Showing posts with label Beastmaster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beastmaster. Show all posts

Monday, May 24, 2010

So, what did I miss?

Posted by Ringthree at 4:50 PM

I am back, slightly more tan, slightly more drunk and wishing I was still on vacation. But time marches on, and as it does so comes the version update notes. Let's review what happened last week and toss in a little dash of Ring meta-commentary for some spice!
First, SE gave a little more information about the first Abyssea expansion, Visions of Abyssea. The information provided was not that deep to say the least. I didn't really expect all that much, but all we got was basically a generic blurb about darkness, bleakness, anguish, destruction, and harrowing...ness. Hell, they even used the called the skies sanguine. Hey SE, you are making a game for a bunch of previously teen now sadly older video game nerds that just can't let go. How are they supposed to know what sanguine even means... wait... ok, maybe they are going to be the only people in the word that knows what sanguine means. Alrighty SE, go ahead, what were you saying? Anyway, we get a lot of big, nasty, scary words and not much of anything of substance. I mean honestly, the drawn picture of the new expansion gives us a better impression of what we can expect than the words that you choose to write about the damn thing! I felt like I was reading some kind of spooky-evil-demonic-underworld former baseball player trying to answer direct questions about steroids at a congressional hearing.

That isn't to say that I am not looking forward to the expansion, because I am totally geeking out for the damn things. An entire set of expansions designed around end-game? Where do I sign up? After finally doing some of my Wings missions (my god do those missions get INSANELY good after Lilith is introduced) and getting a better idea of what is going on, I am firmly of the opinion that Abyssea is the memories of the current time in Lilith's time-line that Atomos has already swallowed up. Yeah, those were spoilers there, but seriously something needs to get you guys motivated to do those missions and quests already! If you look at the background painting of the Abyssea website you will also see all sorts of new weapons as well as in the pictures on the Visions of Abyssea page. First and foremost, there is the sword the size of a small elephant in the hand of a particularly white Paladin. The gear is definitely in the .dats already, but that sword is not. That sword would give the bulbous-Nerf-cartoon weapons from WoW penis envy. Sure, sure, the taru is wearing purple Baron's gear, and he has an all new club model, but what is really interesting is the fist full o' giant spikes the MNK is using. Oh, and the nasty, demon Behemoth... that's interesting too.

Well, that was my report on one picture... man I can be long winded. That doesn't mean I am going to stop though. :) Our second pic is interesting in all new and equally long-winded ways! Ok, first of all there is the new mob, which is just the center mob in this picture from the back. But do we really care about non-series-related mobs? No, we don't. We care about big-bladed choppy sticks, the Yagudo-wannabe's that wield them and their... pink "power" Ranger friends? Seriously, ok, white haubs? Weird, but whatever, they do look good. Aqua-marine Baron's gear (and I don't give a fuck what color E. Body is, but I am not stepping into that war either)? That's fine by me. But I swear to god SE, I will fucking fly to Japan and I will piss in all of your fucking sake if put even one decent fucking stat on that pink holocaust. It's Noct gear, a cool design if in somewhat boring colors, but it's been made FABULOUS! Don't you fucking dare! Skadi is already way more pink than it should be... Ranger's are awesome archers with a little wilderness stealth and a whole bunch of shoot-you-in-the-face damage tossed in. This is what SE said about RNG's at VanaFest:

We also plan on adding new equipment designed for both form and function, with attributes and appearance befitting these lethal hunters and huntresses.
If this shit makes it into the game, then we know that SE really has been fucking with us all this time. Form and function? Attributes and appearance? Fuck me gently with a chainsaw... So, the RNG gets tossed into the dressing room at Benetton but the BST beats him up, steals his lunch money, rapes a Yagudo and then wears it's skin like Buffalo Bill and gets a "that's not an axe, THIS is an axe" axe to top it all off. The BST gear in that model-line is notorious for massive suckage, but man there is no way they can put bad stats on a coat made out of a fucking Yagudo. It would be an even bigger crime than making "Rosy the Ranger" gear.

Yeah, that was long-winded, so what? Don't make me stab you. I have been out of the loop for a week. Tomorrow, I might go over the new quests update, or I might just skip it because I don't know if it's worth a whole blog post, and I do need to cover the CoP areas getting uncapped and the money I now owe Iceblazek. Fucking SE!

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Thursday, July 09, 2009

POL News: Circles and Spells.

Posted by Ringthree at 10:09 AM

New Job update thing on POL. I don't know what else to call it really, I supposed there are job ability adjustments here but there is really nothing "new" except for two new BLU spells. I certainly hope this is not the last installment of job adjustment for this update because this is really next to nothing. I am hopeful, but there is nothing in this update note to indicate that there might be more on the way.

The first thing that was mentioned was the fact that skill ups for low and middle levels has been improved. This was because Level Sync parties and Campaign was limiting the opportunities that players had to get skill ups appropriate for their levels. Now, there could be an issue with this. If it is only for low or middle levels of the job then this is next to useless, because you will still be leveling under Level Sync or Campaign. I assume that they mean low and middle levels of the skills, so if your skills really lag behind you will get more skill ups, but once you get to the cap and you are not understand Level Sync as much because you are doing normal XP or Merit parties, then the skill ups will normalize. This is just another one of those cases where SE is pretty unclear and they will never clear things up, we will just have to find out for ourselves. And I will have to wonder when I will finally get that last level of Parry skill up on SAM or NIN. :(

Circle JA's are getting a boost too. We have no idea what kind of boost they are getting though. SE again is very vague here. Just stating that they know that the Circle JA's are pretty useless compared to their delay, and that they are going to get a big buff. This is going to effect PLD, SAM, DRG, DRG and BST's merit circle ability. Like with many changes, I have to wonder how much SE worries about game balance between the jobs. Instead of looking at the jobs themselves, they are looking at the ability types to get people to use them more often. But does PLD really need another buff? Does SAM? DRG? DRK? BST does definitely, but they are just buffing a merit ability, and not something that effects all BST and more importantly BST that have already handed over their merits for other abilities that might have to now switch them if this JA is really good.

Finally, BLU gets some more spells. This is nice for BLU I suppose, but with very many things in this game these spells will either be awesome and used all the time or they will suck and will never be used. This is especially true of BLU that usually has a limited store of spells they can use and it is already full. I understand that when they put new mobs into the game they will want to add new spells, but a lot of the spells overlap because the TP moves of the mobs overlap. This is fine for the mobs because they still have unique combination of TP moves decided by the developers. But most players are going to just pick the strongest spells, and SE wants people to use new spells they are going to have to provide something strong and unique that BLU's don't already get. Again, I have to wonder if they are just creating to be creative or if they are considering game balance and player choice in any of their development decisions.
Here is the full text of the update notes:

As a follow up to last week's article on new ninja job abilities, it is with pleasure that we introduce other job-related additions and adjustments scheduled for the fast-approaching July version update.

Rate of Gain for Combat and Magic Skills
The introduction of in-game systems such as Level Sync and Fields of Valor, while expediting job level increases in the low and middle level ranges, has caused gains made in combat and magic skills to lag behind.

To address this issue, the rate at which combat and magic skills increase during low and middle job levels is set to be given a boost.

Circle-type Abilities
Up until now, the benefits granted by Circle-type abilities have been lackluster relative to their ability delay. The July version update will see these abilities imbued with additional effects for greatly enhanced usability.

The following abilities will benefit from the above adjustment:
Holy Circle / Arcane Circle / Warding Circle / Ancient Circle / Killer Instinct

Blue Magic
Two new blue magic spells are scheduled to be added in the coming version update.

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