More update impressions, glitches

Update has been out for a while... here are some randomish pictures and impressions.

One of the new job traits that came out of this release is "skillchain bonus" which is given to DNC & SAM. This happens when one of the jobs close a skillchain, and the resulting extra damage shows up. Here is an example of me closing a darkness skillchain for more than what my weaponskill did. In this case, it was a 16% increase in damage compared to normal.

Abyssea is buggy! If you level sync inside abyssea, you'll get some additional exp compared to spreading the levels out, but the difference isn't that much. We're talking about a 10-15% difference between a level 80 person and a level 75. However, the funny thing is that if you do level sync, for some reason whenever you kill a mob, you might get the level up animation completely at random. In this case, none of us were actually leveling up to level 76. I think I was actually level 77 at this point and we were synced to 76.

This one is funny... I R0'ed and DC'ed right in the middle of a MMM session. It was enough of an R0 to kick me out of FFXI, but I managed to get right back in from POL instead of having to quit the game. However, once I was in, my auto-translate was completely screwed up and everything that was in auto-translate came out with the same Japanese phrase

Now this is a fun one...  inside Abyssea, you can sometimes get chests that will appear after you kill mobs. Some of these chests are huge, such as this one over here that is much, much bigger than a taru! It can probably hold 3-4 tarutaru bodies!

This is what I call cutting it close :)


Other Impressions
So far, I'm finding that I'm liking the Abyssea aspect of this update a lot... I guess we're kinda getting what we paid for here. The time/stone constraints aren't that big of a deal really. 1 1/2 hours for an event is a significant time, enough to make progress, but not enough to really burn out on doing it like Dynamis. The rewards from this event are interesting too, making it a possible exp area, as well as a good point system that allows you to buy armor like Einherjar instead of hoping for lucky drops.

The level cap raise to 80 hasn't been quite as painful as I feared. Managed to get DNC up to 80 fairly quickly, and of my other jobs, I've gotten PLD to 78 and COR to 77. Allied Rings help a lot, and the new potential places for exp have helped, plus of course, MMM.

What is kinda annoying, however, is how the new equipment is basically making a lot of older gear obsolete. The Enkidu armor set that I got through ZNMs is basically going to be completely replaced by the Aurore Doublet Set. The Perle Hauberk set would be good for DDs, and replaces Askar as a much easier to get set of armor. With the level caps going higher up in the near future, I'm wondering if it is even worth doing events for the generically good pieces of armor?

I mean, there are certain situational pieces that will always be good... for example, I don't see them making a replacement for the RDM hat or THF gloves, nor do I see them putting "enhances jig effect" on a generic piece of armor... (though wasn't there talk about an "AF3" line in the higher levels?) However, multi-job pieces that have the usual suspects... accuracy, str, haste, MP, cure potency, recast time, etc. such as Hachiryu, Homam, Nashira, Enkidu, Askar, Goliard... I wouldn't be surprised if there would be an easy to obtain level 88 piece that blows them away, making it pointless to do those events.

Another interesting thing is the "trial of the magians" developments. As expected, they expanded the paths even further. However, what disturbed me was how they changed. If I had actually spent more time on this, I would have been aiming for the Athame with "occasionally attacks twice" through the VNM route. However, the "solo" route which "merely" involves killing thousands of mobs develops into a dagger that "occassionally attacks 2-3 times" which is a much better dagger for DNC. Given that these daggers are only at level 80, would this mean that the future weapons will change even more? Could someone spend weeks, months on one of these trials only to end up with the wrong weapon?

Surprisingly, FFXI has gone from a fairly static place where you know what you'll be getting to... well... having a lot of uncertainty and... to an extent, excitement. Definitely a strange time to be playing XI, and who knows what the future brings.