I don't know how I missed this, but a couple of days ago, SE stealth added even more content to the Vana'fest website. It isn't any amazingly earth-shattering information, but it is at least a better English translation of what we have heard so far. The first thing to check out are the video reviews of Vana'fest. The first two videos are of the NA Community Team doing a review of the event, and the rest of the videos are very high quality versions of the event itself. They are all definitely worth the view time.
The second thing that has been added is a listing of the potential changes that are coming to all 20 jobs in the next year. These are insanely vague, as SE hates making promises before they can deliver, like they did with the whole new Summons debacle. You can't point to anything in the discussion that makes you say, "Oh, we are getting that new ability". In fact, I don't know if any of this is going to equate into specific job abilities themselves. It is more of an explanation of the design philosophy for all of the jobs moving forward.
Honestly, I am at a loss as to how SE is going to handle the level cap increase for everyone. Are we going to get more JA's and spells as the levels rise? I don't think there are any jobs that truly get new JA's at level cap. For the most part JA's are pretty much finished by level 60. So while, I, and probably everyone else, is hoping that we end up getting a huge number of new JA's, I just don't see it happening. That said, if they are going to give us some new JA's, then level 80 would be a nice round number to give us those new abilities. Spells on the other hand are going to need to come more often just because that is how they are designed. Most spell casters get at least one new spell every level, and raising the level cap without more spells just doesn't seem to do very much. At the very least, healers are going to need a new tier of spells because as levels rise so will HP pools, and so will damage from higher level mobs. To deal with this with the current tier of spells would quickly drain almost all healers. But then again, maybe that is why all healers are going to have access to Refresh and Convert.
I don't know if this is how SE is going to feed us information regarding the announcements made at Vana'fest but I will keep an eye out and see if anything new pops up!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Vana'fest! It keeps going... and going... and going...
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Morning in Vana'diel: Left out of the Level 40 Fun.
Morning in Vana'diel is your daily dose of FFXI and all things Vana'diel. Give us your thoughts on the interesting topics of the day! SAM has 18 million JAs and BLM has two. Where is the love?
I think everyone should have level 40(ish) abilities, and I think that SE is moving that way from the last couple of update. WHM, RDM and NIN have gotten a few things tossed in for level 40 that have really changed and improved their jobs especially for NIN and RDM. There are still some jobs that are lacking these abilities, and there are some jobs that have abilities around this level that are these kinds of defining abilities. In the end, there really should be these kind of alternating or “stance” abilities for all jobs. It surprisingly adds a lot of flavor to the jobs and are more buttons to push which most people like.
Like I said some jobs get these abilities around level 40 instead of at level 40. WAR and RNG get really nice abilities around this level even though it is not exactly at level 40. SAM gets them a lot lower because they were intended to be used as a subjob too, but SAM gets a level 60 ability that is also kind of nice. SAM has a bunch of other nice little toys that makes up for it so it’s not so bad for them.
But there are some jobs that have gotten the shaft in the backside from SE when it comes to job adjustments. Yes, BLM I am talking about you! You have gotten screwed and you really need something to help you out. WHM really needed something to make it stand out from RDM and SMN and SCH when it came to healing and that was in the form of the level 40 JAs. Now BLM needs something that makes it better than SCH for nuking. They really need something that either improves their MP efficiency or damage potential or both. I think a set of alternating JAs would be helpful here for BLM.
I think it is probably coming for BLM, probably in the next update in fact (probably in October when I am out of town). It is something that BLM really needs to be competitive in their pretty much sole role as a nuking DD. It’s time that SE hands out a little JA love to the BLM.
Thursday, July 09, 2009
POL News: Circles and Spells.
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.
#1 ~ Monk
#2 ~ Samurai
#3 ~ Ninja
#4 ~ Dragoon
Chaotic Pellucidity
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