Patch 3.05 Notes

[LiadansWhisper]

why do so many of the new weapons for DPS classes have skill speed on them aaaaaaaaa

 

Because they want you to beg the AST for Spire cards.

[Trigonxv]

why do so many of the new weapons for DPS classes have skill speed on them aaaaaaaaa

 

I believe skill speed now increases auto attack potency or something of the sort so it's not all bad least for me since my tp management for fights is pretty straight forward so I'm not really minding it.

[Tumensuns]

Ugh I wont be able to play till around the weekend. 

 

Im fully expecting to hop in and see "Alexander savage no law bonus" parties already.

 

That's giving the skill of the community too much credit. With the steep DPS check requirement just to get passed savage Faust, I don't think we'll see parties like that for awhile. Everything will be "learning" party until more people get Esoteric gear.

[Leggerless]

I'll bet two weeks on the new PvP Mode before it becomes 'unpopular' again.

 

This just in: PvP is back to extremely long queues in less than a day.

 

GG Square.

[Kage]

I'll bet two weeks on the new PvP Mode before it becomes 'unpopular' again.

 

This just in: PvP is back to extremely long queues in less than a day.

 

GG Square.

WELP This is exactly why i got to rank 30, less than the needed wins for the warsteed, and just stopped. The queues were so bad I decided to level all my shit to 50 instead. I guess now it'll be to 60 instead.

[banndsand]

*looks at new content* Hmm...

 

Ah!

"[2.0] The automatic logout function has been removed.

    * This function may be re-enabled in the event of server congestion."

 

Wooo~

[Lilia Lia]

So we're finally seeing the new crafting sets added.  ilevel 170 versions that are craftable (and HQ-able), and ilevel 180 versions that are purchasable with red crafter scrips... and both sets are palette swaps of each other.  Actually they look more or less identical (not even different colours) from the little bit I saw before I left for work.  This could just be the CUL set though, that's the only one I looked at.  It didn't occur to me to check whether both the craftable and trade-in sets were meldable, but that's obviously the real deal-breaker.

 

I'm not sure what the rationale is behind making the scrip turn-in sets slightly better than the craftable sets.  Maybe red scrips are going to be prohibitively hard to come by, so the new grind is going to be upgrading your crafted gear to turn-in gear.  But it does seem like it's going to lower their marketboard value significantly.  Which is good for people who don't have all their crafts leveled, but bad for people like me who are opportunistic capitalists.  :angel:

 

ALSO, Culinarian Master III is still trash. Nothing good in there at all!

[Sounsyy]

So we're finally seeing the new crafting sets added.  ilevel 170 versions that are craftable (and HQ-able), and ilevel 180 versions that are purchasable with red crafter scrips... and both sets are palette swaps of each other.  Actually they look more or less identical (not even different colours) from the little bit I saw before I left for work.  This could just be the CUL set though, that's the only one I looked at.  It didn't occur to me to check whether both the craftable and trade-in sets were meldable, but that's obviously the real deal-breaker.

 

I'm not sure what the rationale is behind making the scrip turn-in sets slightly better than the craftable sets.  Maybe red scrips are going to be prohibitively hard to come by, so the new grind is going to be upgrading your crafted gear to turn-in gear.  But it does seem like it's going to lower their marketboard value significantly.  Which is good for people who don't have all their crafts leveled, but bad for people like me who are opportunistic capitalists.  :angel:

 

I believe it was said in an earlier interview that the purpose was to provide a way for both hardcore and non players to work their way up to having viable crafter/gatherer sets. Those who are really gung-ho about it can go right out and get their crafted set, hq it, max meld it, and be done in a day and several million gil. But for players who are unwiling or unable to do that, they can go the slow route and get the red scrip items instead, which are non-HQ and cannot be melded.

 

Interestingly... there are no craftable versions of the red-scrip sets for Gatherers! So... all we have available to us right now are the purchased red-scrips sets. Which again, are not HQ and cannot be melded. But holy hell their stats are beautiful and blow the current serpentskin set way out of the water. (For those wondering, the math comes out at it taking 9 weeks of capping Red Scrips every week to obtain a full set for a single Crafter/Gatherer.)

 

It's interesting though that crafters got a craftable set while gatherers did not though...

[Lilia Lia]

I believe it was said in an earlier interview that the purpose was to provide a way for both hardcore and non players to work their way up to having viable crafter/gatherer sets. Those who are really gung-ho about it can go right out and get their crafted set, hq it, max meld it, and be done in a day and several million gil. But for players who are unwiling or unable to do that, they can go the slow route and get the red scrip items instead, which are non-HQ and cannot be melded.

 

Ah, so the craftable sets WILL still be the best in slot?  Time to take advantage!

