Dev Tracker - News, Discussions

We are losing PS2 Limitations, so we hopefully will be getting a lot of system upgrades that are long overdue, and if they were to have a full Dev team for, could really reinvigorate this game.

Avatars already have higher pDIF caps than players do

Yes and no, since dev team is still needing ps2 development environment to upgrade ffxi.

An idle club, a curing club, a club for bar-elemental spells, an enfeebling club, a club for regen, a club for -na spells, a club for nuking, and a club I actually use to hit stuff with.

How is that a good idea? I do not see why it is vital that I have to carry 8 different items. For a single slot. For just one job.

The state of equipment load in FFXI is atrocious, and its primary cause is the splitting stats of that don't need to be. There is no reason why I can't use the same club for both Regen and Cure. There is no reason why Snapshot can't be on the same piece as Ranged Attack/Accuracy. Hell, there's no reason why Cure Potency can't be on the same piece as Magic Attack!

SE is starting to move in the right direction with some item additions, but it's not happening fast enough. Simply giving us "moar inventory" while saying it'll take months to actually do so because they'd need to recode the entire loading system only treats a symptom without fixing the underlying problem. With them planning three more Mog Wardrobes, they clearly want to make it easier for us to swap gear. But the goal should be swapping less, not more.

Very Valid Point, seconded

This is literally the whole idea of FFXIs system since inception. The ability to swap gear mid fight and carry items that give you power at different times is completely tied to FFXI as an MMO. If you don't like this style, go play something else?

Half the fun of this game is to do variety of content and collect various gears for jobs we like, or make choices about what gear to use, what gear to carry.

If you don't like the idea of separate stats or collecting many gears, there's FFXIV for you.

I will swap into my CHR nuking set if I want to

Having gear with combined stats wouldn't necessarily reduce the amount of content or collecting required... with some clever implementation. SE has demonstrated so a couple times themselves with the obis, gorgets, and torques. All the new individual Sea torques (ie: collecting aspect) were even released with the same update allowing us to combine them.

If anything, such a system like the capability to combine gear would give players even more stuff to do (an extra step of some kind beyond simply collecting), while providing an extra incentive to go out and complete content under the promise of saving inventory in the end. How many people went out and collected the rest of the obis/gorgets/torques because they'd get an awesome all-in-one piece for their effort?

It just needs proper design planning and balancing. I'm in no means speaking of a system that'd allow us to combine any arbitrary pieces. But I do want a gear progression system with more forethought than, "just toss some random stats on it and throw it in the .dats with the rest of the flood of items in this update".

obviously the solution is to make one set that does everything, that you wear all the time, and have zero reason to go out and actually play the game anymore, because you got your single pair of clothes that does it all, hastily pushing the playerbase to either XIV or every other MMO that relies on vertical progression.

they don't have the staff to make a new gear set every two to three months for people to grind for. heck, since it is probably two or three poor programmers locked in a broom closet, that's likely why we suddenly got sidegrades and options like we used to see in the 11 or 12 years prior to Adoulin coming out, beyond wearing the 5/5 Skirmish/Delve/whatever set.

Unless they're addressing the accuracy issues DD have on 135+ content this update is not solving anything.

There's always Chatoyant for the times I feel like keeping Aurorastorm up. But I'll admit I have been trying to cut down on the weapon-type swapping due to /lockstyle. Yeah, I know there's DressUp, but others don't, and some days I just don't feel like transforming into a glitched-out chocobo, y'know?

Stat diversity is a core part of XI's design, one of the things that continues to separate it from modern MMO design. It allows for slower stat inflation, maintains content lifespan and measurable progression without tying it to lockouts and limited droprates, and creates an open-ended gearing paradigm that rewards the player for thoughtful use of the resources available to them. It allows for possibilities like mixing positive stats with negative (or less positive) ones in a way that requires meaningful consideration of situational dynamics. These are good things. The concept of swapping gear midfight isn't exactly logical, but the underlying principles are sound. If anything it's one aspect in which other MMOs could afford to learn from XI, as pure vertical progression is actually pretty poor design. Allow players to attach crystals or chips or what have you to a base armor set and swap between various configurations on the fly instead and now the mechanic makes sense.

Beyond the design concerns involved, have you considered the balance implications of combining stats like that? Something that's BIS for TP (low acc, high acc, various buffs, etc), WS (varying mods, crit vs noncrit, acc/attack considerations, physical vs magical), -DT (-DT, defense, -crit, damage nullification/absorption, MDB, meva) and other defensive/utility stats (eva, SB, AGI, parry, counter, etc), fast cast and quick magic, nuking (free nuke, magic burst, different mods, variance in macc, elemental affinity), utility spells (enfeebles with/without potency, varying magic types, buffs with varying gearing needs), cures, +/- enmity, -interrupt gear, idle stats (regen/refresh), any job abilities modified by gear, potentially pet stats (all of the above all over again), etc... The resulting item would be significantly better than all its parts used individually, and would completely break the game. Trying to balance that out would inevitably lead to dumbing down what little complexity exists in XI's battle system.

