RMT Bots Have Won...

You mean like the Apex Archaic Cog/Cogs that are 143-147, where the lowest level target there is higher than any other Locus/Apex mob (according to BG's Apex page)?

The problem is no ones gonna go there because Gears arent exactly fun to fight. 4 TP moves to pick from:
AOE dmg
AOE dmg
AOE/Conal/Single target dmg
Restoral that can do 50-65k HP returned
And then you got sound and magic aggro mixed in.

Its def not bot friendly, but its a lot more convenient to find a sync target and fight a target that is a lot less annoying.

I just realized the Apex page is missing imps, they may be 143+, but I dont think those are popular targets either.

Yeah, we're in agreement, but #3 needs to be stated as a consequence of the current EP system. Let's safe it, an open spot in an ML party will be given to COR over another job.

Do you think people would reactive negatively to SE removing Exemplar points from Corsair's roll, and just gave everyone an Trizek Ring +1 for a similar EP boost? ...I feel like SE would make this ring gimmicky and underwhelming.

You know, killing faster with better buffs can be more optimal than cor's roll.

I personally dislike this kind of mindset. "XYZ is not required." Look, nothing is really required except for the fact we must continue to breathe oxygen so that our cells divide and we continue existing.

But, seriously, what MMO survives without a long-standing grind? (Ideally, one that is more tolerable, perhaps than MLs or provides more interesting rewards). I personally wish they kept GIFTS going a lot longer. But, I also understand how affordable it is for developers to simply create: "ML+1 = +1 to everything".

SE is willing to invest only X development-hours per year into FF11, it seems. I mean, why else would Matsui's retirement have been so sudden and so un-ceremonious? (especially right before Prime Weapons were shown to us).

I do respect that he at least appears to have taken a stand.

Here, I'll leave this space for you:

Please list out the content that requires ML. If you would do me a favor, please list the job that needs the master levels, and what ML is required on that job to clear the content. Be as specific as you can, please. If you're ML 30, can you clear the content? What about if you're ML20? ML15? ML10?

It's not important. I'm not saying everyone should walk around at ML0, but it's been my experience that people focus WAY too much on getting 5 acc, atk, and STR and don't focus enough on playing their jobs effectively. I know loads of people who are ML50 on jobs who couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag, and I've cleared V25 NMs and every Sortie boss with people who aren't mastered on their job, and loads of people who are < ML 20. It's not required for any content, and the knowledge, ability, equipment, macros, and decision making/positioning are at least 10x as important as the stats you get from master levels.

Master levels can't carry your horrible skills at playing the game, and if you already have excellent skill, gear, knowledge, and awareness, you don't need ML to beat the content. It's not just me either, there are loads of testimonials from people doing V20 (when it was current) and V25 Sheol: Gaol NMs with ML10 players.

Prior to them nerfing Crawlers nest I cleaved most of my jobs to ML40 and I probably would have cleaved some to 50 but they nerfed CN first and added the most bot friendly camps we have ever seen and I have no interest in paying a bot or leveling even slower than CN for such insane amounts of exemplar points needed 40+.

Yes grind is important but if you make it unrewarding enough people just stop and instead of adding x hours of play time you add 0 hours of play time.

It has been going for so long that I started sharing SE's opinion: "Whatever".

Everything is full of bots. As long as they're not in my way, go ahead.

Yeah that checks out. Guess I better go grind... ;__; Peer Pressure~

I see it from both sides. I've seen people who're 50 that barely know the ins/outs of their job (but love to pretend they do) because they were AFK for nearly it's entirety. They'll come back with the "killing bats over and over doesn't teach me my job"... well something needs to because you're lacking. It's evident when you're doing questionable things like using nonsense runes or rolls.

It does work both ways. Same with everything else. You can't assume ***.

Some don't need the grind to "understand" the job, some do, some half *** it regardless. Bought it or earned it. Doesn't make a damn difference.