 

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/recettear/images/f/ff/Capitalism,_ho!.png/revision/latest?cb=20141226002900[/img]

[V'aleera]

The status of gathering gear is a little odd. While the red scrip gear absolutely does outpace melded HQ crafted gear, the stats aren't actually needed. I've currently got a full set of HQ serpentskin with tools. The tools are pentamelded but the body pieces and accessories don't have more than two overmelds a piece (all of which are just rank I materia), yet that still allows for the surpassing of the perception hard cap and the gathering hard and soft cap on legendary nodes.

 

Unless SE plans on introducing new nodes without introducing more powerful gathering gear, it seems like their intention is for people who want a head start on gathering to go for the crafted sets while those more patient or less wealthy can slowly put together red scrip sets.

[Telluride]

The status of gathering gear is a little odd. While the red scrip gear absolutely does outpace melded HQ crafted gear, the stats aren't actually needed. I've currently got a full set of HQ serpentskin with tools. The tools are pentamelded but the body pieces and accessories don't have more than two overmelds a piece (all of which are just rank I materia), yet that still allows for the surpassing of the perception hard cap and the gathering hard and soft cap on legendary nodes.

 

Unless SE plans on introducing new nodes without introducing more powerful gathering gear, it seems like their intention is for people who want a head start on gathering to go for the crafted sets while those more patient or less wealthy can slowly put together red scrip sets.

 

Make that "EXTREMELY Patient."

 

Speaking as a miner, I'm pretty unhappy about them making Adamantite into a Red Scrip Collectible. It was one of the few ores still selling well. Now, every time we hit the node, we have to sacrifice a non-insubstantial amount of gil if we want to get Red Scrips, unless we charge forward and buy all the Folklore books... meh.

[Sounsyy]

Red scrips... such a pain.

 

For my fellow Pullers out there:

Red Scrips FSH Turn Ins

[Zyrusticae]

I'm not sure exactly why I feel this way, but for whatever reason this patch is the one that's killed my interest.

 

Warning: Senseless rant follows!

 

 

First of all, Alexander NM has an absolutely awful loot system. If you got four weeklies like the WoD weekly instead of having to lot against 7 other players, it would have been fine! But no, unless you specifically join a farming party AND everyone stays in that party through the whole 4 runs of each floor, you're going to be running the same crap over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and look, geeze, this is dumb, why is this even a thing?!

 

And then Esoterics. I was kind of hoping Law was indicative of how things would go in the future (only, you know, obviously a bit slower because Law is insanely easy to get), but nope! Still absolutely impossible to gear up more than one job with content-relevant gear. The dripfeed is real!

 

This is particularly annoying because it was so easy to get AF armor and even your baseline relic back in 2.0. Now you have go through the absurdly drawn-out tomestone grind to get even a single set for the glamour. Really? Dick move, guys. Dick move.

 

And of course I have zero interest in Alex Savage for fairly obvious reasons, so that is content that may as well not exist to me.

 

So I'm done. I've got nothin' left except RP, and I'm not gonna lie, that's not enough on its own to sustain my interest in any given game. The story was great, the graphics and artwork are pretty, the new zones are a major improvement, flying is not as pointless as I thought it would be, and I like the look of quite a few of the new sets, so there's that. But... you know... the gameplay. Machinist turned out to be... not quite what I was hoping for. And my tolerance for absolute repetition only goes so far. Running the same thing once a week, or even every other day, is something I can stomach. But a minimum of four times a week, with very high odds of having to do more? Are you even trying anymore, SE?

 

I just feel like SE is not respecting my time. They're trying too hard to get me to waste it on their repetitive content, and it's not making me happy. My motivation to login has been shot to hell.

 

Oh, well, whatever. I guess this is the curse of subscription-based themepark MMORPGs. Always gotta have people chasing that carrot.

 

Unfortunately for them, it doesn't work on me. Not when you force me to wait for weeks before letting me chew on that carrot, and it's not even a bloody cake!

 

 

Note: I am aware that most of my complaints here are nothing new and could be said about a lot of 2.x's patch content. But I expected better from Heavensward, and more of the same is all we got? Not feelin' it, man.

[Maril]

Red crafting scrip is painful. The state of crafting right now is horrible. They're making omnicrafter virtually impossible (66 weeks / 16½ months to get all of the sets, at this rate. I theorize they may lift the cap just before introducing new gear), but at the same time the crafts rely so much on each other that you need to have them all up to 60. And the prices of the mats needed to make something is oftentimes way more than the item is worth, because the items gets passed around left right & center from the quests, leading to people selling their spares for pennies. 

