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Final Fantasy: Record Keeper |OT| The only ATB here is Active Time Battle.

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Vorpal

Member
What are the odds a new event starts today? Have they ever released an event without public ally announcing it first? Pretty new so not sure about this.

I believe the standard routine has been for an announcement to precede new events by at least 1-2 days. I wouldn't expect a new event to hit tonight, but there have been some surprises.
 

Balphon

Member
:(

I'm sick of unreasonably hard bosses in this game.

The boss (Storm Dragon) seems doable, just very difficult and requiring lots of mitigation. The one in the following painting (Behemoth King) would no doubt be harder if not for its susceptibility to death.

The trash before both is apparently super ridiculous though.

I'm with you though. Really they should all just be like that FF2 painting with no boss. :)
 

Roto13

Member
What are the odds a new event starts today? Have they ever released an event without public ally announcing it first? Pretty new so not sure about this.

They always announce them 24 hours in advance. But, then, they always announced new dungeons 24 hours in advance, too, so, who knows?

The boss (Storm Dragon) seems doable, just very difficult and requiring lots of mitigation. The one in the following painting (Behemoth King) would no doubt be harder if not for its susceptibility to death.

The trash before both is apparently super ridiculous though.

I'm with you though. Really they should all just be like that FF2 painting with no boss. :)

Either hard mobs or a hard boss! Pick one!
 
Touph ring get!

Why did I think that Jenova had 2 mil hp and not 200k hp? That was much more manageable than I was expecting but I totally vit0ed the shit out of it anyway. Might as well make wakka earn his keep while I can.

Missed you in chat shalashaska!
 

Pejo

Member
Man I've got so much to do in this game that I end up just not playing it, haha. Between the classics, leveling characters up to unlock record materia, the two events going on, elites from last dungeon update, grinding orbs, and combining combinables in my inventory to get more space, it's becoming a chore. I kinda wish they'd slow down on the updates honestly so I can get a little caught up. They really need to make one day an Exp Egg daily, or increase the drop rate on the sunday xp dungeons. We're unlocking characters and breaking their level caps so damn fast, need more xp.

I asked a few days ago but didn't get an answer so I'll try again, is the FFVI Elite - Vector Streets still the best xp per stamina on any day other than Sunday?
 
Does anybody think that some of the prohibitively difficult content will start pushing players away?

Not that I feel entitled to make it to the end of every event, mind you, but it really seems that a lot of the recent Elite/EX boss are not feasible for a lot of players (some even playing since launch) without using exploits or exploitative tactics.
 
Does anybody think that some of the prohibitively difficult content will start pushing players away?

Not that I feel entitled to make it to the end of every event, mind you, but it really seems that a lot of the recent Elite/EX boss are not feasible for a lot of players (some even playing since launch) without using exploits or exploitative tactics.

I don't think I'd have had a problem if I had a full 65 party, but I used my growth eggs elsewhere this time around. Next level cap I'll probably focus on getting 5 characters to the new cap asap, worry about synergy later.
 

SougoXIII

Member
Does anybody think that some of the prohibitively difficult content will start pushing players away?

Not that I feel entitled to make it to the end of every event, mind you, but it really seems that a lot of the recent Elite/EX boss are not feasible for a lot of players (some even playing since launch) without using exploits or exploitative tactics.

The Elite/Ex bosses are really for the 'hardcore' players who either get lucky through pulls (paid or otherwise) or those who don't mind blowing a couple of mythril to get it done. To be fair, Dena is showering us with mythril so an average player can just brute force them with mythril revives if they really want to.Everyone else can have access to the characters, memories crystal and mythrils from the event pretty easily.

However, power creep is a real thing with this game with the EX+ difficulty battles coming soon (with the Yuna event) + they are now allowing to further upgrade your weapon's stats with natural 5* relic in the JP version meaning that their default gear is slowing becoming more obsolete with the increasing difficulty. I can see this game getting very hard for 'F2P' players in the future if they get unlucky on their free mythrils draws.
 
Does anybody think that some of the prohibitively difficult content will start pushing players away?

Not that I feel entitled to make it to the end of every event, mind you, but it really seems that a lot of the recent Elite/EX boss are not feasible for a lot of players (some even playing since launch) without using exploits or exploitative tactics.

Its already starting to demoralize me.
 

Balphon

Member
Does anybody think that some of the prohibitively difficult content will start pushing players away?

Not that I feel entitled to make it to the end of every event, mind you, but it really seems that a lot of the recent Elite/EX boss are not feasible for a lot of players (some even playing since launch) without using exploits or exploitative tactics.

