What happened to the game?

[MrMageo]

Re: What happened to the game?

lol its so true when that thing is gone, its like a freak snowstorm hitting las vegas, everything grinds to a halt and people get miserable.

[Auro]

Re: What happened to the game?

Nerf SAMs in my opinion.

They (rightfully) nerfed RNGs, and now SAMs have arguably surpassed what RNGs were ever capable of.

I feel you on the frustration with that SAM. The fact that he would actually say something like that makes me get angry just stting here reading about it.

It's cool that SE lessened the grind to 75, it's not cool that they sacrificed what was actually fun about grinding in the first place in the process. I actually read on a forum yesterday some guy say he doesn't like mage jobs, "because you have to pay attention in parties". Why even play, if you don't want to try?

About bibiki bay, I always hated it there. Catoblepas have like 50000hp, a lot of defense and evasion, heal themselves.... They just suck. Gobs are better when they blow themselves up, but... if I were main healing on them with RDM I'd want to make sure the brd had Curaga 2 ready.

[Celeal]

Re: What happened to the game?

Inexperience players. I mean regardless of level 70+, if the player went to Bibiki Bay for the 1st time, he or she will need time to adapt. Same apply for exp. camps that the player never try before.

Bibiki Bay exp camp at level 70 (level sync) ... seriously~ RDM + BRD + tank + 3x strong DD... the BRD should /whm and one of the DD can /THF.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What happened to the game?

They (rightfully) nerfed RNGs, and now SAMs have arguably surpassed what RNGs were ever capable of.

Yeah, because breaking the ranged accuracy/attack formula and leaving it that way for a year and a half was the right way to nerf RNG. They killed it. Thankfully they fixed it since then, just took too damn long doing it.

Also, had they left SAM the way they were after the initial 2-hander update, then I'd agree about a nerf. But until SAM has like a B in Archery and they decide to use something besides scorpion arrows, I don't have much concern about them competing with what RNGs are capable of.

[Malacite]

Re: What happened to the game?

C+ actually, and Yuki/Gekko/Kasha are a bit stronger then they perhaps ought to be but if SE did anything to them you'd never see anyone use SAM again.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: What happened to the game?

C+ actually

Hence the "until."

[LilithAngel]

Re: What happened to the game?

If anything's to blame, blame the lost art of Skillchaining to Magic Burst. Resist rates on those things are still horrendous at times, and TAU has made people too lazy to care about actually working together to make a skillchain for the Black Mage that isn't there (off soloing/manaburning) to MB off of. The use-it-or-lose-it mentality that TAU introduced has been so far ingrained (as well as the Ass Candy), that people now refuse to actually do the work for decent EXP outside of TAU.

Laziness and Skillchains. While SE can't fix one, they can the other. Will it fix stupid? No, nothing can. But I for damn sure will love to give the old camps a try again, and I'll for damn sure be using SC > MB method there, because that's what they require. Will TAU still be faster? Yes, but then again, one completely free camp vs. TAU's completely packed, Ass Candy-fueled, go-make-a-sammich-and-watch-a-movie-athon retardfest is, of course, a hard desicion.

[TheGrandMom]

Re: What happened to the game?

Will TAU still be faster? Yes, but then again, one completely free camp vs. TAU's completely packed, Ass Candy-fueled, go-make-a-sammich-and-watch-a-movie-athon retardfest is, of course, a hard desicion.

Yes.......yes.......and more YES!

[Auro]

Re: What happened to the game?

Sams were pretty much fine before the 2h adjustments >.>

And SC resist rates have NOTHING to do with why players don't use them anymore. Nothing.
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C+ actually, and Yuki/Gekko/Kasha are a bit stronger then they perhaps ought to be but if SE did anything to them you'd never see anyone use SAM again.

They'll find the next fotm... RNG > WAR > SAM > ???

[LilithAngel]

Re: What happened to the game?

SC resist rates have NOTHING to do with why players don't use them anymore. Nothing.
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They'll find the next fotm... RNG > WAR > SAM > ???

Except the fact that Skillchaining doesn't produce the same numbers and EXP that TAU camps can, because they have bad resist rates. If Skillchains didn't resist as badly as they do, you wouldn't be seeing everyone and their RDM whine about the Ass Candy being gone, because the mobs would die just as fast as any imp or colibri would in the old, traditional camps (Ass Candy gone? Let's just hit up Lufaise Meadows with Darkness Burst Ice until it gets back...). Imps and Colibri don't need SC>MB because theyr'e a joke, T-ITs that are as laughably wimpy as any EP-DC, but give way better EXP.

Make a good SC>MB party, and you'll see why the effort isn't worth it to some people. Resist rates on SC pretty much means you have to have a Magic Burster there to make the whole process worth it. The Skillchain alone isn't enough. I even see resisted Light and Darkness Skillchains from time to time, and it's pretty sad that the two strongest Skillchains in the game don't produce the kind of damage you'd think they should.

As far as Flavor of the Month, if SE has anything to do with it, it'll be Melee White Mage and Red Mage next.

[Armando]

Re: What happened to the game?

And SC resist rates have NOTHING to do with why players don't use them anymore. Nothing.

Um, it has everything to do with it. Lv.1 SCs do 50% of the closer's damage, Lv.2's do 60% and Lv.3's do 100%. You know what those %'s are? A whole fucking lot, that's what they are. Just doing Lv.3's effectively doubles one of the two people's WS damage. The gains FAR outweigh the losses involved in having to synchronize with a partner. There's nothing to lose...if it weren't for the fact that your SC can get resisted and throw your gains out the window, leaving you with only the losses.

[Lunaryn]

Re: What happened to the game?

