It's been about 3 months since the 2.2 patch was released and I feel like I'm getting nowhere with this new coil static. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'm getting nowhere.
We started off with a decent lineup that had people on jobs they wanted to play. Someone early on, (I think Vanh or DO) asked about gear lotting for people who were playing on certain jobs due to the group composition but really wanted gear for other jobs.
After failing for many weeks at T6, we had to do some job changes to make it possible to pass. I'll be blunt for this entire post. A'sanya dies on a regular basis to the instant-kill "Bouquet" move. For a healer to die on this is a virtually guaranteed wipe. Having him on BLM allows him to screw up once in a while, but still recover.
T7 was just as bad. Having 3 ranged DPS is just bad news with AOEs going to any of them randomly. With Holt & DO both working on animus weapons at the time, switching A'sanya's BLM to WHM made sense and let Rooks use all the MNK gear he was accumulating. The eye opener was when we had Val step in for Zurar for one week on DRG and we saw that his damage on his i90 DRG was significantly higher than Zurar's higher ilevel DRG. Zurar was not carrying his weight as a DRG and could not improve on it. I suggested the switch in jobs, him on WAR, me on DRG to get the DPS boost necessary to get past T7. I could outperform him in i90 gear, though I also started spending Soldiery on DRG to give the group a better chance at progressing.
Now my original choices for gear were WAR & SCH, two jobs which I enjoy. DRG is not among my favored jobs to play, but I know how to play it and prefer it over MNK between the melee jobs. For a DPS, I much prefer BRD over everything else, and even with a massive ilevel disadvantage compared to Holt, I can still stay competitive with him in Sycus Tower and take the 2nd highest damage output in the alliance. Before we figured out Zurar's DPS was too low, I was already spending Soldiery on BRD gear since that was my favorite DPS job. I also like playing SCH a lot, but I've virtually never had a chance to touch it since 2.2 was released. In fact, I've probably forgotten how to play it now. Still, I'm willing to swap that slot for picking up DRG gear if it means the static can progress.
But, this lead to the situation where we go... one week where DRG gear drops to Zurar, a next week where tank gear drops to Zurar due to job switches, and then another week where DRG drops to Austin since he's helping. RNG is one thing, but this feels like downright being fucked. Now that Austin is taking Vanh's spot in the static, my i94 DRG really is not necessary and useless compared to his i106 DRG. Unlike Zurar, Austin knows how to play DRG and probably plays it better than I do.
And now that Zurar is dropping too, we're bringing in Kurai to fill his spot. It was my suggestion to have him fill in the T6/T7 WAR MT slot for the coming run simply because it's easy to run, and Rooks is ONLY going to come on this Tuesday, so actually completing T6/T7 this coming week is questionable. Still, I did not realize that this meant that I'm giving up even lotting on tank gear. Since Kurai was not with us today, tank gear then defaults to Marcux?
So yeah, I'm feeling completely fucked over right now. My HIGHEST ilevel is WAR at i96 due to having spread out soldiery to DRG / being skipped over for high allagan, and that's ONLY because I used last week's ST lot to pick up the i100 hands. I literally cannot even join LEARNING groups in party finder because my ilevel is too low.
So yes, I'm fucking frustrated with the coil static. At this point, I'm going to just throw all my soldiery and gear into WAR & BRD to hopefully be able to do pick-up content, especially since my DRG is now irrelevant since Austin can do a better job than I can on it when we need the DPS push. If you all want to kick me, go ahead. Just let me know by Tuesday.
On a side note: What is up with Rooks's obsession about "training for your coil jobs" for old content? We have a setup that works, people know exactly what they need to do to beat T6. Not only that, they already HAVE to gear to get past T6 since we've been farming that for weeks now! Why are we changing to other jobs that are used in T7 to do T6 on? Especially since some of the job changes were specifically BECAUSE they did not work in the first place! A'sanya on healer did not work on T6, but we're doing it again because that's his role in T7? Why waste hours on T6 at all trying to learn different roles when there's T8 to get past! Since T8 only needs 1 tank, should we go do T7 the single tank way? I mean, it is possible, but we'll probably take another 4-5 hours to figure it out. Maybe if all the content were on farm and we were bored, or we have time, then sure, let's change jobs around for some variety. However, right now we're literally going to coil with 2, 3 hours per week due to schedule conflicts. That's barely enough time to even CLEAR T6 or T7 without fucking around, much less even attempt T8 or new content. Or, for that matter, go to ST together as a group, which I recall was one of Rooks's goals.
Signing off
- Ascy.
Showing posts with label Musings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Musings. Show all posts
Monday, July 14, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
Glamours, clearing content and the next grind!
One of the new major changes that the FFXIV 2.2 patch brought was the addition of "glamours", aka the "vanity system" that is common in many different MMOs. This brings out lots of imaginative outfits and gives a good reason for going back to farm lower level dungeons.
Still... if you haven't quite figured out how your outfit should go together, you could end up in funny situations like tanking Twintania in this!
Ok, so I was actually going for a Strike Witches cosplay look, but I don't think many people got it... still, it has the funny side effect of going through cutscenes looking like this
Oh, so... yeah, since the 2.2 echo buff kicked in, turn 5 of the Binding Coil of Bahamut has essentially become a farmable joke. You still need to know what you're doing and how to handle the mechanics, but it's become fairly easy even with just the initial echo buff. It should become even easier starting this week with the 2nd echo buff. Turns 1-4 are already a joke to tackle and I'm pretty sure that everyone will be farming everything they ever wanted from the first coil shortly.
Still... if you haven't quite figured out how your outfit should go together, you could end up in funny situations like tanking Twintania in this!
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| Ever have that dream where you go fight an angry dragon without pants? |
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| Have you seen my skirt? |
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| Maybe it's over there :o |
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| LOLDRGs putting fire circles everywhere! |
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| And one of... I stopped counting at 12 from the first night... wins for T5. |
What else... so the easter event is around, which mainly consists of forming small parties and running around the major cities. There are a few silly cutscenes, but nothing to write home about. You get a barding and have to buy a few silly looking hats for this event.
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| Just a bunch of eggheads! |
Other content is also progressing to be farmed now... Leviathan Extreme was the first to be cracked and is a relatively easy fight. More forgiving than Titan Extreme, and most newcomers can learn the basic pattern for their first win usually within 45 minutes.