If the difficulty weren't there I think you'd see a larger number of people simply becoming bored.

The overall difficulty curve honestly feels fairly close to where it should be. There's still a lot of power you can gain from the content even if you just bounce off the last 5% of it.
 
The Elite/Ex bosses are really for the 'hardcore' players who either get lucky through pulls (paid or otherwise) or those who don't mind blowing a couple of mythril to get it done. To be fair, Dena is showering us with mythril so an average player can just brute force them with mythril revives if they really want to.Everyone else can have access to the characters, memories crystal and mythrils from the event pretty easily.
You can't "brute force" a boss fight with Mythril, the revive starts you at the beginning of the fight (yes, with a minor passive boost, but not enough to turn the odds).

The overall difficulty curve honestly feels fairly close to where it should be.
Really? Jenova with 200,000 HP (where a properly suited character with dual synergy can maybe do 2500-3500 per attack) that can one/two-shot kill Level 50+ characters and gets two attacks per turn is where you think the difficulty should be?
 

Balphon

Member
Really? Jenova with 200,000 HP (where a properly suited character with dual synergy can maybe do 2500-3500 per attack) that can one/two-shot kill Level 50+ characters and gets two attacks per turn is where you think the difficulty should be?

That's the extreme high end, and yes, I'd expect content at that level to require the use of every damage dealing and damage mitigation tool you have.

It's not impossible. I've killed her three times now and I'm not awash in 5* gear. I even had the additional handicap of having to drag a dagger-wielding Sephiroth along for two of those.

Even if I couldn't kill her, it's not like I'd be missing out on a ton of stuff.
 

Razmos

Member
eurghhhh at the Death Knight enemies in the Flying Fortress dungeon (FFI). They come in groups of 3, 4 or 5, get attacks off before you do, and cast either Blind or Kill (instant death)

And they have too much HP to kill them with Zealot :(
 
We're gonna get dungeons every other week now? Oh my lawd I'm never gonna get caught up again not unless I get a job that lets me sit at a desk and play record keeper all day while doing data entry or dump a bunch of money into stamina refresh
 
If anyone missed it yesterday I started a discord chat. It's a client and web based text and voice chat program like vent or teamspeak. You can join via the link below:

Quote to reveal server link:


This link should last till later tonight, then I'll have to make a new invite.

Not many have popped in yet but I figure this could come in handy.
 

SougoXIII

Member
You can't "brute force" a boss fight with Mythril, the revive starts you at the beginning of the fight (yes, with a minor passive boost, but not enough to turn the odds).

Really? Jenova with 200,000 HP (where a properly suited character with dual synergy can maybe do 2500-3500 per attack) that can one/two-shot kill Level 50+ characters and gets two attacks per turn is where you think the difficulty should be?

The boost are 20% for stat or Max abilities + 2 for everyone, which gives you way more lea way than usual given the right set ups.

Jenova's attacks can be mitigate to a trivial joke with breaks/ Sentinel/ Grimore/ Protectga, which are available for free via crafting/friend summon. You have mythril refresh for full abilities for nuking as well as retaliate if you can only outfit one heavy melee hitter. Jenova is no where near impossible with all the options available for us
 

Falk

that puzzling face
Really? Jenova with 200,000 HP (where a properly suited character with dual synergy can maybe do 2500-3500 per attack) that can one/two-shot kill Level 50+ characters and gets two attacks per turn is where you think the difficulty should be?

Jenova is not going to 1 or 2-shot with Protectga and Power Break up. I did a 2nd time through the last elite just to prove a point - It's definitely still a slog and the fight ended with 1 action star, but properly spacing out the 4 Protectgas and 8 Power Breaks with Lenna healing (nonstop mass-regen from the soul break) I was never really in danger of dying except on a double Gas - Gas is the most damaging by far, even with Magic Break, which sucks. Double Laser hits for ~600-700 tops with Power Break and Protectga.

Don't get me wrong, it still is a slog, and the trash is absurd because it pretty much requires you to use Retaliate to save ability counts for the boss, but if anything it's a testament to bad mechanics rather than bad balance.

