First off... here are my impressions on the new content.
Abyssea (or more specifically, Visions of Abyssea)
The plot for this so far is pretty simple and straightforward. There's an alternate dimension which looks like our world, but where there are tons of tougher beasts that have basically beaten civilization to the point of collapse. Some of the interesting changes to the world:
- The sky is a different color (kinda explained in the cutscenes)
- There are no crags, at least not in mea. So, if you think about the FFXI storyline, Zilart and stuff never existed? Quite possibly there aren't any cities and all that are left are refugee camps
- Lots of weird/different mobs, in addition to reskins of the mobs we know of. There are some giant-worm creatures around, and some weird floating things. I think there were some released screenshots of squid-type mobs from sea around too.
Some random screenshots of Abyssea:
The last pic is where the crag of Mea is supposed to be.
Some things we've discovered so far:
- Mobs have some weird aggro rules... some mobs that don't aggro or link will suddenly either become aggressive, or summon reinforcements after you kill a bunch of them
- There are random ???s scattered around the zone that ask you to feed them various items. I assume that these items drop from the mobs around the area, and maybe it'll pop a NM
- There are chests in the zone, some of which appear after you kill mobs, some of which are simply there. They have different opening conditions, and can do anything from give you Cruor, restore your HP to... make you glow funny. Also, some of the chests are Mimics which enjoy eating tarus
- Speaking of Cruor, this is a new currency system. I guess you can think of it as similar to nyzul tokens since you can use it to buy the new level 78 armor sets, or to buy temp items or teleport around the zone. In the various zones are these weird stone waypoint-like devices that you have to activate. We activated one last night that cost 400 cruor, but I think that this is on the high end for cruor cost as this was all the way across the zone, and it was labeled #8
- There are a bunch of NPCs near each entry area which have some quests... no idea how to complete the quests, but at least a few of them are fetch quests or HELM quests.
- There are also no exp chains, so it doesn't matter how long it is between kills. However, your body does seem to have some weird glowing that increases when you kill faster. No idea what that does. There are random mobs around that seem to glow and give higher amounts of exp (400-500 for a single VT kill)
- There are also NMs around the zone. We found a little rabbit in La Theine that hits for 4-500
- Abyssea is a dangerous place for tarutarus. In the two times I've gone in so far, both times had over 100% taru fatalities, with tarus usually dying a couple of times
Personal feedback:
- 30 minutes every 20 hours is just... stupid. I do hope that this is a temporary measure to reduce the load on the server. 30 minutes is barely enough to walk out of the area, and forces you to basically skip over all the text that the NPCs give you. The most you can save up is 90 minutes, and that is waiting for 3 days. I'm feeling quite ripped off by the $10 price. Maybe we should give a condition to SE that they can take our monthly payment from us, but only use the money during the time we are logged into FFXI? The rest of the time they have to give the money back to us.
- On the other hand, I can appreciate the trickery that they've used here. 30 minutes means that it'll take at least a couple of weeks before we've entered the zone enough to start figuring out what to do and what the trick is. In WotG, people figured out how to sign up for campaign and start doing campaign ops within a few hours of release. Just imagine what WotG would be if we could only enter WotG zones for 30 minutes a day! They would have extended the life of FFXI by at least 3-5x and could have put off developing FFXIV!
- The reuse of the zone just sparks of complete laziness... Come on! I'm sure you can hire some unpaid interns to create new textures, or at least lay out the zone differently? I mean, you don't even have to pay them!
- I'm liking the idea of using Cruor for buying the new gear. It comes easily even if you have no idea what you're doing and just running around killing things
I'm cautiously optimistic about Abyssea. It's a new area, new rules and a place to explore. The time limit is what goes against it, making this yet another "twice a week" event instead of something you can go do on your own or whenever you want. If I want to go in and explore, I can't do so if I want to do this with friends in a party situation. Doing quests isn't something to do solo too, unless you want to abandon doing this with a party. I guess a schedule would have to be worked out
Walk of Echos
REALLY flimsy plot here... a moogle declares that you can enter this super-secret zone? Erm... okay... I guess the zone looks pretty at least. 1000 gil entry fee, no big deal, and you get to see some pretty zones. At least they weren't lazy this time around. Maybe they found some unpaid interns!
