New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

[Malacite]

We are pleased to announce that our development team is hard at work on the new FINAL FANTASY XI version update, currently on schedule for an early September release.

This update will usher in the next stage of the level cap increase, as well as the first half of what promises to be a thrilling conclusion to the epic Wings of the Goddess missions.

Players can also look forward to refinements to the Walk of Echoes, additional trials and enhancements for Trial of the Magians, job adjustments, and much more.

Sneak previews of the new content will be posted in the coming days, so keep checking Topics for all the latest news!


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You FUCKERS! I thought WotG was supposed to end in September, GDI they are trying to force XIV people to stay on board GRRRRRR. #@&*^*&@#^&%#&^%!&^%!@&!%



Also, that looks like a BST casting Refresh (and aren't lady bugs uncharmable atm?)

[Yellow Mage]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

You FUCKERS! I thought WotG was supposed to end in September, GDI they are trying to force XIV people to stay on board GRRRRRR. #@&*^*&@#^&%#&^%!&^%!@&!%

[Kafeen]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

Also, that looks like a BST casting Refresh (and aren't lady bugs uncharmable atm?)

Increased level = Support jobs over 41.

[cidbahamut]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

All I see is a pile of shame.

Raise the level cap and accordingly obsolete everyone's gear even further.

Release the first half of a finale to an expansion pack that come out years ago and should by all accounts have been finished long before now.

Tweaking the Walk of Echoes reward scheme, which should have been done in a patch much sooner, so people might actually show up to the damn thing rather than fervently ignore it.

Trials of the Magians: more bullshit asinine head-hunting grind that's more of a pain in the ass than steady progress towards a goal. I have yet to hear anyone say good things about the process of Magian Trials.

Job adjustments: read "new JAs for level 85 and then some nerfs that are completely unwarranted."

[Ziero]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

Raise the level cap and accordingly obsolete everyone's gear even further.

Most of the old gear is still pretty much the best

Release the first half of a finale to an expansion pack that come out years ago and should by all accounts have been finished long before now.

By who's accounts? SE knew this one would take a while to finish.

Tweaking the Walk of Echoes reward scheme, which should have been done in a patch much sooner, so people might actually show up to the damn thing rather than fervently ignore it.

Because there's no chance in hell that the Walk of Echoes is really supposed to be the new level 99 endgame event and use having access to it at 80 just means we're going in way underpowered and subsequent updates will balance things out over time.

Trials of the Magians: more bullshit asinine head-hunting grind that's more of a pain in the ass than steady progress towards a goal. I have yet to hear anyone say good things about the process of Magian Trials.

Funny cause all my friends seem to prefer the Magian Trials as they give great weapons as rewards for an easily trackable, steady progress chain of grind quests.

Job adjustments: read "new JAs for level 85 and then some nerfs that are completely unwarranted."

err, how is it bad to add new abilities while balancing the old?

crysummoar

[ShepardG]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

Most of the old gear is still pretty much the best

Meh, Someof the old gear is still the best.

By who's accounts? SE knew this one would take a while to finish.

No. this is bullshit, and you know it. It's like releasing Gears of war without anything past the first berserker level, or releasing heavy rain, and half way through, not saying a fucking thing, just waiting 6 months and then announcing the addition of more story line to the game. They didn't do that shit with CoP, If they did it with ToAU, it didn't take them 2 years, and they damn well shouldn't have released WoTG half assed the way they did. I love Final Fantasy, and by association Square Enix, but I'll be the first guy to stand up and tell them they were wrong. You don't pull shit like that if you care about your customers.

Because there's no chance in hell that the Walk of Echoes is really supposed to be the new level 99 endgame event and use having access to it at 80 just means we're going in way underpowered and subsequent updates will balance things out over time.

Talk out of your ass some more, because it's "cool" to "disagree" and "use quote marks" Yes i insulted myself as I called you out for being stupid.

Magian stuff

I'll comletely agree with you on this. I like the fact that my weapon will grow with me ^^ If this is any indication of how weapons will be in ffxiv, then count me in ^^ imagine taking your little onion sword and after alot of hard work turning it into excalibur!

[cidbahamut]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

Most of the old gear is still pretty much the best

Perle Hauberk set says "hi".

Because there's no chance in hell that the Walk of Echoes is really supposed to be the new level 99 endgame event and use having access to it at 80 just means we're going in way underpowered and subsequent updates will balance things out over time.

