Dev Tracker - Discussion

I don't think the question is as much "everyone should be able to do all content and get all gear at the same time" as much as "how long is a suitable period between when Elite players can beat content and get gear, and then the next tier, and then the next tier?".
If you put people into tiers like this:
Top 15% of players = elite core
Next 15% = good players, able to do content but not BiS/automated everything using lua/plays 6h a day
Next 15% = Average ability and casual players

I would say the elite players should be able to do new content consistently within a few weeks. Easing the content for the next tier is appropriate after 1 year, and the next group after 2 years. Obviously they had to drag Odyssee out because of small dev team, etc. but it has been so long since it was eased compared to Omen and aeonics.

They probably consider introducing higher tiers to be easing it, since you get nearly twice as much RP for timing out at 94% on a R20 as you do for timing out at 94% on a R15. Master trials levels added a ton of free stats. In terms of clearing the fights at V15, they are massively easier now than they were when V15 was new. But, they didn't ease the real roadblock, which is assembling a group.

I was just thinking about M levels. Can agree to an extent that that is one way it could be eased a bit, but then you need to M level a bunch of jobs if you wanted to do 3x NM and kill them, idk. I kinda hate the way the content is. It would be better if you had to kill it to get rewards, but also make it a bit easier than it is now. The current do 5% of damage method that is the norm just feels so cheap and it's not real content standing around to time out.

I'm also dragging myself through VR and it is lame so far (just killed goblin+mandy+mole). I loved the hard battles in CoP and Adoulin that you had to find 6 people for and plan and use the right jobs, etc. Shame they didn't do it for this.

Adoulin didn't have any fights that were unreasonable to solo until you started fighting the Xols, which was at like the 80% mark in the story, and even the hardest fights could be done with any setup that had a healer and someone to take hits. I duo'd the final boss on RDM + MNK without much issue on release.

There's one fight in my mind, can't remember what it was, after you check behind a box or something? Can't remember what the fights were in Aht Ughan but I think some of them needed to be done properly?

Except I didn't say SE should remove the grind in FFXI, that would be stupid.

I only said it isn't a bad idea to implement one tag per 20hr limitation. Tag limitation doesn't remove the grind. The time requirement is equal except it's more spreadout. If anything it prolongs the game's life-span with same amount of grind required.

Just do the math. If r25 5/5 takes 25 seg run worth of segs to complete. Having tag limitation means this content can be done with 25 days of playing. Without the limitation, someone who plays 10 hours a day can finish everything in 4 days and quit by doing 10+ segs run in per day, which is the worst. (On top of being unhealthy and cause congestion spamming the same thing over and over)

Which system has higher life-span? A system that can last 25 days minimum, or a system that can be done in 4 days? The answer is obvious.

I have no idea why people said game dev can't make money this way. It's literally the opposite.

When odyssey is obsolete, I'd probably still do segfarm just for the gil

Gil/ML is really the only reason I still do segments at this point.

It's an easy way to make at least 1 million gil daily, for a quick 30 minutes. Socialize with the same group of friends, and then decide what to do after (ambu, aeonic clears, bosses, new sortie, w/e). Chat about gear sets or jobs, game mechanics w/e. Segments stopped being stressful for me a long time ago, and I actually enjoy doing it daily, when I don't have other RL things goingon.

I will absolutely do Segment farming for the gil AND being able to casually test out different jobs against higher level mobs in a somewhat controlled environment will be a nice bonus.

If they ever let us hold multiple tags so you can do a couple hours of Ody, I'll be very happy. They just need to keep the gil where it's at.

It does, which is why you should try to make one. But even without a static, you can still do much of what I mentioned just with a handful of competent players. Segs have been out for a while, it's not uncommon for groups to pull over 1m/10k segs with a complete PUG structure.

Yeah ... that's all good in theory, then the question becomes "who is going BRD" and "who is going healer". Due to SE balancing difficulty around buff stacking, every event requires us to stack buffs.

Not only that.

You want the best invested bard and cor possible because now they need to contribute even more now via dps, sleeps, dispel, heals, etc

The "this tall to get on this ride" for brd and cor is so high for difficult content that bringing a returnee/mule can hurt or even kill your run.

But jesus... brd at top level play is fuking crazy now haha

Omen - 30mins
Oddy - 30mins
Dyna D - 2 hours every 60 hours in a week

Ambu - This month runs were taking me 4mins on VD and that's with returnees

Do you play ffxi?

Inciteful first post!

I honestly don't think too many complain about some form of gating on content, as we've had it to some extent since OG Dynamis.

Its mostly the "just deal with it" attitude presented by SE regarding a gating system like this vs the one attached to Omen. Same amount of KIs per week, just the freedom to use them in whatever way is easiest to group up and balance RL schedules and commitments. But no, instead we get whining about "congestion". That's an active choice by SE to avoid investing in the QoL of their playerbase because they either can't fix it, or refuse to devote the time/money to do so.

At least among my circles, that's the complaint, not the concept of gating as a principle.

This^

Don't they claim that it's impossible to have more instances of events?

Problem there is of 80% of servers their max # of simultaneous instances is probably never reached, and on the few active servers they still have the same number of max instances.

FFXI doesn't have instancing at all, every zone is a static and predefined. What they have instead is a single zone with multiple copies of the same battlefield, and when you enter you get put into one of those copies. We know this because you can actually see the other copies by just running through walls and looking around. Your client isn't being sent data about monsters / players not assigned to the same copy as you so it appears like multiple empty battlefields.

The limit is the same that dynamis has, because it's as single static zone it's assigned to a single set of physical resources. If there are three copies, and all three are occupied, then we have eighteen people fighting three different fights. If there are six copies then we can get thirty six people fighting six different fights. All on the exact same physical resource.

That is what they mean by "can't add more instances", adding more battlefield copies is trivial, handling the extra compute and memory from additional players isn't. Now if it was actual instancing, what would happen is a new instance is spun up on entry and destroyed on exit, that instance would be assigned to whichever resource pool was most available.

It's probably a given, but it is a problem on Asura. We sometimes have to bail on runs just because no one wants to wait in a 20+ page line. Sometimes 5 page waits take 20min+ to complete. It feels like sometimes I spend more time in a queue waiting than I do actually playing the content. It's the worst during free login, Ody is bad, but Omen near the end can hit 35+ pages.

My feeling is that they don't know what will happen with congestion if they allow people to stack KIs and would rather keep status quo than risk it. They seem hesitant to make changes that they don't understand the implications to entirely. Personally I think it would balance out most days, because people wouldn't feel pressured to go all at once and so fewer people would be queued up and it would spread out. That said, if we're allowed to store four of them then I would expect currently busy times (Fri night in particular) to get somewhat worse as people are cycling through the KIs they stored during the week.

So close 6+ servers and encourage people to equally distribute amongst the rest.

Don't really understand what you mean by them not being able to handle the compute or memory increases though - aren't all the game servers running on one hardware server by this point?

Was gonna try to explain enterprise architecture for something like this but wouldn't do much good. Short answer is no, it doesn't work that way.

They could make a middle ground where you can enter a practice run of the NM without spending moglophones, but you get no rp or clear progress if you win. Lets new players/groups/etc learn the fights without risk. That's where most of your wasted segments are going to end up.

It's kind of boring content (Ody) after you get a clear its no longer fun.

The stupid Sheol segment runs is what really *** this content.

I think the perfect fix would be to allow us to spam oddy sheols as much as we want, But after we do it and click the top we no longer get the bonus and Gil at the end until JP midnight.

They won't do this because Asura Congestion.