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| Yet another mechanics fight |
We just finished learning Thornmarch Extreme this past weekend. This fight with the Moogles has a lot more randomness to it with all the little mogs running around and potentially screwing things up, so winning here is not a sure thing. This is a healer & DPS heavy fight in terms of responsibility. I forgot to take screenshots of this one so you'll have to settle for this simulation instead!
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| Being surrounded by moogles! Basically the same as Thornmarch EX! |
The only "real" content left that we haven't tackled is the Second Coil of Bahamut, aka "T6-9". I get the general feeling that everyone has been more than happy to just poke and farm the older stuff for the time being, to get geared up and prepare for the eventual wall that is T6-9.
I also feel that the 2.2 buffs/nerfs have taken some of the drive out of people. My feeling is that pounding our head too hard against the cutting edge content isn't really necessary as SE will probably be nerfing T6-9 in the 2.4 patch.
Consider what happened in 2.2. The first coil was made farmable at first, allowing people to do this as many times as necessary to get what they want. The first night we beat T5, we did it at least 12 times, probably more. We've gone back and farmed it many more times, much more than we could have done it before the lockouts were removed.
The echo buff also made it so that party finder groups can relatively easily win T1-4. It might even be that by the time the last echo buff is put into the game, T5 can be done with party finder. About the only thing that the echo buff did not help with is Titan and Ifrit EX due to actually needing to perform the mechanics to properly win.
So... for the 2.2 content, specifically T6-9 and the Atma/Animus quests... it feels like... well, even if we don't rush to take part in this content, when 2.4 comes out (probably around December), we'll just breeze through it easily?
Anyway... enough of that! The main reason for playing MMOs is to play dress-up anyway, right?!
Anyway... enough of that! The main reason for playing MMOs is to play dress-up anyway, right?!
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| Finally found my skirt! |
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| And found a mini-tank dressed similarly to me! (Also, love that caster outfit in the background!) |
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| I like the little emote additions that SE adds to the game, like the new /changepose |
That's it for now! Short post!
Tuesday, September 3, 2013
Fate Fantasy XIV: An Anti-Social MMO
I finished PLD50 on Sunday and finished the main story, watched the credits, etc. Sooo... chances are that this post will have some spoilers, read on at your own risk! Side note: There are much too many people who worked on this game. Pretty sure that most are contractors or temps as I can't imagine a product that pulls at most $140-200M/year could employ that many people long-term.
Anyway, having "beaten" the game, I can't help but draw direct comparisons between FFXIV and Star Wars: The Old Republic. It feels like a shorter, less social version of SWTOR. This especially rings true for the state of endgame. Let's pull some direct comparisons:
* Standard quest + hub system -- This is identical to any other MMO out there, SWTOR, WoW, Tera, etc. all follow the "main story brings you to a new town where there are sidequests". The sidequests are identical too, the usual kill X mobs, fetch Y items, do /dance to NPCs, go to THIS side of the map to fight a NM, then go to THAT side to talk to a NPC. I'm highly amused that late in the game, they get blatant about it too, not only telling you to your face that they are just giving you busy work, but literally asking you to go to a different town and repeat exactly what you just did.
* Individual "main stories" and content -- The class/job quests, hunt logs, etc. are all meant to be tackled for you alone. You *could* bring a friend along for some of it, but generally it's single player content. Oh, one funny thing is that I think the AF reward was adjusted down to level 45 at some point just before launch. After getting 4/5 AF pieces with the level 45 job quest, I still ran into side quests in the 47-49 range which had gear rewards that were clearly outclassed by your AF gear. The level 44 dungeon gear becomes obsoletely nearly immediately and is probably just for looks now.
* Instanced dungeons -- Flashpoints in SWTOR, dungeons in FFXIV. The nice thing is that they got matchmaking working from the start (Duty Finder) instead of having it be something introduced later. Good for optional gear along the way, and you don't have to do it more than once.
* Endgame consisting of "hard mode" encounters -- All done with the game? Alright, here's Ifrit, Garuda and Titan v2 for you to fight... oh, done with those too? Well, don't worry, Yoshi-P has said outright that in version 2.2, there will be a new level of Titan, Garuda and Ifrit for you to fight. He just hasn't decided whether to call it "super", "hyper", or "ultra" yet. I'm going to suggest Super Hyper Fighting Turbo edition! SWTOR called these "hard" and "nightmare" modes.
* Progression-type gating -- In order to do content from dungeon B, you have to grind content from dungeon A before you can proceed. If you try to look at the content from B before you finish grinding, you can't do it at all. This comes with hidden gear checks in the boss mechanics so you have to either read about it, or figure it out yourself. At least in SWTOR it actually rates your gear and tells you outright that you can't even attempt certain content until you finish grinding instead of making you waste your time and gil.
The whole thing really felt like a rehash of SWTOR at some points, even down to the voiced cutscenes. FFXIV however, has a lot less content as well. Voiced cutscenes are limited (and seem to be badly added to the music -- all the voice simply came from my center speaker and sounded exactly like someone speaking into a microphone). The storyline is slightly better compared to most SWTOR stories, though it really is classic Final Fantasy and pretty predictable. Ironically, the *main* difference is that there is significantly less content in FFXIV compared to SWTOR and it goes by much faster. I think it took 1 1/2 months of fairly intense playing to go from 1-50 in SWTOR. In FFXIV, it took less than 10 days.
The Anti-Social MMO
Unlike SWTOR, FFXIV seem to actively discourage any sort of social interaction as well. In SWTOR, I had a bonus for doing things in a party with someone else. Not only were there quests which required 2, sometimes 4 people to complete, but there was also a bonus for just partnering with a friend and going through the quests. You can even do your class quests with the help of a friend for fun, and they get to see some of your story.
FFXIV actively forces you to play alone for not only class quests and job quests, but your Grand Company leves. You can't even play with a friend for leveling content if you want to. About the only thing you can do with friends is repeating dungeons and FATEs.
Now FATEs are an interesting concept. Initially I compared them directly to the dynamic events in Guild Wars 2, or rifts in Rift, but the frequency and rewards of FATEs have lead people to select this as the new "exp party grind" for FFXIV. The fact that dungeons don't give as much exp (but are good for gear) and that levequests give a pretty crappy time/reward ratio(and are more useful for crafting/gathering) mean that in certain zones, you have massive mobs of people roaming around simply doing FATEs.