Some random pics:
Up to 36... random... people can enter one of the zones at any one time. You get 30 minutes to do whatever you want, and there are no claiming rules for mobs. Also, the mobs move fast, and pretty much patrol the entire zone.
The one we ended up entering was full of antlions (#3 I believe). There were a few ordinary sized antlions running around which a party was able to dispatch, but also running around was a giant one that very quickly ate everyone in zone!
This... feels like a level 80+ place. I wouldn't want to touch the big one without a full alliance (maybe two alliances) and without level 80. It hits hard, fast and felt like fighting something like Tinnin or Tyger. Also, it wasn't just one giant antlion, but multiple running around in the zone. That's also only on the first level. I read a report that a THF managed to flee down 4 levels before getting demolished by the mobs at the bottom.
The good news is that there is no exp loss in Walk of Echos. The even better news is that there ARE skillups, so... maybe this will be a good place to go skillup your weapons after you SMN burn to 80.
Other thoughts on this new feature:
- Entrance needs some work, maybe better positioning. In Xarc, close to a well known BLM-burn location means that people going to it would probably lag the BLM party there. Not very nice placement
- Xarc[S] also means that the giant flying dragon will get many more snacks as people zone in (or try to teleport out) and get eaten in one shot
- Not sure how good this reward system is. The notes imply that the people who contribute the most will get rewards. However, it also says that there is a lotting system... More people trying to get killshot on mobs? It's annoying enough in campaign...
- Not being able to "lock" a zone has some dangerous issues too. To take on the big mobs, we'll probably need some sort of strategy and have to work together in an alliance. However, any joe who walks into the area can zone in, aggro the whole zone and MPK people who are actively trying to get progress
- Plus there is the lotting issue... Just imagine entering a Dynamis, going to arrange to kill the bosses then have some random person zone in, lot all the AF and coins and proceed to run around the whole zone popping every mob they can
Holding off on Walk of Echos at the moment. Unlike Abyssea, the 'recast' time for this event is more reasonable, 30 minutes in, then you can re-enter in the "next vanadiel day" with the only cost being 1k gil. If anything, this might end up being a decent skillup area even if nothing else comes from it.
Other update thoughts
Here are just some random thoughts that came through my mind after exploring the update and reading up on things.
Dancer
Big update for Dancer which addresses some of the biggest weaknesses of the job. Being able to use Waltzes on people outside the party should go along way to changing how curing DNCs are used. This really has the potential to put DNC as the #1 curing job for larger events. With proper cooperation from WHMs, MP should no longer be an issue for long events.
The only problem I've run into for curing DNC + WHM combinations is that most good WHMs consider themselves the main healer. What will frequently end up happening is that both a DNC & WHM will heal someone at the first moment that they see damage being taken which ends up wasting MP & TP. Since a DNC's heals are instant, the DNC's heals will generally hit first. In that kind of duo-healing situation, it really needs a WHM to take a backup healer mentality, focusing on removing status effects, giving buffs and curing only when necessary as a backup curer.
The addition of Divine Waltz II at a higher level will help tackling AoEs. I think my moogle expansion hat with the -waltz recast is the better choice here compared to Waltz potency from relic since it gets me back into curing. Plus, I believe the HP cured/second is actually higher due to the reduction in timer
The other enhancements to DNC are all oriented towards dealing damage:
- Native dual wield - While this does increase TP gained, the big win on dual wield is that it increases damage-over-time
- Skillchain Bonus at level 45 - This is very interesting because SAM doesn't get this until level 78! Is SE expecting DNCs to skillchain more? Testing shows that this seems to be about a 15-20% boost in damage. People who /DNC at 90 should be able to take advantage of this. If you close a darkness skillchain, the darkness damage ends up being higher than your WS damage.
- Conserve TP & Sekkanoki with /SAM - With these two abilities, even a curing DNC can actually weaponskill even more frequently without worrying about not having TP to cure. I already WS when I have 5 finishing moves or meditate ready for use. With Sekkanoki, I can WS even more often to contribute more damage, and more importantly put evasion down on more mobs.