 

I wouldn't say this is fun. Sure, it's an alternative to pentamelding (by the looks of it), but by the time anyone has what it takes to craft the new recipes, there wont be a market to sell them in. I'll still be focusing on crafting because I have the added "This gear looks pretty so I must have it" thing that drives me, and I quite like being able to make RP gear for others. I really hope they tweak this

[Gegenji]

I have to admit that I'm pretty miffed that the new relic gear is locked behind a tomestone grind - until I realized that I really didn't want any of it for looks. Same with Alexander's stuff - I mean, having a dye-able set of the tank one for Judge would be amusing but... a.) that would require gearing up for and running through Savage just for an RP look, and 2.) I'm rather content with the profile Judge has already with his current gear.

 

So, that left me to muse on this - what did I need all that gear for? I'm not pushing Savage, nor do I plan to - at most I need gear to allow me to help friends with their Expert roulettes or if they need a fill in to RUN an Alexander leg or two (normal mode, of course). And... I basically have that. Full blues for Chachan and Gogon on PLD and SCH, respectively.

 

And I found that fact rather liberating. Yesterday was the last Alexander grind I think I will be doing. I started the week with a lens, a crank, and three springs. Got a chain, second lends, second crank, and the last spring despite a lot of nonsense that further cemented how much not-fun I was having. I just got it into my head that I had managed that far with those... so I might as well wrap it up. And I did - Gogon is i184 for no real reason, with each piece glamoured over with stuff that is level 59 at most (love me that Library coat).

 

I still have some carrots, but they're of my own make and don't involve banging my head against Alexander anymore. One is to (at my own lazy pace) level everything to 60 on Gogon, which means hopefully queuing up with some pals for the stuff I want to get XP on with people who are looking for their Leveling roulette rewards. Another is to get Chachan's BSM to 60 so I can pick up the new AF2 chest and hat. Beyond that? I'm going to get back to the main reason I came back to MMOs and Balmung in particular - to RP.

 

I'm already putting stuff in place for some Chachan plots and trying to build some connections and potential RP for Gogon and Judge. All of which feels like it'll be much more fun than grinding for tokens. Though I'll still likely do the daily Trial and Expert roulettes for the Esoterics - preferably with friends - just to quiet that little bit of raider in me that keeps shouting at me to gear up. :lol:

[Melkire]

I didn't have any issues with how gearing up worked back in 2.x (other than the painful RNG of clearing Coil turns and never seeing your loot for your job drop) so I'm quite content with the carrots provided. That might be because I'm somewhat liberated from a driving need for AF2 gear where glamour is concerned: the only aesthetic I'm interested in is the BRD AF2 and I don't even play BRD. All of my MNK glamour will be coming from crafted gear or older pieces from ARR.

 

...which basically means that I don't have to worry about the slow tomestone grind to outfit multiple classes. At most, I'll be gearing MNK in Esoterics while gearing WAR in Law, and then I'll be moving on to WAR in Esoterics once my MNK is done. Alexander Normal loot is just something to try for in the meantime while waiting. I'd love to have full sets of the stuff even if it's purely for OoC aesthetic and won't ever be used IC for RP.

 

If there's a carrot in this patch for me, it's the damned White Griffin set. I finally have a reason to level WHM to 60 and a reason to grind PvP like a madman.

[Steel Wolf]

I personally am taking the carrot as casually as I do anything else. I right now am more focused on Law stuff, and am finding that gear stupendously simple to collect (already have nearly all my accessories). I would like to maybe attempt the new EX Primals but...eh. At least once to try and get a clear. And I would likely try Alex Normal just for the clear as well, since the way the loot system works is just horrid.. The Esoterics stuff is lovely, but I'll get there eventually. I'm not in a race to cap weekly.

 

And besides, the stuff that I got from Neverreap looks spectacular. Definitely using that glamour.

 

That said, I can definitely appreciate the frustration of the whole thing. Games should never be work. Ever.

[Telluride]

 

 

That said, I can definitely appreciate the frustration of the whole thing. Games should never be work. Ever.

 

I can see this common theme growing here in the last few replies.

 

These changes, especially for crafting/gathering, have a definite message from SE: They are gonna embrace grind, absolutely keep using it as much as they can to extend player subs as much as they can. This isn't new, but a couple of you have made a point I agree with: They like grind, and they are gonna keep feeding it to us, and if we don't like it, too bad. We may have had hopes for otherwise, but 3.05 has spoken.

 

The other theme - enthusiasm seems to be cooling off for Heavensward. I feel it, too. Realizing how long the Red Scrip race is gonna take even for ONE Craft/Gather class made me actually, literally sit back and think: "Is this what I want to do with my spare time anymore?"

 

Now, I'm an RPer, so I can go back to RP, because that's sure a hell of a lot more fun than playing Spin The Appraisal and Endless AOE Dodge Theater, which I suddenly see as much of my future if these trends keep up.

[Aaron]

I don't understand the issue with the grind tbh. It really when you think about it is a major piece of society in general. 

