant mission progress, since that's what we're talking about.

the most time consuming area to get to in the CoP expansion, tops out at level 40 for mobs.

the most time consuming areas to get to in the RoZ expansion and original game, well, none of them are particularly time consuming because, surprise; it used a hub system too (telepoints). the only difference between this system and that one is that players aren't beholden to one particular job for transportation.

as for AU, the mobs follow the -exact same pattern- they just start at level 60 and go up to 80. AU has six runic portals, just like base+RoZ has 6. you can argue that there are fewer areas in AU than in base+RoZ, but the areas in AU are also much much larger. (Arrapago Reef comes to mind)

SE raised the bar in this expansion in terms of transportation speed (which is a major and highly dull time sink) so I *hope* they continue to follow this trend of decent travel speed. It's surprising to me honestly, that you would prefer more of the least useful time sink in this game.

and armando: you've got it right pretty much, that mob level is pretty much the sweet spot. This is another reason why AU exp is so popular: outside of AU, there's only 6 possible places to go for mobs level 79+, and 4 of them are dungeons (which means dungeon repop times). only three places have mobs in the 80-84 range that all of the major AU camps do. (uleg, krt, lufaise) and altogether they barely support as many players as thickets can by itself.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

Anyone who doesn't set their HP in Windurst/Bastok/San d'Oria instead of Aht Urhgan is being very stupid(tele-whores aside). For 300 gil you can be in Whitegate instantly.

Then color me stupid.

I look at it this way: for 1 Imperial Silver Piece, I can be in Bastok OR Jeuno instantly. Given my server's current prices, that's roughly 900 gil instead of 300. But I'm used to paying 1k gil and up for travel convenience (higher level outpost warps, Tele Taxi).

[Legal Fish]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

300 gil is usually easier to obtain than 100 IS. 100 IS, aside from Besieged, comes from 1,000 exp with Sanction.

You can NPC a stack of earth crystals, 3-4 dark crystals, kill three higher tier(but too weak to 75) Beastmen, NPC a Mercury(among many others), and so-on for 300 gil. It's basically chump change you can make in 50 seconds of effort.

I'm sure a lot of people have a lot of IS stored up without use, but that isn't as good excuse. At some point you might want to buy some Perdu weapons. Perdu Blade, Perdu Vodge(sic), and Perdu Scythe are the best weapons in the game of their type.

It's usually more benefitial to have quicker access to Outpost warps than it is standing in Whitegate. The lag might be bad for you, but even without that, you are basically paying a cheap outpost warp price to get to Whitegate in the first place.

Jeuno can be easily reached using Outposts. Especially if you feel like dishing out a Chocobo Whistle charge.

[Necropolis]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

It's usually more benefitial to have quicker access to Outpost warps than it is standing in Whitegate. The lag might be bad for you, but even without that, you are basically paying a cheap outpost warp price to get to Whitegate in the first place.

Jeuno can be easily reached using Outposts. Especially if you feel like dishing out a Chocobo Whistle charge.

I can OP quicker from Whitegate quicker than I can OP from setting my HP in my home town. Being from Windy, the OP warper is in Port Windy on the far west side of the map. The Whitegate warper is in Windy woods in about the middle of the map. There is no convient way to travel between the two. I did have my HP set in windy, but found myself using the warp to whitegate to warp me to whitegate to turn around and warp me back to windy to OP. Since when you warp to windy it puts you right by the OP warper.

It's actually quicker. Sure I can use a chocobo whistle, but as my choco is not made for racing, I'm faster just subbing bard and using raptor mazurka. When I could just blow a coin and warp to jeuno instantly.

The only reason I set my HP in a starter town now is if I want my HP appart from my home city. Now I can set my HP in Sandy or Bastok and quickly get to Windy, Whitegate, or Jueno in just a few zones. Very convient if I'm doing multiple runs of a BC or something. But other than that, it's a pain to not have HP set in Whitegate for me personally.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

300 gil is usually easier to obtain than 100 IS. 100 IS, aside from Besieged, comes from 1,000 exp with Sanction.

I just buy them from the AH. That requires 0 IS. There's a fairly steady supply of them up for sale on the AH. I guess there are plenty of players who don't mind turning the IS they get from meritting to earn some extra gil.

It's usually more benefitial to have quicker access to Outpost warps than it is standing in Whitegate. The lag might be bad for you, but even without that, you are basically paying a cheap outpost warp price to get to Whitegate in the first place.

Jeuno can be easily reached using Outposts. Especially if you feel like dishing out a Chocobo Whistle charge.

I must have misunderstood you earlier. I didn't realize that when you said someone is "being very stupid", you basically meant they have a different opinion from you as to what's convenient and preferable.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

What are you talking about? The monsters outside Aht Urhgan were the weakest in the expansion.

I'm pointing out hub design and its weaknesses. ToA has no real sense of scale. You go outside of the city and there are level 60+ mobs. Then its a hop and skip to the Beastmen fortresses and its 70-80+ and you've hardly gone anywhere yet.

Contrast this to West Ronfaure, low level stuff, lets get past the lakes, OK a little harder. La Theine, a bit harder as you move on down. You could go to the dunes, but comprable mobs are underneath the plateau in Ordelle's, mobs that could, in fact, keep players going until level 30 that or the could go to Jugner. From there there's Batilla Downs and Davoi.

And where does this path lead?

Jeuno. Same as any other route from other nations, similiar progression, too.