Someone hasn't been keeping up with the required reading. The loot distribution is skewed so that not all jobs end up up lotting on rewards at the end of the event, which fucks all possibility of endgame shells doing proper loot distribution. If you can't guarantee that the only person interested in the item will be able to lot on it when they're there and the item drops, then your endgame content is fucking worthless because no one's going to put up with that sort of bullshit until you fix it. This has nothing to do with the difficulty of the content and everything to do with how loot gets distributed. One would hope the tweaks mentioned are designed to fix that.

By who's accounts? SE knew this one would take a while to finish.

It's generally considered unprofessional to release an expansion pack and then not have it finished three years later. That's what we generally refer to as "being lazy". If your product isn't finished and it's gonna take you that long to get it done, you don't release it in the first place.

Funny cause all my friends seem to prefer the Magian Trials as they give great weapons as rewards for an easily trackable, steady progress chain of grind quests.

If I wanted to kill 500 bunny rabbits for a shiny reward I'd be playing WoW or any of the countless other MMORPGs that subscribe to that design model. That sort of grind combined with SE's fetish for random number generators results in something completely unappealing and uncharacteristic. It represents a shift in design philosophy that is radically divergent from what drew me into FFXI to begin with.

err, how is it bad to add new abilities while balancing the old?

New abilities I'm generally ok with. Balancing however should be read as "Skullfucking". See: RDM tanking nerf.

crysummoar

lern2pessimism

[Elwynn]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

Also, that looks like a BST casting Refresh (and aren't lady bugs uncharmable atm?)

1: Anybody level 82 subbing RDM will be able to cast Refresh in a few weeks. Why a typical BST would want to sub RDM to cast Refresh is another matter altogether.

2: Not only are ladybugs very charmable, but you haven't heard of Dipper Yuly the TH2 jug pet?

[Ziero]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

Perle Hauberk set says "hi".

Except it's still "best" only in certain situations, and there's still plenty of old gear that beat it. The full Perle set is only the best if you don't have any of the other endgame super pieces.

Someone hasn't been keeping up with the required reading. The loot distribution is skewed so that not all jobs end up up lotting on rewards at the end of the event, which fucks all possibility of endgame shells doing proper loot distribution. If you can't guarantee that the only person interested in the item will be able to lot on it when they're there and the item drops, then your endgame content is fucking worthless because no one's going to put up with that sort of bullshit until you fix it. This has nothing to do with the difficulty of the content and everything to do with how loot gets distributed. One would hope the tweaks mentioned are designed to fix that.

Except the difficulty is a factor in it all. The entire event, from top to bottom, is pretty messed up, mainly because we're not high enough to really participate in it yet and SE still hasn't perfected the system. Most events sucked when they first came out, this one is no different.

It's generally considered unprofessional to release an expansion pack and then not have it finished three years later. That's what we generally refer to as "being lazy". If your product isn't finished and it's gonna take you that long to get it done, you don't release it in the first place.

Unless you plan for it to take as long as it has to release. As FFXI's last big expansion, WotG is just that, the last big expansion. It breaks the molds and the rules set by other expansions as after it is finished, all we'll ever get again will be those silly little add-ons.

If I wanted to kill 500 bunny rabbits for a shiny reward I'd be playing WoW or any of the countless other MMORPGs that subscribe to that design model. That sort of grind combined with SE's fetish for random number generators results in something completely unappealing and uncharacteristic. It represents a shift in design philosophy that is radically divergent from what drew me into FFXI to begin with.

....are you saying that a grind is what's turning you off from FFXI? A game that is known for it's grinding? Seriously? Magian trials reward super powerful weapons for stupidly simple grind quests that anyone, casual or hardcore, can eventually get done (for the most part). They're repeatable, give great items to every class, allow for very diverse preferences in what type of bonuses people want, track themselves, allow players to continually upgrade something instead of simply out-dating it and actually encourage teamwork as opposed to single-minded greed. Hell, the entire system itself is barely even affected by the "terrible RNG" in this game, everything is pretty straight forward and exact.

No. this is bullshit, and you know it. It's like releasing Gears of war without anything past the first berserker level, or releasing heavy rain, and half way through, not saying a fucking thing, just waiting 6 months and then announcing the addition of more story line to the game. They didn't do that shit with CoP, If they did it with ToAU, it didn't take them 2 years, and they damn well shouldn't have released WoTG half assed the way they did. I love Final Fantasy, and by association Square Enix, but I'll be the first guy to stand up and tell them they were wrong. You don't pull shit like that if you care about your customers.

