Final Fantasy XIV - Kiwi Free Company

[Houseloafer]

He's maining Dark Knight now that he's unlocked it.

So...really nothing much different except making sure he has the mana to cast TBN.

 

[Disc]

I'm having the opposite problem where it seems a lot of the FF14 community considers dungeons to be challenging, for every community joke regarding extreme trials or savage raids there are 20 people sharing their trauma from doing Aurum Vale

It's almost like Extreme Trials and savage raids are relatively niche and controllable content once mastered, while Aurum Vale is a morbol-themed shitshow that can show up on the levelling roulette with you and three dumbasses and has dozens of annoying mechanics.

 

[ZMOT]

Ever played Diablo III? Higher levels => More HP and damage and every couple of levels until 10 an affix is added like random balls of fire that explode or areas of damage that would spawn, of course it wouldn't work in FF14:

- as said before, dungeon content isn't popular in Japan.
- it would encourage a TOXIC environment
- the jobs aren't designed for such a thing when things like CC's come to mind.
- FF14 isn't gear-centric as WoW and lolrng

I honestly don't want such thing implemented, I would prefer something like a megadungeon like Blackrock Depths instead.

I think it's more down to the format, it's not like they have an aversion to hard content, monhun is super popular for example.
maybe they like the more "organic" approach of an open world boss more (as in hard boss, that's it, no grinding though a slog of trash that only exists to pad out gametime), similar to how they usually don't like fps but carry apex hard for some reason...

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

What exactly is Mythic+? I've heard that it's one of the things WoW players still like and wouldn't work with XIV because of design philosophy difference.

The reason I typically see for why people want a Mythic+ like mode is because it would be in-theory hard non-8 man content like how Savage/EX is difficult 8 man content. It would be designed for smaller groups basically. The issue is FFXIV's balance is 100% intended for 8 man content, as stated by Yoshi when he first answered this question, so if they make hard content for 4 people then the balance doesn't work and they'd need to now balance around hard 4 man and 8 man content.

So for example things like Technical Step, Brotherhood, or Trick Attack are powerful because you have 8 people to work off with and buff, would those abilities be as equally powerful with 4? Probably not at all, yet a class like Samurai doesn't care how many people they fight with they just midare things so they wouldn't skip a beat going from 4 man to 8 man content besides maybe not nearly guaranteeing themselves to having a pocket Dancer.

 

[Kane Lives]

The reason I typically see for why people want a Mythic+ like mode is because it would be in-theory hard non-8 man content like how Savage/EX is difficult 8 man content. It would be designed for smaller groups basically. The issue is FFXIV's balance is 100% intended for 8 man content, as stated by Yoshi when he first answered this question, so if they make hard content for 4 people then the balance doesn't work and they'd need to now balance around hard 4 man and 8 man content.

So for example things like Technical Step, Brotherhood, or Trick Attack are powerful because you have 8 people to work off with and buff, would those abilities be as equally powerful with 4? Probably not at all, yet a class like Samurai doesn't care how many people they fight with they just midare things so they wouldn't skip a beat going from 4 man to 8 man content besides maybe not nearly guaranteeing themselves to having a pocket Dancer.

I mean they could bring back 8-man dungeons. I actually kinda liked the idea, even if Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium were horrific implementations.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Keeping the second tank involved usually involves either tankswapping or having to have the tanks tank separate things, and those two core abilities seem to escape the new influx of tanks. Nothing quite like sitting there, doing nothing on Hansel & Gretel for genuinely a minute because the tanks are fucking retarded and so big-brained that they'll ignore the whole of the chat screaming at them. Finding ways to keep a second tank engaged in a full dungeon might be a tall order, especially since the Bozja solution was just to let them become DPS if they wanted to.

 

[Kane Lives]

Keeping the second tank involved usually involves either tankswapping or having to have the tanks tank separate things, and those two core abilities seem to escape the new influx of tanks. Nothing quite like sitting there, doing nothing on Hansel & Gretel for genuinely a minute because the tanks are fucking retarded and so big-brained that they'll ignore the whole of the chat screaming at them. Finding ways to keep a second tank engaged in a full dungeon might be a tall order, especially since the Bozja solution was just to let them become DPS if they wanted to.

