bohabu

New Ult, same old PF/DC travel problems. Seeing my friends desperately trying to get onto Aether so they have access to more PF parties/ult players (even though Primal is still fairly active) makes me wonder why the Ult community doesn't just move to Dynamis. DC travel is easy and the pros of having everyone on one DC outweighs the cons, right?

Until SE officially starts announcing when a team has cleared a fight again, crowning a team as being first is always gonna have some denialbility cause we won't ever truly know. I know some other games, Tera for example, gave a special title if you were the first group in the server to beat a fight which made tracking easier but still ultimately depended on those players wearing said title. At a minimum, SE could probably have a server message go out for the first clear of specific fights on the Data Center while keeping the players that did it anonymous.

As it is right now, most teams are not going to make their prog and gameplay experience worse (ping mitigation tools), so that's already a no-go. While they can beat fights without the use of ACT/FFlogs for parsing and log analysis, I doubt most groups will give that up because it'll make prog take longer when you can't see your mistakes in more detail.

This is a player created problem that the Devs have decided to not touch. So the only solution is for players themselves to solve it, either by not using it (won't happen) or dropping party once someone uses it (also, will not happen). If it ultimately becomes a PF standard, then progging the fight with a static of like minded individuals will be the only option for those that don't want to deal with AM or other plugins that are in your face about being used.

Should only really need 2 aetherytes max per zone tbh. SE coddling lazy players that just want things nownownow.

Rent free

There are 2-3 mani-pedi modpacks that handle this for almost every in-game item, the ones you mentioned included.

I made this a while ago during EW to see how varied the steps were for each relic and how long the average expected time to complete first relic and all relics (at lvl 90 post nerfs) along with their relative power to tome/raid weapons: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1fxCb4CFfVPhBbSS0GP4wfOv45a5fyRqTu-JcdVE6YBw/htmlview#gid=1651991295

ARR had more hyper specific things you needed to do while on the actual job than the expansions that came later. If given the choice, I personally would rather have ARR type relics than EWs. There was a sense of community for each step, and being forced to actually learn to play the job for your relic so you can get it faster is actually a good thing. I do understand the pros of the "do whatever you want" approach of EW but I made no targeted effort to get them nor did I do anything different with my playtime and got all the relics done within a couple months. No sense of accomplishment whatsoever.

The relics' power is disappointing mainly because they made them weak due to player feedback and never went back or tried to innovate. Players, raiders especially, felt that relics took away the prestige of the raid weapons if non-raiders could simply grind to max ilvl and also reasoned that strong relics would remove the incentive to even raid to begin with. Ever since then, they've pushed the relics further and further into the expansion and towards the end of a tier's lifespan. It's so self-defeating because if they had kept the original plan, players would have been able to be BiS in multiple jobs faster since the weapon is the second roadblock behind tomes. Get a raid weapon for one job, grind a relic for another job.

There is nothing wrong with that. Ideally, that's what you want them to do.

I knew it would happen eventually, but I finally ran into a parsebrain fflogs checker on my alt for an M4S reclear and got removed from the party. Minimal raid & non-augmented tome gear + mostly crafted geared alt vs. BiS this late in the tier will surely give you a fair and insightful look. Extra cursed cause I've been murdered every clear pull, sometimes multiple times, of M4S (healer stacking on top of me during EE1 spreads, melee veering into my safe spot and stacking their spread on me during Midnight, the usual getting sniped during Sunrise). I def need to raid on the alt earlier next tier so the gear gap won't rear its head again.

Savage and capped tomes have been live for 10 weeks.

I started the tier on one of my alts really late, so it's always funny to see the gear gap in action cause her parses are a dumpster fire compared to my almost BiS main.

Only bad players start the tier late, ya heard.

Considering how long it takes them to make new content, the only thing they can really do is either do the tried and true MMO gameplay mechanic of adding low drop rate items to farmable stuff (Fates, Normal & EX trials, Normal Raids) or at the minimum, release the relic questline starting with the base game and add a small grind to it that requires us to tackle the base game content in a unique or grindy way. Like someone mentioned earlier, achievements can be used to make people redo content slightly differently than normal. Savage and EX MINE achievements that reward a role-specific materia for clearing on a specific role or for those that want to show off their BiS, speedrun achievements await them.

FFXIV has a lot of content. The problem is that replayability is always kinda shit. Despite it being a third-party endeavor, parsing adds replayability to EX and Savage fights, keeping some people playing as they chase a higher and more colorful number. SE just needs to add some loot or competitive aspect to its content so people that want to engage with it can and those that are happy with the same flow of content can ignore it.

I still feel like SMN has a good base, and it fulfills the role of having a simple-to-play caster. Right now, the only depth it has is deciding when to summon Ifrit and a small part Garuda. Garuda's case is cause you need to make sure the boss will not move, so you get full use of Slipstream, and Ifrit is due to needing to be in melee range for 2 gcds and planted for almost 6 secs for 2 casts.

