This post is going to be about the Apkallu’s TP move Yawn.
Yeah, okay, no it’s not.
This is the first patch I’ve ever felt exasperated on. Exasperated and tired. The random augmenting has got a lot of people annoyed, and rightfully so. The game has always needed less random. Not more of it.
It’s almost perversely amusing that the final inventory expansion quests, the Gobbie Bag, require items that drop from Jormungand, the lonely wyrm. But angel skin? Really? With one source of generation that is highly dominated by RMT, and used to craft the highly popular Hecatomb gear, you’re going to make it part of a craftable used to increase people’s inventory spaces? What about Orichalcum? Also in ridiculously high demand for people trying to upgrade Salvage pieces. Oh, and great job including another dynamis-only drop item, because Wootz Ore isn’t insane enough.
There is this insane design philosophy the FFXI devteam has. It surmounts to something like, “Rather than go back and edit things, it is better to create new things that shoehorn in old content, and the more random the better.” Can’t fix the asininity of Pankration; have to shoehorn it in to very grindy and forced endgame content for zeni. Can’t get people to fight Jormungand; have to make the new gobbie bag require items that drop from it. People easily beat Sarameya, Tinnin, and Tyger, so the Haichiryu set has to be rare.
I feel like, after five years, this devteam hasn’t learned a single god damn thing. You don’t have to give players very much to make them happy, you just have to give them something new and/or cool, or change something to make it easier. The playerbase goes apeshit when you give them something pretty miniscule that looks awesome. Now it feels like they introduce ridiculous content with the intention of making it easier down the line.
Really, I’m tired of it. My patience has worn thin. Four months since the last patch, and this is all we get?
You know how you get people to fight Jormungand without pissing them off in the process? Add Ridill, Earthen Body, and Defending Ring to his lootpool. People would camp him more than Tiamat. I fear what they’re going to do with Vrtra next.
Do the designers really know what is going on their game?
Answer to your last question: No.
I get so irritated and tongue-tied when I try to express my disappointment to people about how stupid SE actually is, and all they do is defend it with ridiculous crap about “personal game play” and stuff about WoW.
I’m really hoping that they’ll make these items available elsewhere, somewhere related to the new quests. They’ve done it before, so fingers crossed they don’t honestly expect us ALL to get a drop from Jormy, etc.. to finish up our gobbie bags ._.
Whaaa? But Yawn is an awesome spell! It’s gaze based, so you can avoid it by turning away from the bird, and it’s light based so you can sleep undead. It lasts almost as long as Sleep II and…
right… nobody cares >.>
In any case, I think you have it 100% right with this:
“they introduce ridiculous content with the intention of making it easier down the line”
I mean… that is what they do… CoPs were made slightly easier, drop rates for those WotG quest items was “adjusted” with this latest patch… Nyzul Isle was made easier (after how long?) Salvage drop rates are being “slightly increased” constantly… Dynamis is cheaper and drop rates are “slightly increased”, exp requirements were lowered.
On the other hand, it’s always better to start off high, then ease up on things… can you imagine if they made things easy? Everyone would get stuff they want, sit around, then realize that they don’t have anything they do and quit the game! SE would lose millions!
So, they start it off hard and annoying for the hardcore people who will do the event no matter the requirement. They introduce more time wasters to occupy the hardcore players, then ease up the requirements to occupy the time of people who have a life. Meanwhile, see what you can develop to put in as time-wasters with as little people and work as possible (hence the three mini-expansions, which really SHOULD be simple in-game quests, but they’re charging money for)
FFXI at the end of life would probably be a level 10 White Mage soloing Shadow Lord xD
(and no, I don’t think they know what’s going on in their game… I’ll have a little post on that on my own blog soon)