May 2023 Version Update (Part 2)

Wasn't around for Delve- how long passed before Plasm got put on Copper Vouchers? Because you could reasonably expect the same for Gallimaufry eventually... and it wouldn't even be a huge nerf to the overall process

I'm someone who still enjoys Sortie for a lot of reasons but I certainly can't pretend that the thought of daily runs for 6 months is anything other than mundane. That's a heck of a grind and it's gonna suck.

The only redemption for me about it all is that in the next 6-whatever months I'm going to be grinding for a job I am passionate about and that extra devotion and focus to it is very much in line with what I really loved about this game long ago.

Yeah, there are a lot of primes I want but it feels like a similar trend, we saw it with master levels in the way getting mlv50 on every job you play just isn't feasible in any reasonable time frame.

Now, inb4 game is different these days, game requires you to play multiple jobs, and so on. It's true, but prime weapons haven't been a necessity to date and doubt that's going to change. Just like master levels, it's a perk, it's growth or specialization through hard work towards a job or two. To me it feels like a throwback and nod to when putting in the time and making sacrifices meant something and I'll be looking forward to the sense of accomplishment down the line.

The worst part of it for me is no end in sight of +2 earring woes.

I'd rather see them implement some kind of system where we can trade items obtained in Sortie that we no longer need in for Galli. With Sortie being almost 9 months old, uses for Sapphires, Eikondrite, Starstones, and NQ Old Cases are gonna start to diminish, it'd be nice if we could trade some of these in to help with the grind and speed it up some. I feel this is slightly more likely since it keeps its tie in to Sortie, but still unlikely.

...but again, they want this to be a long haul and they want to drag players into Sortie, so I don't see that happening anytime soon. It seems clear to me that their vision for FFXI's final batch of content is all tied to Sortie, I feel it is really unlikely they are going to do anything to reduce that.

Not offering a counterargument (quite the other way around!) but I honestly really like Sortie.

It's just that I've been doing Sortie almost everyday since release, which was... in november 2022?
I'm already starting to feel moderately bored.
For now I still enjoy it, but I know I won't hold on much longer.
2 months? 3? 4? It's gonna become tedious to me pretty soon, and from there it will only get worse =/

Ok so who’s going to finally modify superwarp to work in the sortie zones, since we all have to do sortie for the next 5 years..

Does anyone know if you can enter the fight on a job without a prime weapon if you've already cleared it? Thinking of helping some friends on a support job that I don't have a weapon for.

Should ask here, maybe someone with the skills will see it:

https://www.ffxiah.com/forum/topic/37379/lua-addon-ideas/28/#3664634

update: ring still not available for pickup after JP midnight. probably conquest tally wait after dropping. will confirm on sunday. in other words, don't drop a ring until saturday at the earliest.

also unclear if there's a cost yet. be funny if he charged galli.

Six months of Sortie would feel better if Sortie were a more efficient use of our time.

There are a lot of ways SE could tweak things to make it feel less bad without making prime acquisition any faster.

• Dramatically higher EP

• New recipes/Crafting material drops

• Some kind of Earring upgrade currency

• Good ol' Detritus

• Gil

If you could spend an hour a day and walk away with 150k EP, a little progress towards a +2 earring of your choice, and 500k~1m in drops on top of the muffin rewards, people would be a hell of a lot more enthusiastic about Sortie, boring or not.

Video showing strategies of how to solo the final BCNM. Sorry, I tried to have this out earlier but for some reason Youtube took 6 hours to approve the video.

Try some elemental WSs/SCs weaknesses to the particular Boss you're fighting with the Prime Weapon. I plan on testing some stuff when my static runs later tonight as well.

All he says it he'll let you change it. As for Adoulin rings, you can do it by either trading or dropping, and the drop timer for those is a vana'diel day so this is already out of that ballpark. The thing says "Try waiting a while and come visit him again" so the process is clear.

Also it's entirely possible that the "behavior changes" of the NMs is only for stage 3+, if it exists at all.

Waiting for a ninja update in August/September, so midway thru the 6 month grind of needing 1M muffins for something to be added like "Purchase your own +2 earring for 500k muffins. The job will still be random, BUT it's a guaranteed +2!" just to further confuse players into rolling the dice and using up muffins rather than saving it up for their Prime.

DiabloIV
problem solved

I would have been much happier to see these weapons upgrade based on the dynamis rp system. Have muffins as points when weapon equipped(but still give us muffins at the end for gear upgrades). Would probably have required diff strategies for killing nm’s OR let ppl just do ‘point farming runs’.

Just my .02

I feel like SE purposely made Sortie the way it is so that botters and RMTs would not be able to extort and manipulate the market. We would so badly love to be able to buy gallimaufry or stones, but if SE made that a thing, it would go the way it always has. Excluding gil and sellables from Sortie keeps it pure, but it also gives serious players no added incentive.

All they could really offer is extra exemplar points and more ways to earn +2 earrings without relying on dumb luck. If you could collectively grind for 1) your Prime, 2) master levels, and 3) your +2 earrings, along with 4) including mechanics to make the content more "random" (so you're not defaulting to the same method every day for six months) with incentive for going away from the usual path, then that may make Sortie more appealing.

If you're like me, though, I'd only do Sortie once a week, because grinding anything every single day is a huge no at this point... but at least we can choose when and how often to do so.

incase it hasn't been stated elsewhere ~ octahedrite from Red Chest in Area H

nobody took one while we were running, but here it is in my inventory.

I'm glad I have never put any faith in prime weapons. They strung it out over years and are now putting years long grind for the thing. I knew this would happen because its the SE mo and the people who had real interested creative input are long gone a long time ago, not to mention the coders who could make things possible.

If Se hired 3 guys from ffxiah and paid them 75k each a year I'm sure it would exponentially increase their gains and ours. They just would have to bend their pride and admit ffxi could be a fun game and have longevity due to fun... not slap in your face grind.

I'll keep enjoying a sub $20 a month subscription to nostalgia where I can just have a bit of fun and hunt some rabbits but primes aren't a part of that. Swing and a miss SE.

Blast from the past right there.

Got one from a red chest in F basement today. Probably available from any red chest in basement areas.

At that point, why not save the money and hop on Horizon?

Horizon and XIV are so much better than XI at this point.

We’ve all been grinding Ody C farms for nearly 3 years, how is sortie that much different? In terms of hours spent I don’t think it’s much different even from upgrading a relic weapon to 119 R15.

I agree though that having it mixed with the same currency for +3 upgrades is wildly discouraging. Beef up the stones required to upgrade and drop the muffins and everybody will be okay. 500k muffins and 20 stones for stage 3 as an example. Boom problem solved.

Hired.