Bad mechanics in that:
- Power/Magic break are too essential because it cuts damage by about half
- Protect (or similar SB) are too essential because it cuts damage by about half again
- Ignoring VIT0, Retaliate is still too strong a mechanic if you have one weapon that outclasses the rest for a specific realm

They kind of solved the first bullet point by giving bosses Break resists (so that tuning doesn't have to be done with the assumption that everyone's gonna be able to cut incoming damage that much) but I'm not too sure how they can gimp protect or the other absurd soul breaks like Lunatic High without essentially forgoing 'being true to the franchise' since shell and protect are pretty absurd throughout the franchise. The third bullet point eventually sorts itself out the longer the game exists, as your 2nd and 3rd melee weapon approaches the power of the first, because in terms of hard number crunching, if you have 3 equal weapons, the opportunity cost of Retaliate (using up 2 actions for Boost and Retaliate every few turns) gets outweighed by everyone hitting for a multiplier with abilities, compared to hitting for the Retaliate guy's normal attack value x2 (with double cut)

That being said, I do think 200,000 HP is a little overkill even for an endurance/turtling test, and the fight would have benefited a shit ton from boss HP bars considering the need to ration mitigation abilities properly. (e.g. casting Protectga every 20% hp and Power Break every ~10% HP according to boss HP bar would make it much more straightforward than constantly playing mental Tetris and remembering how many turns it was since the last cast)

It's hard, but it's nowhere near the level of bullshit that was Sorceress elite, or even Red Dragon.
 

SougoXIII

Member
Oh god, Sorcereress' Elite with no MC or Friend Summon. The only event where I go 'Nope, not wasting mythril on that.'

Funny, I only spend 1 mythril on refresh so far and that's on Orthus + Ultros and Airship fights (Cause anyone thinking of fighting multiple hard hitting bosses per round back to back is a good idea deserve to EAD)
 

forgrim

Member
I'd join the chat but wtf is discord? Dled the app but it says I need to register via desktop which I don't have. Madness. Why didn't we just use line lol
 
Guys, I beat Jenova, I know how to do it.

Whether or not it's possible doesn't really mean it's not poorly balanced, or maybe poorly implemented if the word balance bothers you.

I'm not mad/upset I couldn't beat it, etc., I'm simply questioning if players will become discouraged if every event boss basically requires you to follow a strict specific strategy and/or abuse things "outside" of normal gameplay (force reloading, VIT0 glitch, etc.).
 

Roto13

Member
qY38Hlt.jpg

Finished the Classic dungeons. Kind of dreading some of the elites.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
- Content tuned for whales, non-whales leave because too difficult

- Content tuned for non-whales, whales leave because too boring

Kind of between a rock and a hard place, really.

And yes, that's in broad strokes without taking into account everything from prep, strategy, pure luck with the gacha, how tolerant individuals are to content above/below their abilitiy, and simply being good/bad at vidya.
 
I'd join the chat but wtf is discord? Dled the app but it says I need to register via desktop which I don't have. Madness. Why didn't we just use line lol

They are gonna add mobile registration soon, it's still new. I use it for FFXI so I decided to make an extra server for this, and having a desktop app is nice for folks who don't wanna swap apps a billion times to have a conversation. Plus, it'll open in a web browser.

Also here's the link again.

Quote to reveal server link:


Sougo and I are online!
 

Roto13

Member
If this app wasn't slow and clunky as hell, the preparation wouldn't bother me as much. I make it as far as the confirm screen to enter a dungeon and I realize that I have the wrong soul break equipped on someone and I know I'm going to have to open that slow-ass party screen again....
 
- Content tuned for whales, non-whales leave because too difficult

- Content tuned for non-whales, whales leave because too boring

Kind of between a rock and a hard place, really.
Does the first point really exist? I figure that somebody throwing enough cash at the game to be considered a "whale" does so to explicitly get an advantage.

If this app wasn't slow and clunky as hell, the preparation wouldn't bother me as much. I make it as far as the confirm screen to enter a dungeon and I realize that I have the wrong soul break equipped on someone and I know I'm going to have to open that slow-ass party screen again....
My biggest annoyance is you can't "Back" to your previous screen (say, an event or dungeon page) from the Party screens.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
I'm not sure I'm understanding what you mean. Do mobile games tuned for whales exist? Sure they do. Everything from Puzzle & Dragons to Candy Crush Saga have content that heavily encourages players to pay for an advantage. Pretty blatantly, too.
 
Its already starting to demoralize me.

Know this feel, I've basically contented myself that as long as I can continue to get characters and memory crystals I don't care if I can't beat all the elite bosses or get the super awesome stuff at the end of a challenge. The moment that a timed event becomes impossible for me to get all characters/their mem crystals is when I'll delete the game and never look back.
 