The funny part is that unlike FFXI, everyone is welcome to a FATE party. It doesn't matter who you are, what job you are on, just that you're in the party and hence, whatever you do increases the experience of everyone in the party. Joining a party is as simple as shouting in the appropriate zone "LFG FATE" and you'll automatically get an invite at this time. Unfortunately, due to the nature of the one-time quests, and that there is only one set of quests from level 20-50, if you want to play more than one job, you will spend most of your gametime simply roaming around in quiet, wordless FATE parties. Even if you are only leveling one job, a certain amount of grinding is necessary to make up for the lack of exp from quests.
The toxic community
My experience in going through the content from 1-49 was generally very pleasant. In dungeons, we talked at first, admitted to being new to a dungeon and experimented to see what new dungeons had to offer. Sometimes we learnt things and failed, only to retry and come to a win. My Garuda fight was a full team which had never done it before, but we went from having no clue to figuring the fight mechanics out and pulling off a win. During one of my high level quests (around level 47 or so), I had to kill some mobs for a quest, but there was a level 50 PLD there clearly farming them for crafting items. When I showed up, he would claim a mob, then turn and not attack so I could do enough damage for credit for the quest. He got his drops, I got my credit and moved on.
That all changed at level 50 with an incredibly toxic community. To finish up the storyline, you have to reach level 50 and do a few 8-person dungeons. Unfortunately, these dungeons are also the exact same ones that you need to farm for "tombstones" (one of the currencies for endgame gear, including AF+1 and darklight gear) so what you end up with is a group of impatient douchebags screaming at people to skip through cutscenes, running ahead of everyone, triggering mobs, not explaining fights and making the experience generally miserable for everyone. In some cases, SE actually put cutscenes right in the middle of fighting masses of mobs, so you'd be fighting and engaging mobs and suddenly the cutscene would start without warning. Highly annoying, and supposedly people have died to this. As tank, I skipped these cutscenes to make sure that nobody died, but the entire experience is very jarring.
The fights for the final dungeons are pretty easy too so people would go ahead and start fighting while others are in the middle of cutscenes. It's VERY noticeable as even during the cutscene, you can hear the sounds of the boss that is being fought trash talking. It's very silly that the final boss of a Final Fantasy game is already dead by the time you come out of a CS because some assholes decide to go ahead and start fighting with half the team.
This sort of toxic behavior also carries over to the post-story content. In a few instances in duty finder, I've seen people drop out without another word when one person admits that they've never tried the content before. I've also seen cases of people berating others for having a low DPS from running FFXIV-APP and immediately quitting. In all cases, I've reported them to the support desk for harassment, but I'm pretty sure that the GMs in this game are as useless as other games.
This general feeling from the FFXIV community has lead me to ignore endgame activities until more friends catch up. I'm not too surprised, just disappointed that a community that was so friendly could turn so toxic so quickly.
Will FFXIV be successful?
I've stated often in previous posts that the long-term success of FFXIV really depends on their endgame content. Having experienced it briefly, and investigated what needed to be done, I think my answer to this is that it will not be as successful as people think it will be. It shares most of the characteristics as SWTOR, is incomplete in some ways (no PvP, making promises of player/guild housing, like SWTOR promised guild ships) and has vague promises of future content ("Good King Moogle Mog", harder mode of primal battles and other primals). The tiered progression system also discourages casual play at endgame, given that to get from the first tier to the next, you basically have to repeat the same 60-90 minute dungeons a good 30-40 times. Just like SWTOR, you are essentially locked out of some content until you farm the initial content, making it frustrating for casual players.
Unlike SWTOR, the content for FFXIV moves along a lot faster. Not only is the leveling process really fast in comparison (basically FFXIV has maybe 1/3 of the total quest/story content compared to SWTOR), but the farming process has no barriers. In SWTOR, you were limited to 2 operations per week due to lockouts. FFXIV has no lockouts so people can (and have been) farm the dungeons constantly. I expect that people should have full AF+1 and relics before even the basic trial periods are complete.
The tiered progression system is one I am not a fan of and was afraid would actually come to FFXIV. Unfortunately, my fears did come true and in order to see content, you have to go through the grind. Compare this to FFXI where you could select from the different endgame activities to do and do any, or all that you wanted to with the gear that you had when you reached level cap. You could do Dynamis without having to camp the kings, or do Sky without having to touch Dynamis. Or do all at the same time. New events that were later added -- Limbus, ZNMs, Nyzul, Campaign, etc. could all be done with basic gear, without having to do one or the other. Of course, having better gear made things easier and faster, but you could experience all the content and decide which ones you wanted to pursue. Amusingly, about a year after the SWTOR release, they started giving away the first tier of endgame gear to anyone who reached level 50 so that people could jump ahead of outdated content. Will FFXIV do the same?
The tiered progression system also punishes people who want to be helpful and flexible. If you want to be prepared for various roles, after grinding your 2nd or 3rd job up to 50 through FATEs, you have to do double or triple the amount of grinding at the various tiers to gear up your various jobs. It would be simpler to just stick with one role.
I think the player base will split into 3 parts:
1) The hardcore which will be done with content before even the first month is up (possibly being able to actually return the game without entering a code if they pre-ordered and use the early access & new trial +7 days? or maybe they still need to enter a code to get the +7 days to the trial), complain that there is no content and leave.
2) The casual which will finish the story and quickly realize that they don't want to grind through the same thing over and over again.
3) The fans that will actually stick to the game even on the downhill. There are people like this on SWTOR that still raid and do operations. I expect that a large number of similar fans will stay around for FFXIV. Ironically, I think this will end up putting the final nail in the coffin for FFXI as most of the fans are probably current players for FFXI.
My guess is that FFXIV: ARR will peak very quickly in the first 3-4 months, after which it will lose players rapidly, settling down in the 500-700k range of steady subscribers. This is exactly what happened to SWTOR, except it happened over about 6-8 months. Unlike SWTOR, there is less content in FFXIV, and no artificial tethers to slow people down. I actually think that this is also what SE expects given their initial launch of 50 total servers. As I recall, each server can handle a max of 4,000 concurrent connections, but is expected to host about 12,000 players, making for an estimated max of 600,000 subs. I do hope that SE isn't overbuying servers with tonight's maintenance. If they open up too many new worlds, that would just end up with server merges in a few months (which is what happened to SWTOR, which also signaled the failure of a MMO to the public). 600k subscribers is still a decent number, and I believe is about what FFXI had for a good portion of its lifetime.
How about AlphaPrime/Impact/CTR?
