Lots of talk recently about the "end of abyssea" as it were. It has been a terrible lot of talking out of asses considering we know nothing about what comes next at this moment in time aside from "job adjustments", level 99 and now, campaign adjustments.
A lot of people talk about how 90-99 should usher in the return of large-scale content, and I honestly believe every one of those people are the asspained Aeryfags who miss botting for HNMs and sitting in for 3-6 hour windows to see who gets their lucky chance at a pair of drops before waiting 21-24 for the next window.
I speak from the gimp minority here, but that game was shit. Timesinks are one thing, but when you're competing for the solitary spot to even attempt to begin sinking time? Pass, it is a draconian system with no place in a dying MMO. No one wants to go back to eighteen people for events. That is, no one who enjoys the game as it is. I guess I see their point though.
The tug of war between "This new system is shit" and "the old system was shit" is one that most people don't really see both sides of. I think HNMs are fucktarded, but the grizzled old epeen vets think forcing pops and triggers is too easy. It is really hard to tell which of these groups is the minority now, though. With everything being done in smaller numbers in Abyssea, and the ease with which some armor and even weapons are capable of being completed, who is really on the outs here? Everyone is getting their time in and putting forward the effort for the trivial armor.
XI has lines in the separation that other MMOs I am aware of can't really compete with. At 75 when we all thought about new gear, I don't think anyone expect it to be like this. And now, at 90, I don't think any of us are really sure what to expect to 99. Without the base mechanics of the game being skewered for endgame purposes, there isn't much to offer capped accuracy/haste combinations. More attack to cap when they inevitably take away our cruor and atma? More crit to try to reobtain the number Abyssea offers?
Therein sort of lies the problem. Cruor and Atma basically lift us above any state gear has before. Are we going to do away with the temporary buffs just to then try to socket our gear in an attempt to recreate Razed Ruins in the other zones? Are we going to suddenly start seeing WoW-like numbers on gear to accommodate our already-robust arsenals? With games like Warcraft the ceiling can be indefinitely pushed higher and higher, due to the scaling nature of their attributes and improvement. XI's a bit harder; We have a finite sky. We have a hard-coded limit to our capabilities, and now that we're hitting them in truly awesome ways inside of Abyssea, we've already seen our highest-capable achievements. To speak nothing of Primeval Brews, at that; I know exactly how hard my hardest crits will potentially ever be without swinging a damage 180 weapon, and maybe not even then.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe we're going to suddenly see a huge increase of numbers again like we did for Scars that completely blows away what we're using now. That, of course, completely eliminates the need for doing anything that isn't the NEW new endgame. Of course, this means more complaints about how X and Y are outdated, and how all of the time we spent on blah blah blah complaints.
It always seems the stupid people are the loudest in these discussions; Everyone who ever suggested Super Limbus/Sky/Sea/Dynamis will be the death of XI being fun. Slaving back for the huge investments with minimal payoffs isn't the way to advance. Maybe I'm just an easymode casual who likes having everything handed to me, but I saw how much time we put into Salvage as a group, what we got out of it. More importantly what we did NOT get out of it. I saw how quickly that gear was put to shame, some of it immediately. Ares' Cuirass, meet Grim Cuirass, nice to meet you, don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Teal body is embarrassingly close to Morrigan's for the effort required to obtain. At level 80, it was also far, far cheaper, looking strictly at an investment's point of view. Even when gear was selling for 800k, that's cheaper than a single Imperial Wootz Ingot at the time.
I didn't want to see our work in Salvage get destroyed so easily, but I relished watching land kings become obsolete. I didn't like knowing... Actually, that's a lie. I did enjoy Dynamis going down, too, and Limbus, and all of the long-established shells with superiority complexes get dismantled by people realizing "Hey, fuck this, we don't need to carry these jerkasses anymore." SE did what Syndrome wanted to: Made us all super so no one could be.
I'm okay with this. I play XI to do stuff with my friends and have fun, not to obtain gear over other people to then gloat and show off. Do I enjoy being well-geared on my jobs and working to have the best possible loadouts? Who doesn't in a gear-driven game? I just don't particularly care to get mine at the expense of others, especially when it comes to the buy-in required to even compete in the old HNM scene.
Do I think XI is going to return to the "Everything important takes 18+ people, don't even think about getting your Best-In-Slots if you aren't botting" lifestyle? No. Do I always cringe a little when I see people hoping and wishing for it on public forums? I do, because I have this worry that someone at SE is reading it and thinking "This is what our players want!"
Shinryu being six-players-only is encouraging. I hope SE sticks with the limited numbers and difficulty curve we're on now. It is exactly right for those of us who enjoy the GAME and not just trying to win the metagame of being the best.
As always, only time will tell.
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