Every metric you think you can judge someone by at face value is horseshit.
(Except their name. If they chose a stupid *** name like xxsephirothclonexx they are trash at everything)

Yeah, since there really is nothing most will agree on for measuring, for the most part, you can only really base it off experience. Played with plenty of botters and account buyers and it's always the same stuff.


Legendary comment.

Like I said, if in October 2023 you're too lazy to push ML20 on your main job, you're likely too lazy in many other aspects of this game. That is an attainable goal merely through doing endgame content and a sprinkle of EP pt's. This isnt "get the 16 mil EP needed to get from ML45 to ML50", this is 820k.

Bear in mind, I'm also replying to someone who more or less said "ML50 = clueless botter".

Remember that once upon a time, people merited at ~2 merits/hr (I know great parties with outside PL could do 3, I'm looking more to the average side, similar to the 100kEP/hr I'm trying to reference) for 36 merits so they could go from STR+13 to STR+15. 18 hours for 2 STR compared to 8 hours for All Attributes+20, HP +140, MP +40, All MainJob Skills +20.

Sure, times have changed, but if EP grinding is "supposed to bring back the days of yore" grind, the ROI still favors EP grind (to a certain point, 45-50 being the same as 0-45 is ***) and its not even close.

Omg, if they did this I would be so motivated to play again. It would seriously revive old content in such a way that would help returning people and make doing old fun content rewarding instead of just something to fill your time.

I guess it all varies on the group you roll with. Before I took a hiatus, mine needed my off jobs more than my main. With what time I had free, some of that excessive grinding wasn't practical. Gone are the bachelor days where a 6 hour grind party was doable.

It really sucks, lots of good memories in this game, fun to play, but excessive grinding. Grinding is expected in any MMO but man... When I play FFXIV and I see people complain about how much work it takes to get a relic weapon there, I smile and think "if you only knew..."

maybe a nitpick, but STR+15 didn't exist until merit speeds were far far faster than 2 merits per hour, it was STR+5 at 75 and the highest cost was 9 merits

While comparing LV75 to Ilvl150 stats, it's also worth noting that when you got +5 STR that was like...the highest stat gain you could possibly hope to get off a visible piece of armor. And 16 combat skills were a massive gain compared to your ~240 skill. Now you have 600 sword skill, 7000 attack, and 1600 accuracy, getting another 20 is...less of an impact...

Now, you get 20 STR by swapping from one head piece to another, and you can gain 200 attack because the COR happened to roll better.

My memory on things well over a decade ago tend to get a little hazy. You are right on that one, but my point about ROI still stands:
Going from STR+0 to STR+5 costed 36 merits (3/6/9/9/9), which was about 15-18 hours of meripo for an above avg pt. Atleast you could meripo on your strongest job and dump the points anywhere, and attributes/skill gains applied to all jobs.

I'm just sayin ML20 on your main isnt a daunting task, agree?


Please take this into consideration as this is the current influence to my replies on this conversation.

I think for MLs, maybe they need to do away with trying to calculate the ep based on the highest ML of the person in the pt... if they are going to 100 or something... I could see, but if they are done, then don't force level syncs to get decent rate of ep... I mean, the only thing it does is allow a ml 0 non desirable job to get some initial ML I suppose, but with AE cleaving jobs, I can't think of very many jobs that will find it hard to find a spot in some sort of setup of a pt...

it isn't like it was from 0-99 where level sync suddenly allows you to go to a lower level and do well.

This is a hilarious contradiction to behold:

"I don't see why EP are reduced for people with high ML, it's not like there's much of a difference between a high ML character and a low ML one"

"ML are really important and increase the capabilities of your character a lot, you need them to complete content"

This makes it sound like if s-e instabanned every single RMT bot in the game and none of them came back that suddenly having all the exemplar camps open would be enough to get regular players to grind master levels there again.

It won't happen....