- Critical Attack Bonus & Climatic Flourish - Not exactly sure what these two do yet, but they appear to have to do with more critical hits. Critical Attack bonus is only available for WAR, THF & DNC and has a description that it improves power of critical hits. Climatic Flourish is supposed to "allow you to deal critical hits". If these stack with the skillchain bonus, it could make a DNC focusing on DD do even more damage.
Blue Mage
I didn't pay too much attention to the BLU enhancements at first, but closer examination shows that BLU actually got quite a few interesting enhancements. We now have our own native Refresh (self-target only), a full power haste to replace Refueling, and a interesting cure and buff move that not only restores as much HP as a Cure IV, but also enhances attack for whoever we cure.
Besides the new spells, BLU/RDM is now an interesting possibility for BLU, essentially giving us an unlimited MP pool to do damage. Finally, BLU is very much more effective against VT or lower mobs. In Abyssea, all we've encountered so far are T & VT mobs, other then the NMs, so BLU might end up being a very effective job for this area. I'm quite curious to see how BLU ends up at level 80.
Paladin
PLD didn't receive much in terms of enhancements, but due to the enmity nerfs that probably targeted RDM/NIN tanking, PLD/RDM has become significantly weaker when distance tanking single mobs.
I was talking to Kelhor about this and how this might affect our strategies for various events. Basically, it boils down to PLD/RDM only working for events where you use bar spells to generate enmity. For single-target tanking such as Oryu or JoL, PLD/RDM isn't as effective anymore. The most likely solution to this would be PLD/DRK, which still has a decent selection of hate tools including Stun, the Absorb-* series of spells and the various job abilities like Last Resort and Souleater.
Personally, the nerf to PLD/RDM has turned me off from exping on PLD. For starters, I'm really not interested in leveling DRK from 1-49. I don't even have DRK unlocked!
Scholar
The new Libra ability looks quite interesting. By showing everyone's enmity as a % of the top person at the enmity list, it should make things like HNMs safer. Just check enmity levels once in a while, and if some DD is too close to the hate cap, have them back off. I'm not certain if this works in alliances, but if it does, then I'd definitely want a Scholar along for the next time we do Tinnin or Tyger.
I'm also highly amused by the outrage that people are expressing about Accession not working with Haste. I guess most of them are WHMs hoping to be able to cut out their haste cycle. I'm even more amused that SE bothered with this since it seems to me that it would take even more effort to make an exception to Haste. It feels kind of strange... I mean, I guess they want people to be stuck doing haste cycles?
Personally, I haven't been playing SCH much lately. I leveled it mainly for the nuking capabilities to help out in Limbus, and because the AF looked cute. This is probably going on the back burner and might not see the light until much later
Dragoon
Conserve TP is a job trait that only three jobs get, Dragoon, Dancer and Ranger. I'm surprised that Samurai didn't get it, but I guess they don't need it? With Sekkanoki coming down to level 40, DRG suddenly becomes a lot more interesting for DD since DRGs can, in theory, get more TP faster, and WS more. Maybe DRG can get closer to SAM for being a top tier DD job.
Personally, while my DRG is entertaining, I generally don't like going to events as a DD simply due to the lack of control DDs have over the flow of an event. You're just one of the cogs in a wheel, there to do one thing only. If things go wrong, DDs can rarely salvage things
Corsair
I'm highly amused at the new movement speed roll, and the new attributes of rolling a 11. I guess running across a zone won't be as big of a chore anymore! However, I am also appreciating movement a lot more due to the long distances we have to run around in Abyssea. Given the time limit in the zone, I'd say that a BRD or COR who knows when to use the movement speed buffs is a huge benefit to Abyssea.
With Caster's Roll and the level cap at 80, COR now gets an interesting role in a PLD/NIN tank party. With the Fast Cast of Caster's Role and the Refresh of Evoker's roll, COR/WHM might become a viable replacement for a BRD in a pinch. The ultimate tank party now becomes 2x PLD/NIN, WHM, RDM, BRD, COR for maximum Refresh and best speed for Utsusemi recasts!