SougoXIII

Member
- Content tuned for whales, non-whales leave because too difficult

- Content tuned for non-whales, whales leave because too boring

Kind of between a rock and a hard place, really.

And yes, that's in broad strokes without taking into account everything from prep, strategy, pure luck with the gacha, how tolerant individuals are to content above/below their abilitiy, and simply being good/bad at vidya.

The current events are at a right balance really. Not a cake walk for 'whales' but giving others lots of options to make up for not spending tons of money. Hopefully this remains true in the coming events.
 
- Content tuned for whales, non-whales leave because too difficult

- Content tuned for non-whales, whales leave because too boring

Kind of between a rock and a hard place, really.

And yes, that's in broad strokes without taking into account everything from prep, strategy, pure luck with the gacha, how tolerant individuals are to content above/below their abilitiy, and simply being good/bad at vidya.

I'd say for the average player the difficulty of the content they'd actually want (character unlocks and mem crystals) is well done, it's just apparent that right around where you get the last mem crystal in an elite things spike into a world of you better have RS gear 50+ level characters and really good skills or else LOL you
 

Entropia

No One Remembers
I find the balance to be pretty decent. I've been playing since day 1. For the special events (i.e. the Balthier event atm) as a non-whale I'm able to do the normal modes with ease, and I typically can do all but the last few elites. I'd say that's fine because I don't want to invest any money in the game.
 

Balphon

Member
Guys, I beat Jenova, I know how to do it.

Whether or not it's possible doesn't really mean it's not poorly balanced, or maybe poorly implemented if the word balance bothers you.

I'm not mad/upset I couldn't beat it, etc., I'm simply questioning if players will become discouraged if every event boss basically requires you to follow a strict specific strategy and/or abuse things "outside" of normal gameplay (force reloading, VIT0 glitch, etc.).

Didn't think you were. And I said, I think it would be more likely for people to get bored and leave if the content were much easier than it is.

I also don't agree that the current high-end content is too difficult or requires exploits/specific strategies to defeat. I've personally never used retaliate or Vit0 despite how essential some people have suggested they are. Though I can agree that may become more of an issue the more reliant we become on the small set of very useful mitigation skills.

You have to remember, you're talking about the #1 or #2 hardest boss in the game as of right now. It really isn't unreasonable for that sort of encounter to push the proverbial envelope.
 

Roto13

Member
Unreasonable mental thing: I'm afraid to fight Magissa and Forza again even though I am much stronger now and have level 65 characters and protectga and friend summons because I have such horrible memories of beating them the first time.
 

elty

Member
How hard is the current boss rush? I am thinking to bring this

Tyro- Quake 4/4 Berserk 6/6
Garnet - Curaga 12/12 Protectga 2/2
Seph - Retaliate 10/10 Armor break 6/6
Tidus - Boost 10/10 Magic break 4/4
Balthier - Double cut 8/8 Power break 6/6

Friend: Locke? XIII?

Also, does anyone know if self sacrificed (sapped) actually increase counter attack / skill damage?
 

Ashodin

Member
Unreasonable mental thing: I'm afraid to fight Magissa and Forza again even though I am much stronger now and have level 65 characters and protectga and friend summons because I have such horrible memories of beating them the first time.

They are super punks now. Easy mode.
 

Roto13

Member
They are super punks now. Easy mode.

Yeah. It's just my dumb brain being dumb.

You know, I didn't really appreciate it at the time, but the Kaiser Shield might be the best defensive item I've ever gotten from a relic pull. Free Soul Break Protectga.
 

eastx

Member
I'm sick of unreasonably hard bosses in this game.

Me three. And I have bought the second-largest gem package three times so far. Plus like you said, the slow-ass menus make everything that much more frustrating and/or annoying.

You can't "brute force" a boss fight with Mythril, the revive starts you at the beginning of the fight (yes, with a minor passive boost, but not enough to turn the odds).

Yup.
 

Falk

that puzzling face
You can't "brute force" a boss fight with Mythril, the revive starts you at the beginning of the fight (yes, with a minor passive boost, but not enough to turn the odds).

Back tracking a little to this, this is probably exactly why they scrapped the super hard final boss model (e.g. Red Dragon) in favor of a boss rush. If you can clear all the elites, you should be able to actually brute force the boss rush with Mythril since that essentially breaks the boss rush down into elements you've beaten before, without trash even. It's the same reason why Red Dragon was a different kind of hard compared to Ultros + Chupon + Air Force.

Of course, that doesn't help with massive cockblocks prior to that like JENOVA Birth in the last Elite.
 
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