As FFXI's last big expansion WotG is anything but halfassed. It featured four distinct storylines(arguably the best in game), added more zones then anything other expansion, brought with it massive changes to the Exp dynamic and solo play and created a ton of new events. Not only that, but while still releasing WotG content SE managed to release four of their DLC add ons with two more coming at the same time as the last two big WotG updates. So it's not like extending the finale of the story delayed additional content to the game. You know what happens when they finish WotG? We get nothing but add-ons, barely there stories for 10 bucks a pop.

Now I'm not saying the update will be super awesome win, I'm just saying it's silly to piss and moan over just the announcement.

[Elwynn]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

If I wanted to kill 500 bunny rabbits for a shiny reward I'd be playing WoW or any of the countless other MMORPGs that subscribe to that design model. That sort of grind combined with SE's fetish for random number generators results in something completely unappealing and uncharacteristic. It represents a shift in design philosophy that is radically divergent from what drew me into FFXI to begin with.

Not to mention the social and environmental effects it has had on the game.

People are too busy grinding magian trials to do anything else any more (except their scheduled Dynamis and Einherjar, and maybe sometimes not even that). And when they're out there zerging shit, in many places they're doing it on exp and FoV mobs, and totally wrecking BST solo camps.

And then there are the totally retarded trials for which the guy who came up with it must not have understood how the mobs work, such as the apkallu trials which become total lulz because of the zone-wide apkallu hate. (search youtube for 450 apkallu)

[cidbahamut]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

Except it's still "best" only in certain situations, and there's still plenty of old gear that beat it. The full Perle set is only the best if you don't have any of the other endgame super pieces.

No. The Dragoon community is all abuzz because for TPing in Perle beats the hell out of all the old stuff so long as you have appropriate store TP pieces. I seem to recall the consensus was that unless you have Dusk Gloves +1 you're better off just going with Perle. If that isn't eclipsing old gear entirely, I don't know what is.

Except the difficulty is a factor in it all. The entire event, from top to bottom, is pretty messed up, mainly because we're not high enough to really participate in it yet and SE still hasn't perfected the system. Most events sucked when they first came out, this one is no different.

No. It's how they weight the scoring and the fact that support jobs were consistently not being allowed to lot on items because they "didn't contribute enough". No support jobs allowed to lot, no support jobs showing up to event, no event etc, etc.

Unless you plan for it to take as long as it has to release. As FFXI's last big expansion, WotG is just that, the last big expansion. It breaks the molds and the rules set by other expansions as after it is finished, all we'll ever get again will be those silly little add-ons.

No. It was just incomplete.

....are you saying that a grind is what's turning you off from FFXI? A game that is known for it's grinding? Seriously? Magian trials reward super powerful weapons for stupidly simple grind quests that anyone, casual or hardcore, can eventually get done (for the most part). They're repeatable, give great items to every class, allow for very diverse preferences in what type of bonuses people want, track themselves, allow players to continually upgrade something instead of simply out-dating it and actually encourage teamwork as opposed to single-minded greed. Hell, the entire system itself is barely even affected by the "terrible RNG" in this game, everything is pretty straight forward and exact.

Are you even reading my posts? I didn't complain about grind, I complained about a specific flavor of grind. Also: weather and NM drops, see me after class. No one's debating the usefulness of the end result, I just don't like the process.

Now I'm not saying the update will be super awesome win, I'm just saying it's silly to piss and moan over just the announcement.

The most sensible thing you've said so far.

[ShepardG]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

added more zones then anything other expansion

Really, do you really wanna go here? It gave us 3 new zones. the entire "oh it takes place in the past" was IMHO, a bullshit way for them to save on R&D. I mean, if you really wanna argue that the story line was better than CoP I guess that's another topic completely, but man, that is gonna have some schenanigans involved and i will probably just sit back and watch instead of participate.

Seriously, the "last big expansion" was a money grabber, if you can't see the forest for the tree's then I don't know what to tell you. Unfinished, re-used zones, broken mechanic's (campaign), and more World spawn NM's but this time they take 5 hours to camp, and spawn over 5 different zones ><. Seems to me they half-assed it. Funny thing though...