Splitting the party (heresy I know), seem to work fine in Bozja. Multiple instances of it in Castrum even (don't know about Zadnor). Leon even works as a wall against bads who don't know how AOE works.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

Splitting the party (heresy I know), seem to work fine in Bozja. Multiple instances of it in Castrum even (don't know about Zadnor). Leon even works as a wall against bads who don't know how AOE works.

Yeah, but that's like a party of 20+, and in each of the encounters you've still basically just got a main tank. I tried to do one of those at a later hour with just two parties, and ran into the issue of the other one being completely useless and fucking up wherever we put them on just the first encounter.

The fucking cross AoE on the bird is significantly larger than it looks, so don't go too hard on people for that one. I usually go up for Lyon just to avoid getting scammed by that shit for a bit.

 

[Tanner Glass]

What exactly is Mythic+? I've heard that it's one of the things WoW players still like and wouldn't work with XIV because of design philosophy difference.

It's pretty lazy.

Mythic+ is a WoW mechanic that enables a dungeon to "power up" if you complete the earlier version inside of a time window - it's basically a "hard mode speed run". So if you run a Mythic+2 successfully, the key will get upgraded and you can run the next level. (Depending on how fast you are, you might get a +3, +4, or +5 key).

I say it's lazy because the main changes are as follows.
- A flat increase in all enemy stats per level
- A semi-random affix attached to enemies at certain levels of Mythic Progress (2, 4, 7, and 10). Most of these, are incredibly boring, but are things like "the boss has 15% more health and deals 20% more damage" or "normal enemies now apply a healing debuff on auto-attacks". The absolute most hated is "non boss enemies deal 30% more damage and have 20% more health" to a point where players would just skip weeks where it was in effect (until they made the achievement force you into it).

I think it's a very lazy and "Diablo 3" style replacement for actual Challenge Mode dungeons that were in the game previously, but WoW players like it (IMO) because of the following.
- It's small group content - you only need 5 players to do it. It's something you can absolutely do with friends/guildies.
- There isn't a huge time commitment. You don't have to run them all at the same time, so if you and your friends have time for 1 or 2 runs, you can just do that. You don't need to set aside 2-3 hours like you would for raiding.
- It's hard, but not so hard you can't find groups for it if you don't have a dedicated group.
- It's repeatable. It might be the only content in WoW that isn't heavily timegated.
- It's one of the three "pillars" of the game, currently (along with Raiding and PVP).
- It's competitive - with each player having a Mythic+ score or rating and there even existing Mythic+ as an "esport" also drives some people into the mode.

So they can't just throw Mythic+ in FFXIV, they could use some Mythic+ (aka Diablo 3) principles and incorporate them into existing game modes. That said, considering that raiding is a lot more accessable in FFXIV (Extremes being 1-boss raids, All "hard" raids being 8 people instead of 20, no trash, no buff meta, etc) it's not really a problem they have to strive towards.

 

[Übertroon]

Mythic+ is a timesink, I would much rather have the FF14 devs focusing on storylines that end in a trial than trying to grind as many dungeons as fast as possible.

But if the devs were to impliment something similar I would much rather have a trial rush than a dungeon rush. Dungeon mobs are usually some of the most boring encounters you can have in an MMO

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

I mean they could bring back 8-man dungeons. I actually kinda liked the idea, even if Castrum Meridianum and Praetorium were horrific implementations.

They could, and I wish they would because dungeons are woefully easy and it'd be nice to see what modern non-2013 rushed job 8 man dungeon would look like. 24 mans also close to a larger scale dungeon and are a decent blueprint to the idea I think, but they have to be tuned low especially after everyone got owned by Ozma and Thunder God. I think the issue is "what" would these dungeons give? The gearing system is pretty tightly locked-in where everything is unless you make these dungeons part of the next relic grind or something. Maybe just some flex glamour/title thing would be fine if they're sufficiently difficult, like if they're made for people that farmed out Savage/augmented tome gear already or something like that.

