Dev Tracker - Discussion

There are many things that aren't close to the same, but they said that it was an interconnected set of zones with buffs that transferred from one to the other. And that was their new version of abyssea. Atmas just weren't on the list of features this time around, nor was procing for gear.

Re: reward vs challenge dopamine

MMOs are almost uniformly designed around a constant drip of reward center triggers. Just about every one that has ever existed, including XI and any of the biggest most successful MMOs ever created, are made to supply a constant stream of character and power progression.

Far more popular games than XI also have things like Master Trials; essentially vanity challenges that appeal to a minority of a minority (the sweatiest of raiders). Extremely high level Mythic dungeons in WoW, Ultimate raids in XIV, Master difficulty raids in Runescape, Hard Mode Legion raids in Lost Ark... etc etc. They all share one thing in common: practically *** nobody does them. A tiny fraction of the population. This kind of thing doesn't appeal to the average person playing an MMO because the reason MMOs get so addictive is completely removed from these types of challenge battles. This can be seen in a closely related genre in terms of its effects on the human brain: ARPGs. Uber Lilith in Diablo 4, Uber Atlas Invitations in PoE... they reward you with nothing, they take a long time to defeat... nobody cares. The games simply aren't designed around that kind of reward payout, it's no surprisedpikachu.gif when nobody does those things.

End of the day Master Trials do not and never will appeal to the majority of the playerbase. They reward a single cosmetic item that in itself is divisive in that many people don't even like the look of the MT weapons to begin with. Their design runs counter to the hook of MMOs. Add in the fact that practically no one actually cares about other people's accomplishments (not to mention the fact that people will always find a way to downplay or water down someone's win by microanalyzing and claiming that they cheated 39 different ways to win) and you should already be able to understand why an average (even above average) MMO gamer wouldn't give half a *** about spending days, weeks, or months trying to complete a 60 minute battle for essentially no reason other than to say they did it.

Whether they have the capacity to add bigger content systems at this point or not (they dont), I refuse to believe that the complexity of a master trial is lower than adding more of those one off BCs that reward a cute item that simultaneously avoids the power creep boogeyman and still remains usable/useful. I think it would've been wise to release another BC in the vein of Peach Power before adding yet another MT.

only ever attempted and cleared one MT, but then I never bothered with v25 ody either. I don't mind them making content for the people who enjoy that type of challenge, but I agree they are a small minority of the playerbase.

I have a hunch most of the work was long since done on these MT, its not that they necessarily think we want more of them, but it was already done and fills a content void for the ones who have finished V25, primes, etc.

the focus on content at this point though is almost entirely for the hardcore elite, with the exception of peach power. i wouldn't expect anything designed for a broader audience any time soon.

oh forgot one thing, people do enjoy watching the race for world firsts on these types of content, even if they will never try the fight themselves.

This is the only thing that makes sense to me as an explanation. They surely have access to some level of engagement metrics. There's no way they haven't noticed the complete lack of people going in to do Oathsworn Blade (and even Crystal Paradise).


This I disagree with because this is what Vanabout is supposed to be. It's the most effort they've put into a new system for XI in years even if it was a horrendous failure in its first incarnation. It iant entirely new content, but adding a reason to go back and do old content while attaching rewards that people care about is a valid addition for the broad and casual audience. They just failed to do both of those things because of course they did. We'll see if it's any better this time.

Vanabout isn't a new thing though, it's just rewards for doing existing things.

Still confident they add one actual thing that counts as "worth doing new content" per year.

The thing thats killing them is the messaging their sending. Nothing... MT..... Nothing.... MT just looks like a whole lot of nothing.

It should be MT > 3 months > Peach power 2 > 3 months > MT > 3 months > "new thing"

Alternate sweaty and useful

The lack of additional peach power style BCs is odd to me, too. Given they already have the entire instance framework created, and they seemingly designed it such that they can just add another item use handler and mob[s], it feels like it was made *just* for the sake of easily creating new fights without all the overhead.