What you're proposing is a design nightmare with no upsides.

End-all-be-all gearsets with absolutely 0 horizontal upgrade options spells out XIV's biggest and most grievous flaw. Don't know why anyone would want it in XI too.

Myself and Falkirk went out and did some pretty extensive testing on accuracy requirements for content the other day. We discovered that the majority of 135 content requires AROUND 1400 accuracy, which in this day and age is not totally bonkers. With just food, I have over 1300 accuracy(in Escha) ON MY WARRIOR, in my 4hit Bravura build. I can get more by going into higher accuracy setups, but it's not really needed for anything I actually use my WAR on. But you could.

145 is a very different story. Neak, for example. You need 1866 accuracy to cap hit rate against Neak. You need every ounce of accuracy you can get basically. Some jobs can do better than others with this. The problem is that Neak will constantly dispel your buffs with Void Song. Kirin seems to be over 1900 accuracy. Is it doable? Yes. Is it worth doing? Not really. You need some pretty great support to make it work, where as you basically just need 1-2 Geos using a MB strategy.

My point to any of this is that 135 content is probably fine for melee jobs who have reasonable support, but 145 requires so much it's just not worth doing for the majority of players.

BLU, RNG, and DNC can hit those numbers with support, but you're right. The amount of extra effort required just completely outweighs the benefits. Not to mention, as people have stated, that mass dispels and crippling status AoEs are incredibly common on high level stuff. I am all for being able to do more damage, that's great. I love big numbers. But, in typical SE fashion, they are not addressing the proper issue for melees.

Could somebody please drop the hyperbole about god-mode suits and super uber combinations and explain why I need a different item for cure potency than one for enhancing?

I will happily drop the subject if anyone can explain how having Snapshot and Ranged Attack on the same piece, instead of two separate pieces, would in any way, shape, or form have an effect on the balance of the game. Those two specific stats.

With the amount of pushback to a suggestion of, "Maybe SE should put more care into the stats they put on items, and maybe let us combine things that wouldn't be game-breaking" it almost leads me to believe that people enjoy needing Organizer to collect all 108 pieces of gear for the job you just switched to, it taking a minute every time you zone to see all the crap you're carrying, needing a special command to assist you in finding that one particular piece of gear in the sea of other gear, and needing to make sure you properly list the augments in Gearswap so that it picks the right copy of the four you have of an item.

And not only that, but players love those things so much that they're just chomping at the bit for SE to add even more space so the problems can become even worse!

...Except I know they're not. Because people are always complaining about the problems associated with inventory overload. Which was the whole point of the OF topic. Needing to carry less gear intrinsically fixes the headaches caused by massive amounts of gear. More inventory space only delays it until the next time we're all clamoring for another inventory expansion.

We do not need 240 more spaces. We need better item design. And contrary to any overblown interpretations of that notion, it is perfectly achievable if SE bothered to put thought into it - without reducing the amount of things to do, and without upsetting game balance.

And honestly, on the subject of SE screwing with game balance? In this same topic we're talking about SE raising the pDIF cap for melees and ranged attacks. Yet the thing people latch onto as potentially gamebreaking is the thought of a club with Enfeebling skill that also enhances the potency of bar-elemental spells? Really?

The only problem with 240 inventory and separate gear set is the load time and job change time, and that's it. This is more of game engine/technical issue but not the game design flaw. If the game can load 240 inventory spaces as fast as 80 inventory spaces, with UI design to allow players to gear up jobs quickly, then none of the issue you mentioned would be a really big problem.

IMO, having to carry 8 different weapons forces the player to make a choice about what gears to carry in a fight. You only have 160 spaces, but there are over 160 items that may be useful for a job, so you have to choose which item to carry to a fight.

For example, if you're doing high level content on WHM, you don't need melee sets. Thus you can leave your DD club in MH. That's making a choice about what to bring to the battle field, and that's what's fun(IMO) about rpg: Which is to plan ahead and execute battle strategies by making choices.

personally, I only see good things about separate stats on gears from game design pov. If inventory load time and job change time is an issue, then the goal should be fixing those issues with faster load time and create better UI to gear up jobs when changing jobs, not the other way around and dumb down the gear stats.

This game has been out for 10+ gears, those who still plays, more or less enjoy(or at least able to tolerate) the gear swap aspect of the game very much, since whoever hates this system would quit for WoW/FF14 ages ago. Dumping down the gear stat would just make the remaining playerbase even smaller IMO.