Now this is where it gets interesting... This is the first time we've had the whole group from FFXI back together since... well, I think people started dropping off at around 2010-2011? It's really nice to see everyone back together again, though truthfully, we haven't really played together much at all. We've done a few dungeons together, but very little outside of that. FFXIV just isn't a social game in the leveling process. There was even one time when I got into a random FATE party with one other (brand new) CTR member but he didn't even notice me saying hi to him on linkshell chat -.-
I'd like to think that we might end up playing together for a while, but I'm not optimistic as to how long it will last. I'm fully expecting some people to get bored and leave fairly quickly (myself possibly among them), while other people will feel that we're moving too slow and join a "real" FC to progress faster (which has already happened). Personally, I've switched to playing on ARC so that I can join in with some friends as they go through the various dungeons, though it's quite boring on the 2nd job due to FATEs being the only real way to exp.
As for the future of CTR, well, we have a stupid number of PLDs right now. Last I counted, there were between 8-10 of us. That's too many tanks for 30 people, and I'm not even counting the WARs yet! It's mildly ironic that we have very few DDs. Every time someone asks for help in a dungeon, I can't offer it because they're also leveling PLD. For events, I'm not entirely sure what we can do... perhaps some farming runs for currency? 8 people at a time? While it might be fun to do this as a group, it would be almost as easy to just use Duty Finder for it. The same for the hard mode primal fights for a chance at the weapons. We'll have to see what happens as more people get to 50.
What do you think? Leave comments below.
Anyway, here are some pics! Quite limited due to me not wanting to spoil things too much for people, but there *ARE* spoilers...
Anyway, having "beaten" the game, I can't help but draw direct comparisons between FFXIV and Star Wars: The Old Republic. It feels like a shorter, less social version of SWTOR. This especially rings true for the state of endgame. Let's pull some direct comparisons:
* Standard quest + hub system -- This is identical to any other MMO out there, SWTOR, WoW, Tera, etc. all follow the "main story brings you to a new town where there are sidequests". The sidequests are identical too, the usual kill X mobs, fetch Y items, do /dance to NPCs, go to THIS side of the map to fight a NM, then go to THAT side to talk to a NPC. I'm highly amused that late in the game, they get blatant about it too, not only telling you to your face that they are just giving you busy work, but literally asking you to go to a different town and repeat exactly what you just did.
* Individual "main stories" and content -- The class/job quests, hunt logs, etc. are all meant to be tackled for you alone. You *could* bring a friend along for some of it, but generally it's single player content. Oh, one funny thing is that I think the AF reward was adjusted down to level 45 at some point just before launch. After getting 4/5 AF pieces with the level 45 job quest, I still ran into side quests in the 47-49 range which had gear rewards that were clearly outclassed by your AF gear. The level 44 dungeon gear becomes obsoletely nearly immediately and is probably just for looks now.
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| Yes. Yes I am. |
* Endgame consisting of "hard mode" encounters -- All done with the game? Alright, here's Ifrit, Garuda and Titan v2 for you to fight... oh, done with those too? Well, don't worry, Yoshi-P has said outright that in version 2.2, there will be a new level of Titan, Garuda and Ifrit for you to fight. He just hasn't decided whether to call it "super", "hyper", or "ultra" yet. I'm going to suggest Super Hyper Fighting Turbo edition! SWTOR called these "hard" and "nightmare" modes.
* Progression-type gating -- In order to do content from dungeon B, you have to grind content from dungeon A before you can proceed. If you try to look at the content from B before you finish grinding, you can't do it at all. This comes with hidden gear checks in the boss mechanics so you have to either read about it, or figure it out yourself. At least in SWTOR it actually rates your gear and tells you outright that you can't even attempt certain content until you finish grinding instead of making you waste your time and gil.
The whole thing really felt like a rehash of SWTOR at some points, even down to the voiced cutscenes. FFXIV however, has a lot less content as well. Voiced cutscenes are limited (and seem to be badly added to the music -- all the voice simply came from my center speaker and sounded exactly like someone speaking into a microphone). The storyline is slightly better compared to most SWTOR stories, though it really is classic Final Fantasy and pretty predictable. Ironically, the *main* difference is that there is significantly less content in FFXIV compared to SWTOR and it goes by much faster. I think it took 1 1/2 months of fairly intense playing to go from 1-50 in SWTOR. In FFXIV, it took less than 10 days.
The Anti-Social MMO
Unlike SWTOR, FFXIV seem to actively discourage any sort of social interaction as well. In SWTOR, I had a bonus for doing things in a party with someone else. Not only were there quests which required 2, sometimes 4 people to complete, but there was also a bonus for just partnering with a friend and going through the quests. You can even do your class quests with the help of a friend for fun, and they get to see some of your story.
FFXIV actively forces you to play alone for not only class quests and job quests, but your Grand Company leves. You can't even play with a friend for leveling content if you want to. About the only thing you can do with friends is repeating dungeons and FATEs.
Now FATEs are an interesting concept. Initially I compared them directly to the dynamic events in Guild Wars 2, or rifts in Rift, but the frequency and rewards of FATEs have lead people to select this as the new "exp party grind" for FFXIV. The fact that dungeons don't give as much exp (but are good for gear) and that levequests give a pretty crappy time/reward ratio(and are more useful for crafting/gathering) mean that in certain zones, you have massive mobs of people roaming around simply doing FATEs.
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| Typical FATE view. Get used to seeing this if you intend on leveling more than one job. |
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| A not-so-typical FATE view. Can you tell the difference? The main one is that in this case, the mob you're attacking rarely pops up so you probably can't target it! |
My experience in going through the content from 1-49 was generally very pleasant. In dungeons, we talked at first, admitted to being new to a dungeon and experimented to see what new dungeons had to offer. Sometimes we learnt things and failed, only to retry and come to a win. My Garuda fight was a full team which had never done it before, but we went from having no clue to figuring the fight mechanics out and pulling off a win. During one of my high level quests (around level 47 or so), I had to kill some mobs for a quest, but there was a level 50 PLD there clearly farming them for crafting items. When I showed up, he would claim a mob, then turn and not attack so I could do enough damage for credit for the quest. He got his drops, I got my credit and moved on.