If
If we're lucky, they'll release 3 fights every 4 months for a year. And that's extremely wishful thinking.

it was nothing like Abyssea, in abyssea you would kill nms get Key items get Pop items from mobs its more Interactive this is *** boring you just auction

BRO I AM IN THE SAME PAGE I SAID THAT TO MYSELF TOO!!!

Bro i loved meeble burrows and the maz monger for exp back in the days if they can do stuff like this again would be cool, specially those buffs that you get are nice

Quest Menu update...I'd love it if they cleaned it up a bit and made more progress trackers but I assume it's just for VanaBout unfortunately.

If you show up to my burrow unannounced, fair warning: Since the kids left for college I tend to putter about the place sans trousers.

You'll get nothing but never-ending Sortie and you will like it.

Similarly, I'm surprised they never repurposed Sinister Reign to give a high tier version with different random NMs and rewards. Lot of fun pairings they could re-use. Maybe even make multiple sets of 3 NMs and change them out monthly like Ambu to shuffle it and keep players running on the hamster wheel. SO MUCH GRIND (and even RNG to keep it going longer), sounds totally consistent with Fujito's M.O.

Some that haven't reappeared often:
Heroines 1: Lion Prishe Nashmeira
Heroines 2: Lilisette Mumor Iroha (leave Arciela to normal SR)
Wyrms: Tiamat Jormy Vrtra

And others that, while they've been repurposed more frequently in the past in lots of events, could still be fun additions. Even if we omit recently re-purposed mobs like the Adoulin Naakuals (reused in Odyssey) or Vagary bosses (reused in Sortie), there are plenty of great sets of 3:

Kings: Fafnir Adamantoise Behemoth
Beastmen Leaders: Tzee Xicu, Adamantking, Overlord Bakgodek
ToAU Kings: Cerb Hydra Khim
ToAU Beastmen Leaders: Medusa, Gulool Ja Ja, Gurfurlur
Classic NMs: Roc, Serket, Simurgh
Mini-expansion bosses: That dumb crystal, Moogle, Shantotto

Random question...

I've not played since Prime Weapons have come out. Do their weapon skills have a unique design?

no. theyre just relic WS

That’s lame. :x

AI - Give me song about FFXIs current endgame

Sortie is the event that never ends

It just goes on and on my friends

Just when you kill Hard Mode Aminon you'd think he'll drop a rock

But he does not, What the ***, You are stuck doing Sortie all over again

(Chorus)

5Million points you also need to spend

You make 80k if you speed hack with your friends

They say the game will end when we defeat Aminon

But I know it's just a lie, cause he keeps on respawning

We've tried all sorts of strategies, from CC to CB

But nothing seems to work, our team is still stuck in Sortie hell

Oh, and don't forget the daily quests we must complete

Or else we'll lose our progress, it's such a hefty debt

(Chorus)

Sortie is the event that never ends

It just goes on and on my friends

Just when you kill Hard Mode Aminon you'd think he'll drop a rock

But he does not, What the ***, You are stuck doing Sortie all over again

Guess the special guest!

I hope it's intern-kun

Get your gold beast coins now before the morons start buying them for a mil

Tanaka or bust.

Sure fine, no gear w/ stat+ from Master trials. At least give us a category of RoE's for doing it.
for each individual battlefield, 2 RoEs. 1 monthly and 1 repeatable.
repeatable reward: Maat's concoction.
Monthly reward: Exemplar Point gain+25%

could make it like ambu, where the repeatable doesn't appear until the other has been cleared. There, a reason to do the master trials AND for helping friends clear them. Not like any of them are actually worth the effort for a mere 50JP anyway, it's just a little cherry on top for helping.

edit: do we know what item is getting a stack size increase? Personally I'm hoping for stackable food x99.

Did they ever talk about the retargeting system since the Reddit AMA?

Special appearance by Matsui-P-san.

I have seen no mention of it, but and I do my best to creep on JP dev posts which means I could have missed it.

Hopefully not yoshi p

It'll be a girl dressed up like Cornelia and then she just leaves

Surprise! It's Takashi Kiryu, the new CEO of SE and totally not a Yakuza villain.
He's sad to announce that due to budget tightening measures, they have to pull the plug on FFXI.