Plus this doesn't respond to one of the core reasons I tend to see to why people want a Mythic+ like system, it is high difficulty tuned low man content (even though raids are 8 people already which is fairly low), which is also why they'll never do it because they can't be fucked to balance around such content. Which honestly I agree with that, FFXIV has generally very good balance and thus outside of stupid PF/Discord autists no one really gives a shit what you play. I'd hate to see it be ruined over trying to make hard 4 man content and thus people argue that Bard is a trap option because it sucks in Mythic+ FFXIV or some stupid shit like that.

Give me something like floors 101-200 of PotD with actual checkpoints somewhere, and I'd be happy with that being my difficult 4 man content personally.

 

[Gravemind]

They could, and I wish they would because dungeons are woefully easy and it'd be nice to see what modern non-2013 rushed job 8 man dungeon would look like. 24 mans also close to a larger scale dungeon and are a decent blueprint to the idea I think, but they have to be tuned low especially after everyone got owned by Ozma and Thunder God. I think the issue is "what" would these dungeons give? The gearing system is pretty tightly locked-in where everything is unless you make these dungeons part of the next relic grind or something. Maybe just some flex glamour/title thing would be fine if they're sufficiently difficult, like if they're made for people that farmed out Savage/augmented tome gear already or something like that.

It would most likely be titles, higher-end raiding grade gear (or equivalent, which could introduce a touch more horizontal progression to gearing instead of the straight vertical climb that it's been in the entirety of the game's lifespan), and maybe exclusive mounts or other cosmetics.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

It would most likely be titles, higher-end raiding grade gear (or equivalent, which could introduce a touch more horizontal progression to gearing instead of the straight vertical climb that it's been in the entirety of the game's lifespan), and maybe exclusive mounts or other cosmetics.

It'd have to be the same ilvl as the raid if you want to make a more hardcore 8 man dungeon with a gear reward. So using the current ilvl that'd be what? i540? It'd be okay, though you'd have be mindful about creating a new BiS that overwrites the old one people farmed at least some Savage for. You'd then have to ask who the content is designed for and which patch it comes out in?

I think cosmetic stuff, maybe add some extra bullshit to make your raid set more shiny/fancy would be a fine justification to do it. Just change the looks either through some model adjustments or the usual glows this game throws on everything. If this were say an odd patch addition with 3 of them across an expansion, you could probably give some baller mount for doing all 3 via achievements. It ultimately depends on how accessible you'd want this.

 

[Gravemind]

It'd have to be the same ilvl as the raid if you want to make a more hardcore 8 man dungeon with a gear reward. So using the current ilvl that'd be what? i540? It'd be okay, though you'd have be mindful about creating a new BiS that overwrites the old one people farmed at least some Savage for. You'd then have to ask who the content is designed for and which patch it comes out in?

535 is the current highest ilevel, though that's mostly due to the Edenmorn weapon and Resistance weapon final upgrade, whereas the rest of your gear stops at 530. In this case, since we're not getting a 540 upgrade until Endwalker and the curve is already narrow as is, there's no need for another upgrade at this time. But in the case where we end up with an even number as the highest for gear, then I feel like the best step would be to make this theoretical Mythic+ dungeon gear maybe 5 ilevels higher than the weekly limited tomestone gear, while the Savage raid gear is made to be 10 ilevels higher. Thus, you can make the gear for those people who want that little extra step closer to being raid ready if they want to. Worst case scenario, you just put pentameld gear as the reward and spite the thousands of crafters who have made pentameld raiding gear their profit by giving people more content options to attain it.

Maybe they could also pay out a higher weekly cap tomestone reward than Expert roulette as well, except, true to Mythic+ fashion, you put accessing the dungeon in question on a daily lockout (maybe weekly if it has scalable difficulty levels – so, daily for lower tiers, weekly for higher tiers, with better rewards to match the tier).

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

535 is the current highest ilevel, though that's mostly due to the Edenmorn weapon and Resistance weapon final upgrade, whereas the rest of your gear stops at 530. In this case, since we're not getting a 540 upgrade until Endwalker and the curve is already narrow as is, there's no need for another upgrade at this time. But in the case where we end up with an even number as the highest for gear, then I feel like the best step would be to make this theoretical Mythic+ dungeon gear maybe 5 ilevels higher than the weekly limited tomestone gear, while the Savage raid gear is made to be 10 ilevels higher. Thus, you can make the gear for those people who want that little extra step closer to being raid ready if they want to. Worst case scenario, you just put pentameld gear as the reward and spite the thousands of crafters who have made pentameld raiding gear their profit by giving people more content options to attain it.