Finally, COR/WHM also gets Haste now at level 80, further reinforcing this and BRD/WHM as the ultimate support jobs.
Personally, I could barely afford to level COR to 75. I don't think I can afford to pay for 75-99, given the amount of exp and how long it would take, so COR is likely to be the last job I'll touch.
Other stuff
Just some thoughts on other things...
Trials of the Magians - Supposedly they lowered the requirements for these quests. For my trials though, I didn't see any differences. I'm aiming for the "occasionally attacks twice" dagger. I'm currently on the "kill black triple stars x3" trial, and it really is a trial given the annoying pop conditions for this trial. I'm not sure if/when I'll actually work on this. It's very frustrating to spend hours (at half an hour at a shot) to not get any pops. Furthermore, they did add more trials to further upgrade the weapon past level 75. It seems that the new trials require even more drops from somewhere else. Not looking forward to doing this, but I know I'll have to in the near future
Level cap quest - I'm amused at the requirements... 3 merits + 5 kindred seals. I was joking with some people that there would be a quest and that it would be 10 merit points. I guess SE gave us a break there! I had 7 merits saved up for exactly this possibility so I'm happy at how easy this quest was to finish.
Level cap increase - Talint has an interesting blog post about the level cap increase concerning the amount of exp required to go to level 80, and of course, to level 99. He also talks about the sheer contempt that SE has for their player base. I'm in full agreement over the contempt that SE, or at least, the Final Fantasy teams have towards their player base. Those who read my blog know how much I didn't like FFXIII. There's a big reason why I haven't played the FFXIV beta for over a month now.
SE has reduced the rate at which the exp for the next level increases. I was fully expecting level 76-77 to require 46,000 exp, 77-78 to require 48,000 to hatch the previous pattern between 70-75. Instead, they are increasing it at a rate of 500 more per level, which... is somewhat more tolerable. If we take an average rate of 20k/hour (taking advantage of things like allied rings, level sync, etc.), it would be possible to go from the beginning of level 76 to barely level 80 in 9 hours of straight exp.
Ya, 9 hours -.-
Not counting overhead of gathering people for a party, or seeking
Or finding a camp. At least with the adjustment of the "distribution and level of certain monsters", there are new possibilities of places to exp. However, I don't see this opening up anytime soon.
I'm not quite sure if I want to take multiple jobs up to 99 right now. The thought of having to do 9+ hours of exp just for one job is already... painful. If I were to take PLD up, I'd have to level DRK as well to be fully effective. BLU might be interesting to take up, though I'd have to go spell farming again...
We'll see what happens in the next couple of weeks.
Hmm... how much does it cost for a leech spot in a SMN burn again?
Other "non-update" stuff
Some more random stuff :)
Fuuji put together a group to do Fiat Lux, the stupid Shadow Lord campaign op. The party was: RDM(Fuuji), SCH(me), Tristenn(DRK), Mday(WAR), Cron(SAM) and Vanh(BRD).
First off, this isn't an easy BC ~.~ Annoying hate reset moves meant that I ended up having to choose between letting people die, or pulling hate and dying myself. I died three times in the BC, twice with RR2 up, and I had to use a Hi-Reraiser simply due to running out of MP for Reraise. We also had to have Vanh sac-pull the extra summons the the Shadow Lord brings up, sacrificing more tarutaru in the name of drops.
Anyway, it was a relatively long fight, but at the end of the way we managed to win thanks to Tristenn holding Shadow Lord while we were recovering. We ended up with complete crap as drops.
To make things worse were the complete jackasses who would arrive, jump ahead of the line and enter ahead of everyone else. Yes, the Cerberus/Hades server has complete assholes. I blisted them and will make their names available if people want. These are the absolute scum of the planet and deserve to be hung upside down from their toenails while people beat them up with rusty picks. These are the people for whom I hope that hell truly exists. If you know of someone who jumps lines, you had better give them a huge /slap, warn them never to do this again or else cut off all friendship with such people
Oh ya, GMs are completely useless, but that won't stop me from entering GM calls as many times as I want. After all they are supposed to be customer service.
In other news... I tried out my Novio earring on some mobs for some fun damage