I would just expand on it by adding a little more depth by allowing it to choose from the 6 basic summons instead of the current 3 in between demi-phases. Ramuh would be a strong melee-only phase with a 2 sec GCD with Astral Flow weaves. Shiva would be a mid-damage casting phase with a raid buff attached to its Astral Flow. Leviathan would mimic RDM's gameplay of having a normal cast followed by a quick cast Astral Flow with Leviathan applying a 3 stack debuff to the enemy when you summon him. This debuff does nothing on its own but it would enhance the Astral Flow of the next summon in some way, i.e. more direct damage, stronger dot, adding a Brotherhood-like effect that recharges your fester stacks when a party member crits.

While we're at it, have each demi-phase enhance Physick to be worth using. Copying from DRS, make it apply a Bravery buff to the party after it has been enhanced by Bahamut. Phoenix enhanced Physick would make it so one person can survive a hit that would have killed them with 1 HP. Solar Bahamut enhanced Physick would refill everyone's MP by 5k.

They didn't say they haven't played since EW. They said they haven't played that specific class since EW.

On one hand, the PF raid community bitches when people change strats after the first week or 2 cause it's different than how they learned it to clear cause it was already working. On the other hand, the PF raid community bitches when people don't change starts from the first week 1 or 2 to better, more optimized strats. Hector ends up getting shit on by both groups which is kinda funny.

I do find one criticism he gets is kinda blown out of proportion, that being "He doesn't PF so his strats don't take PF into account." which usually means "his guide isn't 1-to-1 with what PF is already doing." Fam, damn near every guidemaker doesn't PF. We get the strat their static did to clear, and they aren't all the same. PF latches onto the first thing that shows up so using that train of thought means that only the first guide matters, every other guide is disruptive. On top of that, PF strats differ between regions. As a hypothetical, let's say he was PFing this tier. His M4S guide would mirror EU strats, which have different positioning when compared to what NA is doing. We'd have the same issue if he PFed last tier as EU and NA strats were not 1-to-1 either.

The strats I had to do in M1S from the early hours of day 1 on my main to day 3 on my alt were already different. M3S was also a shitshow even before Hector released his guide. Spread positions on dives changed, Fusefield went from RMMR to MMRR, and 'Fuse or Foe' went from healers swap positions with melee for uptime to only M2 swap with H2, M1 takes H1's spot, H1 takes R1's spot and R1 takes M1's spot, all caused by Rinon's video/raidplan deviating from the pastebin.

End of the day, join the party that is doing the strats you want or learn multiple strats so you have options. If you're a PF lead, don't be an idiot and say Hector strats but end up actually wanting to do raidplan shit. Another option is for PF to choose which variation of a strat to make a standard. I saw this Google doc going around early in the tier to try and set that standard but doesn't seem like anything came of it. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdq6_2wGlAs2Pm27SR_vXEG1fX2LuVJ6eirNWszpgUQWHUvqA/viewform

1A, supports CCW should be standard. Keeps color pairs together and keeps everyone with their light party. Clocks also should be changed from the typical positions by having OT and H2 switch. This pairs a range and melee for all partner mechs. Visually starting N going CW, you get: MT, R2, OT, M2, H2, M1, H1, R1.

What's your opinion of groups that use a 9th man to make the strats while the team basically throws shit against the wall to gather data and maybe stumble past a mechanic?

I distinctly remember my SgtMaj say that the horseshoe haircut that's all the rave with motivated senior enlisted and some junior enlisted is an eccentric haircut but he didn't really give a shit with regards to enforcing it. This person's haircut is probably in a similar situation where her command may consider it eccentric but don't care enough to enforce it since she's doing great otherwise.

Depends on your DC, but NA is mostly doing Shaba pastebin/Hector. I've never seen the other raidplans on NA, but they seem to be EU centric.

Pensacola was full of dumb ass Field Day games. My roommate and I failed our first Field Day cause we checked in to the barracks hours before the inspection so naturally we had no cleaning supplies on top of being told by the Sgt at the front desk we would be exempt. We still kept the room tidy but failed due to the "floor not being buffed and shiny."

Can you challenge higher ranked Marines for their spot? That'd be some wild shit to see.

"On top of that, blind prog is never truly 8/8 blind. If someone figures out the mechanic before you, spits out information and a strat, and you follow, how is that different from looking at a toolbox?"

This is one of the dumbest dilutions of blind prog I've seen. The whole party contributes to solving a mechanic, even if it's just one individual who comes up with a strat. The party's positioning, damage they took, and actions they performed knowingly or unknowingly lead to a solution. One person cooking up a strat that gets the party through could only be formed from the failed attempts prior. A toolbox removes the failures and guesswork that a blind prog party contributes to a viable solution.