Tactics are unnecessary, a waste of time. At low levels you can substitute PLs for a competent party. At high levels, colibri/imps. Why fight mobs that actually pose a threat to you for half the xp/hr?

As for SAM, someone noted SAM being fine before the 2H update, which is kinda the point. While lolSC probably hurt their reputation/standing a bit, SAM was still on the xp/meripo DD map prior to the 2H adjustment, at a time when even DRK largely didn't make the cut due to offensive magic being seen as all liability and no benefit. SAM now surpasses WAR as the top-tier DD. Since the adjustment, no xp party I was ever in on THF that had a SAM ended a battle without hate planted firmly on the SAM, even if I'd planted an 800 dmg TA Shark Bite on a PLD spamming hate tools. At least some of them back then had the sense to switch to Seigan when they started taking all the damage...

The 2H adjustment was needed. There may be room to question the implementation details, but something that offset the disparity there was needed. The problem is that SAM's rather imbalanced power level was somewhat obscured by the relative weakness of 2H weapons, until that weakness was addressed. Now, we have something that blows Rampage WAR out of the water. And we have the fact that hate tools have not scaled with the new damage output, which is offset only by the fact that tanking is a quaint relic of an old and outmoded method of xping -- the very method which the OP tried to pull unsuspecting modern players into. Little wonder it didn't work.

[Illuen]

Re: What happened to the game?

Yes, you are correct. The one (mayyybbe two, depending on when in august you left) update that you missed caused the world of Altana to go from a tropical paradise where everyone worked together to a dark miasma of stupidity and ignorance. We no longer even understand the concept of hate anymore, and without your direct intervention to show us what was wrong, we would've quickly devolved into Opo-Opos throwing poo at each other.

Or, you were invited to a couple of bad parties. You obviously knew that they had no idea what they were in for when one of them hadn't even been to Bibiki Bay. So, instead of doing what might've been the prudent choice and deciding to go to a camp where the party is more familiar with (or perhaps even to LEAVE the party that had big flashing WARNING signs from the very start), you shepard them to Bibiki Bay, where shit happened.

So this SAM starts going balls out, I mean full throttle insane damage blah blah blah. Using all the tricks... and getting his face smashed in in the process.

"I tell him, slow down dude, this is not a bird party, these mobs will kill you, and you need to let the tank actually tank. Its not a meripo so just take it easy and control your hate level."

One thing you didn't mention, and I'm curious to know is: Did you (since you wrote the story as though Bibiki Bay was your idea, and you were the one who pushed for it) explain to the party BEFORE you guys started pulling that they had to be more laid back and defensive than the normal meripo? Now, maybe I'm anal, but when I'm exping with people I don't know, and anyone in the party has expressed a lack of experience with a camp, I make sure that EVERYONE knows the tricks of the camps, be it having to turn when a mob does a TP move, or to be careful of X mob nearby that links, wokka wokka wokka. If you knew the party did not know how a bibiki bay party worked, and you let them go ahead and start pulling without that powwow, then in my opinion you are just as much at fault, if not more so, then they are.

[Firewind]

Re: What happened to the game?

The one thing I have noticed about level sync is the complete and utter refusal now of people to level on anything not called a Collibri. If you have any idea how boring those things are to exp on when you're the WHM you'll understand why this annoys me so much: As long as you invite a PLD to tank the only two spells you ever have to cast are Regen III and Haste.

I once had an entire party yell at me for suggesting [Crawlers instead of Lesser Colibri (WTF? ) for a LV65 Level sync. So in the 2 agonising hours I spent at that camp I probably gained about 8-9k because the party was too lazy to go fight a Puk or Crawler or even *gasp* go to one of the emtpy WoTG or CoP camps. O would have gotten more exp from campaign and this was before my club skill was high enough to get me a decent amount of melee exp. I once camped Hippogryphs in Grauberg in a LV66 level sync and the exp there was great and the party actually worked together because those things will destroy you if you don't pay attention.

The Dragonfly camp in past Rolan was another site of drama. I suggested there for a lv50 sync because Quicksand was funn and everyone was just getting murdered by the crabs on Kuftal. So I took them to the fly camp in Rolan [s] and explained that the flies are dangerous and WILL kill you so we need to control hate and that you can't go into the grass due to the chigoes that pop back there. Three straight wipes later the two JP members simple warped out because the SAM just would not listen to what the rest of the party was saying about hate control.

If I can learn hate control at Lv10 on WHM then the the hell can't a 75SAM with 3/5 Relic pieces not understand hate control? Then again I probably answered my own question there by mentioning SAM.

Honestly I tend to just laugh when a party suggests Collibri even though there's open ToAU camps elsewhere. There's things to camp other than Collibri and you won't bore the crap out of your WHM by camping them either.

[KingOfZeal]

Re: What happened to the game?

If I can learn hate control at Lv10 on WHM then the the hell can't a 75SAM with 3/5 Relic pieces not understand hate control?

Because you're a mage, that's why. If a mage or other lightweight job (to which I'm specifically pointing out WHM, BLM, SMN, BRD, possibly RDM and BLU) takes hate, it leads to a quick and painful death. But if a heavyweight job, like SAM, MNK, WAR, even RNG takes hate, it's not as big of a deal because Def/HP tend to make it a slow death, with plenty of time for the proper tank to take hate back.

I have long held that everyone should at some point play WHM (or even RDM) to a certain point, which I'm going to say ~55 right now, so that they realize simple things like hate control, haste cycles, or even refresh cycles if they do RDM. I had a capped colibri party yesterday, and the SAM was yelling at our struggling RDM if he went without Haste for 5 seconds. He then proceeded to call me a noob when I told him to chill. Things did get better after he left. Go figure.