 

I mean sure it could probably be done better idk, but still. . What'd you expect with a extension of ARR and Legacy before it?

[Mogoi Qestir]

Honestly... Yes, some of the 2.xx grind was a bit better, but at the same time it wasn't. I won't agree with how Alexander is with the lots instead of actual gear. Made more sense then really to me. But besides that, I've not lost anything in this expansion.

 

Maybe because I didn't invest a million things in it. Rumor mill was since before we even got the expansion that AF2 would be off eso, which would mean grinding. It's only a bad grind if you solo the grind the whole way. Will wish they made the cap 1000 instead of 450, because it means a month if for 2 pieces of any order [chest/legs, chest/weapon, weapon/legs].

 

Again, expansions will be what you make of it. If you sit on the negative, you'll look at it negatively. If you play with your friends on most if not all levels of content. Lean on them a bit to pick you up. Plus, we -all- have our RP [or I'd hope] so look forward to that too! Worst case, 3.1 will probably bring a quicker way to grind out your eso tomes, so patience also is a thing.

 

Upgrading law to 180 was a time and a half less you wasted your time off with hunts, and now we have a way to that too.

[/i]

[LiadansWhisper]

That said, I can definitely appreciate the frustration of the whole thing. Games should never be work. Ever.

 

Not everyone subscribes to that, tho!  Lots of people adore grinds, or they like hard stuff that's hard and requires a lot of wiping.

[Mogoi Qestir]

So, one of my FC members pointed out something rather simple with the so-called Eso grind. Literally, do your expert once a day, at least 6 days of the week. That's it. You'll have your 450 cap literally off that. Just leaving that there for people to think on as well since a lot of us probably just want the actual things and can deal with getting dye'able versions later on. .

[Dravus]

Although not everybody enjoys a grind I think to some extent they're a necessity. MMO's can only provide so much content - and so keeping people invested through long term projects is a successful business practice.

 

I'm not an expert on crafting by any means but I imagine the developers aren't all that keen on having individual players able to do everything on a single character and then effectively control major portions of a server's economy.

 

I also believe that they assume the average player will take a break from the game after indulging in a patch's content and return in time for the next content patch.

 

Anyone who is raiding is going to be indulging in a 'grind'. Crafters and gatherers also have a 'grind' - but that is, in my eyes, something that makes sense. It's a lot more in-depth in this game than in other MMO's I've played so 'gating' stuff just seems logical.

 

In due time they'll likely ease the requirements to prevent people falling behind too much.

[Kellach Woods]

The problem is that grinding is not difficult. I personally like overcoming challenges, learning things... All of which grinding simply doesn't do.

 

Which is probably why I'm more focused on getting all-60 rather than actually grinding something out. Sure, I could just WAR myself up something fierce - I like to think I'm competent enough that I could easily smash through most of the game's higher challenges (as much as I say I'm bad at video games).

 

However, in order to get to that level, I'd need to do content on a specific class until I'm sick of it (and that class). That doesn't sit well with me at the moment. 

 

RNG is also a poorer replacement for straight grinding, btw.

 

Also, they're going to realize they set a too high barrier of entry to crafting end-game, like last time, and they'll nerf it around patch 3.2 or something.

[Zyrusticae]

So, one of my FC members pointed out something rather simple with the so-called Eso grind. Literally, do your expert once a day, at least 6 days of the week. That's it. You'll have your 450 cap literally off that. Just leaving that there for people to think on as well since a lot of us probably just want the actual things and can deal with getting dye'able versions later on. .

Um, yeah, that's exactly how it worked in 2.0.

 

The problem is that I've already done that. For months. I've run literally every dungeon in the entire game into the ground at this point. There's nothing interesting or fun about running the same bloody thing 6 times a week. At that point, it's become work and not play.

 

I think they badly need to rethink their whole tomestone structure. Give some tomestones for doing, I don't know, literally anything so I have options instead of running the exact same two dungeons I've ALREADY run to complete death when I was gearing up with Law. (The 5 Esoterics for running the leveling roulette is particularly insulting. Really? Really, really?)

 

They also need to price their items on the assumption that players will be gearing up more than just a single class at a time. What's the point of the armory system if they never use it? That's something that's always puzzled me about their progression design. Always just the one class, and you're not allowed to mess with others. I can't help but wonder if retention numbers would be improved if players could gear up, say, three jobs at a time at a decent clip, to improve variety in gameplay and let people mess around with their roles a bit.

 

At any rate, I've exhausted the content in the game, so at this point I have to ask myself whether or not I am really enjoying this and whether or not it is worth my time. The revelation that I could be so much more productive if I didn't subscribe to the daily grind forced me to step back a bit and reevaluate my decisions. I've put an embarrassing amount of time into the game as-is, and it's about time I did something less... pointless.