That all changed at level 50 with an incredibly toxic community. To finish up the storyline, you have to reach level 50 and do a few 8-person dungeons. Unfortunately, these dungeons are also the exact same ones that you need to farm for "tombstones" (one of the currencies for endgame gear, including AF+1 and darklight gear) so what you end up with is a group of impatient douchebags screaming at people to skip through cutscenes, running ahead of everyone, triggering mobs, not explaining fights and making the experience generally miserable for everyone. In some cases, SE actually put cutscenes right in the middle of fighting masses of mobs, so you'd be fighting and engaging mobs and suddenly the cutscene would start without warning. Highly annoying, and supposedly people have died to this. As tank, I skipped these cutscenes to make sure that nobody died, but the entire experience is very jarring.
The fights for the final dungeons are pretty easy too so people would go ahead and start fighting while others are in the middle of cutscenes. It's VERY noticeable as even during the cutscene, you can hear the sounds of the boss that is being fought trash talking. It's very silly that the final boss of a Final Fantasy game is already dead by the time you come out of a CS because some assholes decide to go ahead and start fighting with half the team.
This sort of toxic behavior also carries over to the post-story content. In a few instances in duty finder, I've seen people drop out without another word when one person admits that they've never tried the content before. I've also seen cases of people berating others for having a low DPS from running FFXIV-APP and immediately quitting. In all cases, I've reported them to the support desk for harassment, but I'm pretty sure that the GMs in this game are as useless as other games.
This general feeling from the FFXIV community has lead me to ignore endgame activities until more friends catch up. I'm not too surprised, just disappointed that a community that was so friendly could turn so toxic so quickly.
Will FFXIV be successful?
I've stated often in previous posts that the long-term success of FFXIV really depends on their endgame content. Having experienced it briefly, and investigated what needed to be done, I think my answer to this is that it will not be as successful as people think it will be. It shares most of the characteristics as SWTOR, is incomplete in some ways (no PvP, making promises of player/guild housing, like SWTOR promised guild ships) and has vague promises of future content ("Good King Moogle Mog", harder mode of primal battles and other primals). The tiered progression system also discourages casual play at endgame, given that to get from the first tier to the next, you basically have to repeat the same 60-90 minute dungeons a good 30-40 times. Just like SWTOR, you are essentially locked out of some content until you farm the initial content, making it frustrating for casual players.
Unlike SWTOR, the content for FFXIV moves along a lot faster. Not only is the leveling process really fast in comparison (basically FFXIV has maybe 1/3 of the total quest/story content compared to SWTOR), but the farming process has no barriers. In SWTOR, you were limited to 2 operations per week due to lockouts. FFXIV has no lockouts so people can (and have been) farm the dungeons constantly. I expect that people should have full AF+1 and relics before even the basic trial periods are complete.
The tiered progression system is one I am not a fan of and was afraid would actually come to FFXIV. Unfortunately, my fears did come true and in order to see content, you have to go through the grind. Compare this to FFXI where you could select from the different endgame activities to do and do any, or all that you wanted to with the gear that you had when you reached level cap. You could do Dynamis without having to camp the kings, or do Sky without having to touch Dynamis. Or do all at the same time. New events that were later added -- Limbus, ZNMs, Nyzul, Campaign, etc. could all be done with basic gear, without having to do one or the other. Of course, having better gear made things easier and faster, but you could experience all the content and decide which ones you wanted to pursue. Amusingly, about a year after the SWTOR release, they started giving away the first tier of endgame gear to anyone who reached level 50 so that people could jump ahead of outdated content. Will FFXIV do the same?
The tiered progression system also punishes people who want to be helpful and flexible. If you want to be prepared for various roles, after grinding your 2nd or 3rd job up to 50 through FATEs, you have to do double or triple the amount of grinding at the various tiers to gear up your various jobs. It would be simpler to just stick with one role.
I think the player base will split into 3 parts:
1) The hardcore which will be done with content before even the first month is up (possibly being able to actually return the game without entering a code if they pre-ordered and use the early access & new trial +7 days? or maybe they still need to enter a code to get the +7 days to the trial), complain that there is no content and leave.
2) The casual which will finish the story and quickly realize that they don't want to grind through the same thing over and over again.
3) The fans that will actually stick to the game even on the downhill. There are people like this on SWTOR that still raid and do operations. I expect that a large number of similar fans will stay around for FFXIV. Ironically, I think this will end up putting the final nail in the coffin for FFXI as most of the fans are probably current players for FFXI.
My guess is that FFXIV: ARR will peak very quickly in the first 3-4 months, after which it will lose players rapidly, settling down in the 500-700k range of steady subscribers. This is exactly what happened to SWTOR, except it happened over about 6-8 months. Unlike SWTOR, there is less content in FFXIV, and no artificial tethers to slow people down. I actually think that this is also what SE expects given their initial launch of 50 total servers. As I recall, each server can handle a max of 4,000 concurrent connections, but is expected to host about 12,000 players, making for an estimated max of 600,000 subs. I do hope that SE isn't overbuying servers with tonight's maintenance. If they open up too many new worlds, that would just end up with server merges in a few months (which is what happened to SWTOR, which also signaled the failure of a MMO to the public). 600k subscribers is still a decent number, and I believe is about what FFXI had for a good portion of its lifetime.
How about AlphaPrime/Impact/CTR?
Now this is where it gets interesting... This is the first time we've had the whole group from FFXI back together since... well, I think people started dropping off at around 2010-2011? It's really nice to see everyone back together again, though truthfully, we haven't really played together much at all. We've done a few dungeons together, but very little outside of that. FFXIV just isn't a social game in the leveling process. There was even one time when I got into a random FATE party with one other (brand new) CTR member but he didn't even notice me saying hi to him on linkshell chat -.-
I'd like to think that we might end up playing together for a while, but I'm not optimistic as to how long it will last. I'm fully expecting some people to get bored and leave fairly quickly (myself possibly among them), while other people will feel that we're moving too slow and join a "real" FC to progress faster (which has already happened). Personally, I've switched to playing on ARC so that I can join in with some friends as they go through the various dungeons, though it's quite boring on the 2nd job due to FATEs being the only real way to exp.
As for the future of CTR, well, we have a stupid number of PLDs right now. Last I counted, there were between 8-10 of us. That's too many tanks for 30 people, and I'm not even counting the WARs yet! It's mildly ironic that we have very few DDs. Every time someone asks for help in a dungeon, I can't offer it because they're also leveling PLD. For events, I'm not entirely sure what we can do... perhaps some farming runs for currency? 8 people at a time? While it might be fun to do this as a group, it would be almost as easy to just use Duty Finder for it. The same for the hard mode primal fights for a chance at the weapons. We'll have to see what happens as more people get to 50.