Oh and btw, if you can't tolerate the load time of 240 inventory spaces, you always have the choice to carry less gears around and leave half of your inventory space empty.

Extra inventory space is a good thing, IMO.

People could then play other jobs that they may be interested in instead of looking dejectedly at the space allowed and saying "Nope, I can't, because I play X X and X, and they take up so much room.

FFXI is BUILT around changing your gear. Devs would not include so many situational sidegrades if we weren't meant to change gear. They would not have implemented vanilla gearsets if we weren't meant to use them.

More room, bring it. I will fill it all in a week.

I am and always have been 100% vanilla, and i welcome more space.

Typically probably not. It's still a situation where PUP will do better with less buffs, BLU better with support.

With one exception.

Overdrive.

You think Unleash is over powered? Overdrive is Unleash on steroids. It's going to be the most powerful 1hr in the entire game and it won't even be close. One Sharpshot and One Valoredge under Overdrive will most likely be able to kill anything that isn't mechanically impossible for them in 3 minutes. Mind you, you're going to need the gear to support it, but Overdrive is absolutely broken, and after the update, presuming it works how I expect, I'll prove it.

That's been my argument all along, that Panacea's are for emergency use and shouldn't be relied upon as a primary means of removing status ailments. Ramzus is just trolling people because others complained that NM's spam far too many aoe status ailments. His basic argument was "you guys suck, just use panaceas!", in response to the "big NM's use too many AoE status enfeebles for melee to be viable". This is why he is trolling, its' the classic "Learn2PlayNewb!" response to any serious discussion about battle difficulty / mechanics.

And in essence he is correct, if a NM is spamming crazy aoe's melees could, in theory, just spam panacea's to overcome it. In practice this isn't a practical solution because the cost is exorbitant. Panacea's are perfectly fine as an emergency use item, for when the NM does a crazy move and sticks you with something really bad and the healer is going to be too busy casting cures to throw out an erase. This situation isn't that common unless the healer really sucks, has a 7~10s response time and doesn't know how to anticipate big bad moves. Unfortunately for the game, many players see WHM as the easiest way to get gear because the job has the least gear requirements. Many don't realize that in exchange for having very low gear requirements, there is a extremely high skill requirement.

Anyhow Ramy is just internet tough guy trolling people, check his post history to see other examples of it. It's why I added him to by block list, he adds nothing of value to any discussion and just insults / screws with people.

You need extremely good gear to do that.

In Escha Sky my WAR, with no buffs, food or abilities active has the following acc in base sets.

GAXE Build (Aganoshe with Acc DMG +26 Acc +25 Atk +7 WSD +1%
1200

One Handed Sword build (Tanmogayi +1 and Blurred Shield)
1212

One Handed Axe Build (Digirbalag DMG +9 Acc +20 Atk +13 WSD +1% and Blurred Shield)
1233

I've got some very well augmented Valorous / Odyssean gear along with Emicho Body / Hands and other accessories and I'm barely at the threshold where I could do this without excessive buffing. You shouldn't need super gear to get super gear. Also there is the issue of accuracy in weapon skill sets since your usually wanting to gear around stat modifiers or crit.

And yeah it's the 140 and above stuff that is just stupid.

How much JP is factored into those accuracy numbers, Saevel? Could there be room for further improvement there? Just curious since my WAR mule has pre-Valorous gear I'd considered "decent", but is nowhere close to 1200 acc. If you're only hitting 1200 with Valorous and gifts (I don't know how much extra WAR gifts add offhand), then yeah, accuracy is pretty big problem.

Lol @ big bad troll. Nice name. I wouldn't mind wasting a stack of panacea against a T4 fight that we want to win once for clear. But not if we need to keep spamming T1 T2 T3 reisenjima for gears.

Shouldn't need too many meds if all you're doing is t1-3 Reisen mobs...unless you're trying to melee them. Have fun with that on Yakshi when it noms your acc/meva food and dumps Max HP down or Doom on everybody. I won't even DISCUSS Backdraft from Maju....but I hear positioning is a thing there.

Well, antidote macro for Selkit is useful, anyway.

I digress, as usual.

Status on higher tier mobs is a thing. Lots of icky status. That's why SCH and BLM is the most used tactic. Your WHM only needs to concentrate on the tank. Everyone else is safe.

If you choose to use strategies that involve being in the face of your enemy, you need to be prepared for what it'll dish out. That means carrying a few meds and if temps are available (such as in Escha) you make sure those are stocked as well.

Also, geos who apply offensive buffs, use Miso Ramen...it might save your arse.

Holy ***have you not been reading the past few pages.

This is about using melee on high tier content and the problems present that prevents it. Multiple status ailment aoe spam is one of those and the troll's answer is to spam Panaceas.