They seem to have gotten abyssea right so far ^^ /shrug

[Mhurron]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

WotG is just that, the last big expansion

Yes, and to try and hide that fact, they stretched out releasing the missions for 3 years.

/What do you mean you want another expansion? WoTG isn't even done yet.

[Grizzlebeard]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

By any reasonable standards taking over three years to conclude an expansion is beyond disgusting.

As to the magian trials, I can forsee some real frustration on the horizon for that as the choice of EP mobs at 90 and 99 is going to be pretty much restricted to Abyssea. Good luck killing 200-2000 of mob X while having a zone timer hanging over your head. Not even considering the fact there'll soon be very few people left to form alliances with to enter those zones with.

Regarding WoE, on Fenrir it's a dead event. I can go in anytime of the day or night and I'll be the only person in the zone. Another promising event destroyed by terrible implementation

[Ziero]

Re: New Version Update Announcement! (08/11/2010)

No. The Dragoon community is all abuzz because for TPing in Perle beats the hell out of all the old stuff so long as you have appropriate store TP pieces. I seem to recall the consensus was that unless you have Dusk Gloves +1 you're better off just going with Perle. If that isn't eclipsing old gear entirely, I don't know what is.

...so wait, as long as you have some of the good older gear and don't have the better gear, the new gear is the best stuff ever? How is that different from every other update ever? Especially for Drg who've had crap gear for the most part from day one.

No. It's how they weight the scoring and the fact that support jobs were consistently not being allowed to lot on items because they "didn't contribute enough". No support jobs allowed to lot, no support jobs showing up to event, no event etc, etc.

Even before the loot is even considered, the system has major problems.

No. It was just incomplete.

Of course it was, that's how expansions work.

Are you even reading my posts? I didn't complain about grind, I complained about a specific flavor of grind. Also: weather and NM drops, see me after class. No one's debating the usefulness of the end result, I just don't like the process.

NM drops account for all of maybe a single branch of Magian trials (and not even the whole branch either, just like the tip) in which the NMs can drop multiple needed items and be fought multiple times in a day for a weapon that was arguable the best in class for most jobs. As for the weather, minor nuisance at worst for most things. Though I really have to wonder how killing 500 bunnies for a shiny reward is any different from killing 500 bunnies for a shiny level up. I mean, that's what your entire complaint seems to be based on.

Really, do you really wanna go here? It gave us 3 new zones. the entire "oh it takes place in the past" was IMHO, a bullshit way for them to save on R&D. I mean, if you really wanna argue that the story line was better than CoP I guess that's another topic completely, but man, that is gonna have some schenanigans involved and i will probably just sit back and watch instead of participate.

Seriously, the "last big expansion" was a money grabber, if you can't see the forest for the tree's then I don't know what to tell you. Unfinished, re-used zones, broken mechanic's (campaign), and more World spawn NM's but this time they take 5 hours to camp, and spawn over 5 different zones ><. Seems to me they half-assed it. Funny thing though...

They seem to have gotten abyssea right so far ^^ /shrug

Not the first time they re-used zones, and it certainly won't be the last, though it is funny since you don't seem to mind it for Abyssea. Regardless, a new zone is a new zone (how are they unfinished anyway?). While campaign isn't perfect, it's still a massive and very useful system that's still popular despite it's problems. As for the world pop NMs, they're something that comes with every expansion. But instead of cramming them into one tiny little room that's perfect for botters to claim, they spread them across multiple zones and gave them multiple pops. And hell, one isn't even killed for it's drops, but instead it's used to access a special BCNM alliance fight for even more rewards. SE likes world pop HNMs, but players hate botters (which is ironic) so SE tried to add world pop NMs that could get around botters, which they mostly did. Each one is far more unique then the previous NMs styles, pop more often then most world pop HNMs and none of them cram 100+ people into a tiny little zone in which only one will have a bot fast enough to get the claim.

As for story, CoP had one really good story, but WotG had four different full length storylines. People seem to ignore that little fact. Not to mention the fact that each storyline had some of the best CS in the game, with some of the best character animations and effects in game. Lilisette alone is a work of art with how expressive her face can be compared to every other NPC. WotG was anything but half assed. It may not be perfect, but it's clear SE wanted to, tried to, and did do a lot with it.

But again, this is still nothing more then crying over the update announcement. Which is especially funny because it's all info we knew was coming for months, so there's really no surprises to cry about.