What do you think? Leave comments below.
Anyway, here are some pics! Quite limited due to me not wanting to spoil things too much for people, but there *ARE* spoilers...
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| Despite my complaints, it's still a really pretty game. Wonder how DX11 will make things look |
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| And there's some surprisingly skimpy clothing too, like any MMO I guess |
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| I'm a ghost! |
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| Please make sure your Lalafell is wearing goggles before you practice tossing them! |
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| Generic FF battle scene! |
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| It's a bird! It's a plane! (Yda really has short shorts :o) |
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| Whee, the whole group of Scions |
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| And Ascy on ARC. That bow is as tall as I am o.o |
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Ascy: A Hyur Reborn
Anyone out there?
I'm guessing not... but if you do see this and you haven't talked to me in a while... leave a comment and say hi!
In the 1 1/2 years since my last post, I've gone through a circuit of waaaaaaaaay too many MMOs! Star Wars: The Old Republic, Tera, Phantasy Star Online 2, Guild Wars 2, Neverwinter, The Secret World, Vindictus... None of them have held my interest for very long for one reason or another, some of which embarrassingly so -- Ark & I had hit max level and finished all the Neverwinter content before the game was actually released! I might do a post on my experiences in each of the other MMOs if people are interested. I was considering reactivatin Final Fantasy XI for the new Seekers of Adoulin content until the Final Fantasy XIV 2.0: A Realm Reborn testing started up!
I've been playing this off and on since the alpha last December. Through the different phases, I've tried out healing as a Conjurer, DDing a an Archer, and tanking as both a Gladiator and Marauder. Now that the NDA is lifted, I figure I'd revive this blog and put some of my impressions out there for people, especially those former FFXI players who might be considering playing XIV.
First, the legal stuff. All appropriate images are:
All company, product, system names and/or company logos and marks are the
registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.
registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective owners.
Copyright (C) 2010 - 2013 SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. All Rights Reserved.
I find it slightly ironic that the last time I blogged about FFXIV it was during the 1.0 alpha. Since this the game is still not released, and it has changed significantly between phases, I'll just talk about the latest beta. In this beta, I had original chosen to be Marauder, the axe wielder which eventually develops to become Warrior. I had originally figured on trying out a close-ranged DD for a different experience, but I quickly found out that not only is Marauder an effective off-tank, but also quite good at being a main tank!
Graphics & Sound
FFXIV is still one of the prettiest games I've ever seen. The good news is that unlike 1.0, you don't need a computer that is out of this world to play it! Framerates are smooth, the environment and rendering looks sharp and almost realistic.
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| (Mostly) Starting gear, just out of town |
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| Yay lens flares! Just like J.J. Abrams |
Combat
Some people call this the "old style" MMO combat style, involving 2.5 second "global cooldowns" between items, tabbed targeting and hotkeys. They'd be correct here. The actual combat itself isn't anything special, with the usual actions like a few damage moves, stun moves, healing, raises, etc. The combat is faster compared to FFXI, but anyone from a classic MMO like WoW would feel right at home.
TP, HP, MP all regenerate at a decent speed and when you're in the open world, you have virtually no downtime. /heal is a thing of the past. The good news is that claiming mobs is also a thing of the past! If someone else is fighting a mob you need credit for a quest, go join in! If someone is near death, go help kill the mob too! Even more amazing is that they actually have aggro lines showing you not only who has the mob's attention, but which mobs will link if you attack a mob! There are even hate meters so you can see how much leeway you have to do damage compared to the tank.
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| Not the best shot, but you can see the red circle around the mob's feet pointing to who is under attack. The white bar next to the party member's name on the upper left shows the amount of hate. Also, see: "The Hole" and "Key to the Hole" |
Overall, the combat system leads to something that feels fast paced compared to FFXI, but not as fast as modern action MMOs like Tera or Neverwinter. The good news is that it at least gives you some time to actually type and talk, unlike the other games where if you aren't moving, you'll be killed.
Controls
Since the game is being released for both the PC and PS3, the game has gamepad support. I've always played FFXI with a gamepad, though the method of hitting a button, then moving the cursor around and finally selecting something seemed slow. I've had many cases when I decide to simply abandon the controller and type commands directly (like '/ma "Cure IV" Fuuji') as it would be faster than scrolling and finding the macro. I did like how the buttons can be used to select items and interact with everything in the world.
I also liked Tera's method of using the face buttons to perform commands. For example, pressing X uses one skill, Y another. This made combat feel more real-time and interactive. You didn't have to look at the menu bar to see which action you were choosing and could do it entirely by feel.
FFXIV keeps the way that FFXI interacts with the world, but manages to add the hotkey-like buttons by using the shoulder buttons as modifiers. You can use the D-pad and buttons to interact with the world, but if you want to use a skill, you hold one of the shoulder buttons and press a face button. For example, LT+Y causes you to sprint, and you can also use the D-pad as buttons. This gives a default of 16 actions you can use (LT and RT are two different macro 'pallets', while the 4 buttons and 4 directions on the D-pad are individual actions you can take. FFXIV calls this the "cross-bar". You can also switch between 8 different cross-bar configurations, giving a theoretical 128 possible customizable actions you can take from just a controller
The classic MMO hotkey method (keys 1-=) can also be used. What's interesting is that you can actually use both at the same time, and they don't have to map to the same actions.
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| Busy picture, but look at the cross-bar just above my HP in the bottom middle part of the screen, and the hotbar just above it. |
Gameplay
At first glance, gameplay seems to be the standard MMO stuff... pick up quest, kill mobs/escort npc/fetch items, turn in quest, go to new area and repeat. It's what WoW did for ages and is fairly standard for MMOs. Unlike other MMOs, FFXIV lets you have multiple classes/jobs on the same character, so you need other ways to exp. The semi-good news is for at least levels 1-15, there are 3 different countries where you can do 3 different sets of quests, so at least 3 classes can go through this manner. I think there is a split of quests after level 25 as well, but haven't confirmed.