This is how EXP. It as a journey. One that lead to Jeuno and eventually to the northlands by story. Even CoP had some sense of scaling progress. Not just because of level caps, but because progress was scaled along with a story.

Nothing like that in RoZ or ToA.

ToA you can have all five original staging points at day one and the only real places that I'd consider exploration-worthy are Mount Z and Arrapoggo Reef because of thier sheer size. CoP had size in spades. Attowah Chasm, Ule Range, Bibiki Bay. Beautiful. RoZ had nothing on it in terms of scale and ToA feels like leftovers in contrast to RoZ, even in terms of missions.

All ToA has going for it is mini-games, some nice endgame alternatives and story. And no matter where we go, all the progress is driven from Naja Salaheem's office.

Don't get me wrong, I like Assault, Salvage, Nyzul Isle, I like ToA's story and the needed changes Sanction and ToA mobs brough to the in-game economy. But its all to braindead easy and easy is the common complaint for missions in particular, followed closely by the classes that are left out of EXP because its much easier to make a meleex4, BRD and RDM PT than anything else.

And lol at Necro whining about having to walk from Port Windy to Windurst Woods to warp to Whitegate. We have it so damn hard. Boo hoo.

And you are still wrong about ToAU monsters being designed to take more melee damage.

No one ever said they were designed to take more damage, they just DO and are singled out for that specific reason. Its an oversight SE is wary, even worried to correct because these mobs are exploited.

Why are PLDs and even NINs not needed for PTs now?

Because we have mobs now that don't have PLD-type defense, don't double/triple attack and are commonly weak to piercing and slashing and even blunt damage.

Contrast Imps, Jnun, Puks, BLU, BLM and BST Mamool to what came before. Hobgoblins, Crabs, Raptors Roc, Weapons, Aura Statues, Kindred Demons. Why aren't we EXPing on the latter now? Hm? Travel aside, if ToA mobs aren't any more difficult, then people should have no problems going to these camps.

And yet they do. They have higher DEF, do more damage, do more threatening attacks, they have double and triple attack and status ailments that can be worse than amnesia and silence, like Bomb Toss, Hecatomb Wave, Whirl or Rage and don't get me started on Statues. Hell, no one commonly goes to EXP on Trolls and Lamia, apparently they're not as easy as mammol. Most common Troll targets are RNG, RDM and DRK, if at all. No one wants to tank the PUP, MNK or PLD ones. If Lamia don't disrobe you first, there's Gusting Gouge and Tail Slap to worry about.

If all things were equal as you and Amele claim, one would think we would be EXPing anywhere, yet we're not. We're at the same problem we had with arrowburns and high level EXP camps pre-ToA. This time its because every melee can do what RNGs got nerfed for - spam TP - and no one wants to leave the camps.

Because the mobs are weaker and the respawn time is shorter.

Simple as that.

Why are BLMs soloing (excluding people who enjoy it)?

See above.

At any rate, this is a dead horse issue now. SE has heard the complaints and stated they are planning adjustments with WotG's release. So arguing that all things are equal is moot, if all things were equal PLD and BLMs would not be complaining and SE wouldn't be considering adjustments.

[Sevv]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

I'm sorry but bbq this is a serious post here:

You do understand that no matter what is done to any mobs in game, we are going to go after mobs who do weaker attacks and generally weaker to provide the best exp/hr. Your posts on this are nothing but why are people going after mobs that are weak???

Hnm, we kill hard mobs for gear, people can die here.
Dynamis, High chance of death, rewards are the reason we kill.
Sky, always a chance of death in sky, rewards.
Sea, chance of death good, AV kills all.

Get the point we fight hard mobs for drops. By your system a fafnir kill should drop 10merits worth of exp. He has tons of death and because he takes so long he should get the same amount of exp as a burn pt right?

Wait so why don't people kill fafnir for the exp?

Say it with me BBQ: Mob Selection

what would a world be like with bbq as developer?

~ BBQ for Head Dev in '08: Exp is only worth it if you spend hours to kill 1 mob!~

[Mhurron]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

The problem is that ToAU mobs are so easy. Its like taking a lvl75 party through Kuftal Tunnel crabs and getting 300exp out of them. You can pretty successfully argue that pre-ToAU mobs were too hard for the returns, but at the same time you can argue ToAU mobs are too easy for the returns.

It needs to be balanced so that crazy difference doesn't exist. ToAU mobs need to be made a little harder, not much, but they do. At the same time Pre-ToAU mobs really need to be looked at. There should be differences depending on job (PLD higher def, WHM, not so much) and mob type differences, I'm not advocating making everything the same, but all the pre-ToAU areas should be viable enough that people will use them instead of 14 parties in the Mire and still getting more EXP then on party in Lufaise Meadows.

[Raydeus]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

Although...I agree making xp easier to get in new areas is a good selling point for an expansion.

But then again, once the majority of players has bought it then SE should go back and adjust older camps so xp parties can be better distributed among all camps instead of a few areas.

[Malacite]

Re: What's being done about BLM and Tanks?

I don't think they need to strengthen ToAU mobs at all. Just make pre-ToAU mobs worth killing so that there isn't such a huge gap in EXP gain between camps.

That way, people can still get the same EXP in either situation, but no body has to crowd one particular area. The melee frenzies can still carry on in ToAU while anyone who wants (or has no choice) to do a traditional SC + MB set up can head to an older zone and still get the same EXP. No fuss, no muss.