Maybe they could also pay out a higher weekly cap tomestone reward than Expert roulette as well, except, true to Mythic+ fashion, you put accessing the dungeon in question on a daily lockout (maybe weekly if it has scalable difficulty levels – so, daily for lower tiers, weekly for higher tiers, with better rewards to match the tier).

No idea why I thought 540.

Tomes are pretty easy to get and it would probably be less stressful to just stick to normal expert roulette, so I don't think that works very well. You can get tomes in about 3 hours worth of dailies, or less depending on how fast you murder things, so you'd need to make it much faster for it to be worth learning it when 4 mans are faceroll easy.

If it is catch up gear/alt gear, then you'd probably have to tune the content on the lower side (relative to other content) to make it accessible enough if the main draw is gear to help people out such as during an odd numbered patch. Like how Alliance raids work. Now if this came out alongside the raid in the even numbered patch, that'd be interesting. I think if it was a weekly piece of gear that you could grab alongside Savage it'd be worthwhile and not feel too tedious or too "chore-y" to do like I tend to hear with Mythic+ every now and again, you could probably even make a more difficult mode in the odd numbered patch to give some cosmetic thing to help artificially extended the value of the dungeon's assets.

 

[Gravemind]

If it is catch up gear/alt gear, then you'd probably have to tune the content on the lower side (relative to other content) to make it accessible enough if the main draw is gear to help people out such as during an odd numbered patch. Like how Alliance raids work. Now if this came out alongside the raid in the even numbered patch, that'd be interesting. I think if it was a weekly piece of gear that you could grab alongside Savage it'd be worthwhile and not feel too tedious or too "chore-y" to do like I tend to hear with Mythic+ every now and again, you could probably even make a more difficult mode in the odd numbered patch to give some cosmetic thing to help artificially extended the value of the dungeon's assets.

Not so much catch-up gear but an alternative option for people who really want to sperg on that maximum efficiency gearing for raid prep. Say, the Savage content is still plenty doable with fully decked out weekly tomestone gear, but the Mythic+ gear could exist for the tryhards who really want to be all set for raiding, similar in intention to the people who opt for the slightly lower leveled pentameld gear – because the pentameld slots gives people a degree of stat optimization – thus, it can be just difficult enough to filter the braindead, no effort players but easily doable for people intending to raid. I hear that Floors 100-200 of the Deep Dungeons are basically like this by design as well, so maybe those can serve as an initial reference point for tuning.

Having it come out alongside the raids is definitely the intent, although I think that maybe the releases should be staggered such that you either have the new Mythic+ dungeon released a month or two before the big Savage tier release (to give the hardcore players time to get themselves totally ready), or maybe a month/2 weeks after the raid drops so people who are struggling have options that could help their progression.

 

[Übertroon]

I would dislike it if the equivalent to mythic+ becomes part of gear progression.
Dungeon grind has only ever been popular with the people that love grinding. And I've never seen anyone doing mythic+ grind that actually looks happy

 

[Gravemind]

I would dislike it if the equivalent to mythic+ becomes part of gear progression.
Dungeon grind has only ever been popular with the people that love grinding. And I've never seen anyone doing mythic+ grind that actually looks happy

Even if it's a very small, entirely optional part of the progression?

Have you ever seen anyone on any sort of grind that actually looks happy?

 

[Zilortha]

It's almost like Extreme Trials and savage raids are relatively niche and controllable content once mastered, while Aurum Vale is a morbol-themed shitshow that can show up on the levelling roulette with you and three dumbasses and has dozens of annoying mechanics.

Yeah I think that's what it boils down to.
Most of the playerbase never sees the inside of an extreme trial, let alone a savage raid.
Leveling roulette just has way more casual players queueing.

 

[Übertroon]

Even if it's a very small, entirely optional part of the progression?

Have you ever seen anyone on any sort of grind that actually looks happy?

I don't trust it to remain optional I guess. Mythic+ didn't used to be part of WoW, now it's one of the three pillars of its endgame

I would much rather see dev timr spent on something people will do with a smile rather than grinding and bitching about the state of the game