There are also a few other ways to get exp:
- Hunting logs -- For the OCD of us, each class has a log which tracks the mobs you've killed. You can get exp just from killing different mobs in different places in the world
- "Guildleves" -- Essentially repeatable quests. You get 3 leve allowances every 12 hours, and the quests themselves give exp, gil and in some cases, items or gear. This would make it easy to grind exp solo. You can have up to 100 allowances, so if you simply don't do leves for two weeks, you'll be capped and can go on a levequest grind
- FATEs -- Real-time dynamic events. These pop up on the world map. Essentially mini-events that last a few minutes at a time, you can get quite a bit of exp from dropping in with a large crowd and smashing mobs (or picking oranges, or killing a big boss). It's very similar to Rift or Guild Wars 2
- Dungeons -- These are repeatable, give decent exp and gear. I think I was averaging just under 1 level per run through a dungeon, and they didn't take very long to do (~1 hour if you don't screw up). Dungeons are also enjoyable with interesting boss fight mechanics, not the simple tank & spank that so many other games use. You actually have to talk to your party members!
- Exp chains! -- This concept from FFXI is still alive! Kill an equal level mob or higher in a certain time and you'll get a bonus of up to 50%. What's better is that they actually *tell* you how much bonus you're getting, what chain number you're on and how much time you have before the timer runs out. Self-chaining to 5 can be done for most classes Supposedly you get a bonus for partying and killing, but I haven't tried the sustained chain in a party concept before.
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| Another successful dungeon |
Cutscenes are of course, SE standard! Some random scenes:
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| No, I'm not your dentist |
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| And my axe! (Yes, subligar, the FFXI standard armor is still around!) |
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| Yay posing! |
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| Traveling to Ul'dah |
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| Entertainment in Ul'dah |
I've played the initial starting experiences in two of the major cities so far -- Gridania to level 28 (thanks to some level fast forwarding they had in betas), and Limsa to level 20... I thought that the experience is fairly good, and has only gotten better in the latest beta. There are still things that aren't in-game yet that will be. I might put up another blog post about the leveling experience, including how the game introduces things gradually, but funnels everyone to experience dungeons together, much like how FFXI funnels everyone to Jeuno.
However, I found that it's the little things that have impressed me the most. Besides what I said about sound earlier, they've done a lot of things that make me feel like they've learnt the lessons of FFXI, from other MMOs and are actually listening to the players.
A few of what caught my eye so far:
- Traveling around the world is very easy. No more 15 minute chocobo rides to places, teleporting between cities, or even places in a zone, can be done for relatively cheap, airship rides are instant and you don't have to wait for the airship
- Abundant storage -- Not only do you start off with a crazy amount of storage (100 inventory slots), but each armor slot has their own independent inventory section in the "armory chest". Key items and quest items also have their own area, so you essentially have 100 inventory slots for crafting items and consumables. I haven't even touched individual storage or player housing, but I don't think I'll need to juggle around my inventory
- Emotes and facial expressions -- Besides the major motions whenever you do something like a /wave, you can see your character's face changing expressions even when you do something as simple as a /joy will show your character smiling
- Questing is easy -- They basically point you to where you need to go, and clicking on the map brings up where you need to go so you can easily travel to places. They also funnel people to the initial dungeons
- If you log out/log in to the game in an inn, you'll see that your character actually climbs into bed and lays down, logging you out when you fall asleep... just like ALfheim Online.
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- You can set up gear set to easily change your gear for the job. No more hunting around your mog house searching for that Serket ring which you can't find when you need to change roles! Switching to WHM is just a click away! (This may or may not be a good thing)
- You can interact with the environment in limited ways, like sit down on a bench
- Detail on the outfits, down to the underwear! Look at how the designers created something just for the mi'qote tail!
- The taru-taru's worst enemy has finally been defeated! The newer stronger brand of lalafells have conquered the counter!
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| Thanks to Ark for the pic! Visit his tumblr at http://eorzeark.tumblr.com/ |
Ok, that's it for now. I'll save some pics for next time... but before I go, very important question!
Hairstyle! Which is better, long or short? Vote now on the poll to the right!
Long:
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or short:
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They're almost the same hairstyle, except the shorter version has an extra layer of hair along the left side of the face.
Vote now!
Friday, December 30, 2011
FFXI is quitting me
In Soviet MMOs... MMO quits you!
Just got this in the morning:
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Dear Ascule,
Thank you for using the Square Enix Account Management System.
Due to a processing error with your payment method, all continuous options for the following service account have been cancelled. The details are as follows.
Date: 12/30/2011
Payment Method: ClickandBuy Account
Service Account Name: PlayOnline / FINAL FANTASY XI
------------------------------
I'm kinda amused by this turn of events. I figured that I'd stay on FFXI for events, especially since Voidwatch actually needs a full alliance and we're having trouble even with full mule turnouts. I was going to stay with FFXI at least until I get a picture of how SWTOR would be like at level 50.
I guess SE made that decision for me. I was dreading having to go through their website and figure out how to suspend the account. Their website is very needlessly complicated, with too many different, unnecessary things. What's an "option service"? How do you activate an account? How do you pay? What is Crysta? ClickAndBuy? Square-Enix Member? Do I need a PlayOnline subscription?
So... anyway, this kinda makes it a lot easier for me since I don't have to login to cancel anymore. I'm still debating whether I should bother trying to reactivate. On one hand, I think the Linkshell probably needs the manpower... maybe... on the other hand, there really isn't that much to do in XI right now except grind through skinner box events.
Meanwhile, in a galaxy far far away...
Photo time!
Just got this in the morning:
-----------------------------
Dear Ascule,
Thank you for using the Square Enix Account Management System.
Due to a processing error with your payment method, all continuous options for the following service account have been cancelled. The details are as follows.
Date: 12/30/2011
Payment Method: ClickandBuy Account
Service Account Name: PlayOnline / FINAL FANTASY XI
------------------------------
I'm kinda amused by this turn of events. I figured that I'd stay on FFXI for events, especially since Voidwatch actually needs a full alliance and we're having trouble even with full mule turnouts. I was going to stay with FFXI at least until I get a picture of how SWTOR would be like at level 50.
I guess SE made that decision for me. I was dreading having to go through their website and figure out how to suspend the account. Their website is very needlessly complicated, with too many different, unnecessary things. What's an "option service"? How do you activate an account? How do you pay? What is Crysta? ClickAndBuy? Square-Enix Member? Do I need a PlayOnline subscription?
So... anyway, this kinda makes it a lot easier for me since I don't have to login to cancel anymore. I'm still debating whether I should bother trying to reactivate. On one hand, I think the Linkshell probably needs the manpower... maybe... on the other hand, there really isn't that much to do in XI right now except grind through skinner box events.
Meanwhile, in a galaxy far far away...
Photo time!