The problem is exactly what was stated in the first sentence. The amount of grinding it takes to get to MLVL 50 is unreasonable. No sane individual is going to spend 10 hours at an mlvl camp just for one Mlvl. It takes three times as much exemplar to get the final 10 Mlvls as the first 40 combined. The last 5 are nearly twice as expensive as the first 45 combined. The skew for those last few levels is so disproportionally high it's actually disrespectful to the playerbase.

So banning the bots wouldn't fix the issue. People don't avoid exemplar party shouts because the bots are crowding the zones. They avoid the shouts because they don't want to do the grind, and no amount of free space will change that. Unless s-e adds some double/triple exemplar campaigns with scaling chain bonuses or something it's just not gonna happen.

In before "Oh you just gotta be smarter than that. I can get that much exp in a fraction of that time."

I mean, it's more grindy than a REMA, which for some casuals was grindy enough.

It's really not that bad, but you have to stop trying to do it at once.

30 million @ an hour a day (just like sortie, just like odyssey, just like omen) you'll get there. You don't need to do 2 million exemplar in one party.

It would probably take most of you the exact same amount of hours to make your prime stage 5 as hit M50.

"but that's excessive" It's supposed to be. That's your task for. the. year. (and next year)

Yeah maybe we get new content next year, I'd say probably not at this rate.

People asked for and demanded an exp grind akin to the old days while flocking to private servers so that they can grind for hours in dunes to get a level or two. SE gave people what they claimed they wanted. Master levels are purely dog catching a car energy in that respect.

We and the RMT are simply so much better at botting nowadays that of course it was going to overun the camps and make trying to actually play the game with real humans frustrating for yall.
It needs a much bigger variety of locations and actual camp variance based on level/gear too, but the second one is too much for SE to bother with.
Otherwise I guess there's no gratification from getting a big new spell or ability for your job along the way that you can use? We want big shiny things for the monkey brain instead of something we already had.
PS. ML20 is easy. I may not have it on too many jobs, but that's a symptom of JPonly on my server, my own personal laziness, and "we want you only on this one job out of 22 you leveled" more than it actually being difficult for anything that can enter Sheol C, Sortie, or Omen detrius farming.

Ya the problem is the new locus mobs don't actually give you the feeling like the old days exp grind. Well buffed DDs kill way way too fast and you end up spending like half your time just switching between targets rather than fighting. DDs now get tp so fast you are usually much better off self SCing on separate mobs and just sharing buffs rather than all teaming up on a single mob and coordinating.

I was hoping Locus mobs would have at least 2-3 times as much hp and even more than 2-3 times as much exemplar points, at least that would give us enough hp to mess around with 4 step umbra/radiance SCs or maybe even MBs and actually have fights that maybe last a few seconds. And yes I realize endless chain would be harder then but just make it rewarding enough to not have to endlessly chain. Endless chain is not a good model for exp gain in general, people should be encouraged to take breaks not punished.

No, I do not mean like Apex Cogs. I mean camps that actually reward players for playing the game with proper EP gains compared the the difficulty. Also apex mobs will not be the best EP camp. Locus mobs have a higher multiplier for EP. KRT Locus Bats should be a baseline, the camps I envision would provide 5x~10x more EP per hour if you match the same kill rate. Said camps would just be much harder to hit said kill rate.

I would wager, that if Apex cogs provided significantly more EP per kill, that you would see parties of mostly actual players out there killing them.

I tried locus crabs, which where/are(?) the highest Locus mobs in game. They do not provide a significant boost however, they are not hard either (one can block their defense boost with defense down, such as Armor Break or by having a dispeller). They are also very bot-able.

According to FFXIclopedia, Locus Imps are ~136. Locus Imps are very weak to light, so if you have a good SC light making WS, they are maybe an okay camp. The imps Tantaras seem to be very inaccurate, so there is at least that. They are not hard, do not link but they do aggro.