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| The team after beating Flashpoint: Athiss |
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| Havoc squad gets things done! |
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| The Hutts really do have more fun. Girls playing in the fountain at the mall :o |
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| Yay, go go Corso! (Romance is in the game! This is my smuggler alt being seduced by her companion) |
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| Mayday! mayday! |
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| I'll take the droid... that's not in pieces! |
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Other ways to exp!
Fast update with some recent impressions and more pics!
PvP
Like most other MMOs, The Old Republic has an actual PvP system where players can face off against each other. You can find details about what the different PvP warfronts, or games are like online. They're basically a "capture the flag", a "attack & defend" type and a "take over bases" types of games available right now.
One thing I liked about this was the level scaling system for PvP, allowing people from all levels to play on a level playing field. What I remembered from WoW PvP was simply getting out there then getting smashed by a character designed specifically for PvP at exactly the level cap for it. It wasn't fun being a level 16 trying to figure things out getting totally smashed by a level 19.
On the other hand, TOR scales all players up to level 50 and lets them play on an even field. You won't have all the abilities that a higher level player will have, but you can at least fight evenly. This leads to a new level 13 Commando being able to pull off a bunch of kills and medals!
And... the best part is that you get exp, credits and commendations, which can be traded for gear. Rewarding and actually fun!
Starships
As part of the storyline, everyone gets their own ship. Supposedly this happens around level 16 or 17, but with all the PvPing I'd been doing (about 4 matches) and running flashpoints (twice on Ascy) I was level 19 by the time I was assigned my own ship.
Having a ship opens up a bunch of planets to fly to, but it also opens up the possibility of space combat! This is more of a StarFox type minigame where you fly around shooting things down. It's a nice diversion from the main game, but even funnier is that you can get exp & credits whole doing it. It can get pretty addictive. I went from level 19 to 20 doing pure space combat xD
You can also go onboard other people's ships and run around... It's like the Normandy in the Mass Effect games. Your companions will be around the ship and you can talk to them. What's funniest, in my opinion, is that if you are onboard someone else's ship while they start one of the space combat missions, you can't simply disembark through the airlock. You have to use the escape pod to bail out xD
Crafting
I've never actually gotten into crafting in any MMO. The big reason for this is that it's an activity that takes away from the fun parts of the game -- In both WoW & FFXI, you have to sit still and do the craft. WoW makes it easier since you can just queue up repeats of one craft and let your character work through the stack of materials.
In TOR, crafting can be done at any time, while running around or in flashpoint. Since your companions do the crafting for you, you just have to give them instructions on what to do. This is especially true when grouping up with others since chances are you won't be using your companions anyway. It's nice to be running through a flashpoint and getting money at the same time!
Crafting also takes off later as you get more companions. Each companion can be sent out to do crafts for you, so you can be doing up to 5 crafting things at the same time.
FFXI on the back burner
I'm officially putting FFXI on the back burner now. Similar to when I explored WoW a couple of years ago, I'll probably only pop into FFXI for major events that actually need me -- mainly Voidwatch since that event is lacking for manpower. There's really nothing to look forward in XI except grinding for gear. What's worse is that FFXI is really devolving into using pure Skinner Box techniques. All FFXI events are skinner boxes to a degree, but normally they try to hide it with a fight or task. The latest "event" known as the "Gobbie Mystery Box" is a pure skinner box. You can get a random reward, from anything from junk to a Novio Earring for simply logging in and checking. That's the very definition of a skinner box... and it's a literal box! I'll let Kelhor tell those interested about the relic99 trials!
I'm still curious to see what else SE does... I'll keep my XI subscription going until I reach level 50 on 1-2 chars on TOR and see what happens then!
PvP
Like most other MMOs, The Old Republic has an actual PvP system where players can face off against each other. You can find details about what the different PvP warfronts, or games are like online. They're basically a "capture the flag", a "attack & defend" type and a "take over bases" types of games available right now.
One thing I liked about this was the level scaling system for PvP, allowing people from all levels to play on a level playing field. What I remembered from WoW PvP was simply getting out there then getting smashed by a character designed specifically for PvP at exactly the level cap for it. It wasn't fun being a level 16 trying to figure things out getting totally smashed by a level 19.
On the other hand, TOR scales all players up to level 50 and lets them play on an even field. You won't have all the abilities that a higher level player will have, but you can at least fight evenly. This leads to a new level 13 Commando being able to pull off a bunch of kills and medals!
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| Medals, MVP votes and more |
Starships
As part of the storyline, everyone gets their own ship. Supposedly this happens around level 16 or 17, but with all the PvPing I'd been doing (about 4 matches) and running flashpoints (twice on Ascy) I was level 19 by the time I was assigned my own ship.
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| FINALLY! A place to sit down! |
You can also go onboard other people's ships and run around... It's like the Normandy in the Mass Effect games. Your companions will be around the ship and you can talk to them. What's funniest, in my opinion, is that if you are onboard someone else's ship while they start one of the space combat missions, you can't simply disembark through the airlock. You have to use the escape pod to bail out xD
Crafting
I've never actually gotten into crafting in any MMO. The big reason for this is that it's an activity that takes away from the fun parts of the game -- In both WoW & FFXI, you have to sit still and do the craft. WoW makes it easier since you can just queue up repeats of one craft and let your character work through the stack of materials.
In TOR, crafting can be done at any time, while running around or in flashpoint. Since your companions do the crafting for you, you just have to give them instructions on what to do. This is especially true when grouping up with others since chances are you won't be using your companions anyway. It's nice to be running through a flashpoint and getting money at the same time!
Crafting also takes off later as you get more companions. Each companion can be sent out to do crafts for you, so you can be doing up to 5 crafting things at the same time.
FFXI on the back burner
I'm officially putting FFXI on the back burner now. Similar to when I explored WoW a couple of years ago, I'll probably only pop into FFXI for major events that actually need me -- mainly Voidwatch since that event is lacking for manpower. There's really nothing to look forward in XI except grinding for gear. What's worse is that FFXI is really devolving into using pure Skinner Box techniques. All FFXI events are skinner boxes to a degree, but normally they try to hide it with a fight or task. The latest "event" known as the "Gobbie Mystery Box" is a pure skinner box. You can get a random reward, from anything from junk to a Novio Earring for simply logging in and checking. That's the very definition of a skinner box... and it's a literal box! I'll let Kelhor tell those interested about the relic99 trials!
I'm still curious to see what else SE does... I'll keep my XI subscription going until I reach level 50 on 1-2 chars on TOR and see what happens then!
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