Dev Tracker - Discussion

I guess this is subjective, because it depends on your definition of "Reasonable". How does ML50 compare to other grinds in FFXI?

How long does it take to grind a Prime weapon beginning to end, maximizing your hour perfectly every single day and using Ruspix whenever it is available? Let's say the number is 5 months, so 150 hours. Add like 10 Ruspix, so 160 hours max to make a Stage 5. Can a player hit ML50 beginning to end in 160 hours (days) if they do at least one hour per day? And there's another component to consider: MLs can be grinded endlessly, something like Sortie is entirely time gated. But to the same end, do players consider Sortie's stage 5 requirements to be unreasonable? I know people who have multiple 5s, so clearly they thought the grind was worth it. Both can be done legit, but people will quickly identify which grind appears to be more worth it for their time and prefer that one.

Now would a normal player think that kind of grind was reasonable? Probably not.


It's all about perspective. I think SE intentionally put out a grind that was so far ahead so that players always have a goal to progress towards. The problem is twofold, though. 1) Players have more lives now than they did a decade or two ago, and the player base is old, so we don't have time or interest to mindlessly grind the same monsters over and over again night after night for an artificial number (but for some reason, we do with Sortie, >.>). 2) MLing in it's current form is extremely boring, and we have long since moved past that model, to the point that it's no longer appealing to players. People would much rather have a laundry list of things they can do every single day (Raids, UNM, Sortie, Omen, Dynamis, Ambuscade, Peach Power etc) that rewarded substantial exemplar points that they can repeat daily and earn similar progress towards ML, than sit there and hit a Colibri with Rudra's Storm for the 426757th time. SE just never updated their stereotypes for what they thought players would want to do with their time.

The other elephant in the room that people ignore about MLs is that they largely don't make a difference in your performance in the long run, but they're just another component in the "sum of all parts" equation. You don't need HQ2 necks. You don't need REMA weapons or Instruments, or Epeolatry or Idris or Yagrush. You don't need luas. You don't need 800 pieces of gear. You don't need 40 different toggles for every scenario. You don't need dozens of meds per character and addons to improve gameplay. You don't need Su5s. You don't need Prime weapons. You don't need R30 gear. But every single addition makes your character that much more powerful and players will always want to climb that ladder. SE understood that, so they made you work your *** off (bot) for it. In the end, it doesn't really matter, but to "you", it does.

+2 neck* for 40 mil is an infinite greater investment than ML30 for 30 mil.

*exceptions apply

If ML50 gave you a glowing Crown/halo unique lockstyle or Golden Shiny aura around your character, people would care about ML50. That way they can sit in town and show off to everyone their achievement*

Not sure I follow the comparison. An HQ1 neck character to R20 for 2-4M and ML30 for 30M, vs a +2 neck ML0 player, the former is the better investment, just from a stats perspective.

Akshually. As an Asuran, I have to correct you. You need ML 60 just to be able turn your (!) LFP flag on. It's hard coded into the server.

Considering the current discussion is about how further up the ladder you go, it costs more for the same return, you cant evaluate “bang for your buck” as as youre merging both things while they're at their best cost/reward values.


Is it better to dump 44k RP into one piece of Nyame for R30 or 8.5k into 5 pieces for 5 R17 pieces? From a stats perspective, its the latter, but thats because as you go further up the ladder, the ratio drops significantly.

Also you prob wont use all r17 pieces, as there are better pieces elsewhere at that point.

In before SE adds a neck to the game with 350 HP, 100 MP, +50 to all Stats and +50 to all native combat/magic skills*

* must be ML50/su6 to equip it.

Agree with everything you said. On Primes:

Yes, I do personally. I know some do it and you could argue the reward for your time is better with primes depending on the weapon, but I've long felt the S5 requirements to be excessive and dumb. People do it, fine, but I see it in the same category as ML50 that it's so far out of reach that players don't see the carrot and it's bad for retention for the same reasons. Neither are strictly necessary but I'd rather they be obtainable, but like you said, obtainable is relative. The game has always had out of reach things (Relics/mythics during 75-cap for instance) but IMO that was, still is, bad game design and doesn't do much to keep players around.

OTOH, Bumba aside, I see r30 in Odyssey as an obtainable goal. You get a good party, you work your clears up, and you get the clear, then you can earn RP with some flexibility in time and who participates. I am not saying it's flawless but compared to Primes and >ML40 - it's more reasonable.


It's just not as rewarding, the rewards to time isn't as big, even considering the other factors. IIRC MLs were intended to work alongside v20/v25 updates (and maybe a few master trials??) per their wording, yet you don't need MLs for those things and the overall stat reward is low.

I guess this all leads to ask - what would make ML50 worthwhile to the playerbase if the current exp numbers stay the same?

crab batons! they are redoing all the special armor/weapons with recolors. I hope we get that cool pen and camera

I mean for those unwilling to bot

Personally I treat ml 50 as an identifer the persin probably bots and probably is actually terrible at player said jobs. I've rarely been proven wrong. Thats a huge bonus in filtering out shitty players.

I think back to the 75 days, once upon a time, hitting max level was seen as an achievement. I joked with friends the first time I hit Lv75 on DRG, I "beat the game". The reward for ML50 is two things: having the max possible stats your job allows, so no further (current) job improvement is needed, and a "trophy" that others can visually see (the number). It's similar to a Master Trials lockstyle trophy, where many players take pride in achieving that item because it means they've beaten something extremely hard. Interestingly enough, most players don't see Master Trial lockstyle weapons as "worth it" either, because it's literally a shiny that can't do anything besides brag to others about what you have done. The value is only respected among other top players who care about that kind of achievement. Same concept with stuff like Titles.

Likewise, the problem ironically with MLs is next to no players have earned the ML50 legitimately, so nobody views it respectably either, which further devalues the "reward", which was supposed to be "respect" among your peers for being able to grind to that level. When someone back in 75 era had a Maat's cap, it was respect. If someone in today's era has all ML50, its seen as a dirty botter. No respect. It's a sad case of "nobody cares" because whatever prestige ML50 was supposed to bring is basically worthless to most people.

To your second point, all they have to do is attach something to ML50 (like an extra Ruspix every day or an Iris to HQ your Bonanza weapon, or another bonanza weapon), and it will be valuable in people's eyes. But not now they won't, they know everyone is botting it, so they'd just be giving out free rewards without having to earn it.

If you do 9 bosses runs, perfectly reasonable.
If you do 8 bosses runs, way too grindy but still much better than ML50, imho.
With the "little" difference that you can merc buy or bot ML whereas you, reasonably, cannot do that with Primes lol xD

Not being able to bot or buy primes is definitely a bonus in my eyes. They would mean very little imo if they could be botted or bought. Currently the only ultimate weapon in the game that cant be bought or botted as far as I'm aware. That's worth something imo.

I thought master levels where meantto he some extra grindy thing that would take a long time. I'm pretty proud of being a 46 fam without any botting and very little exp farms. Almost all done in content.

Explain to me how 8-bossing an entire Stage 5 is better than grinding ML50, both beginning to end. I'm curious to hear this one. (in fact, you cannot solely "8-boss" a 5, because you require Aminon for Mesosiderites, unless you include Aminon in some runs instead of the other 8 bosses)

Says who? Asura shouts every single day (I have them blocked, but ffxiah shows them) for "40k Sortie Gallimaufry" runs. You absolutely can buy a Prime, or at least the Gallimaufry part. Wouldn't be surprised if groups sell Mesos too.

At the same time, no one seriously considers getting multiple ML50 jobs a worthwhile "achievement", given they 100% botted their way to ML50.

More of a "lol I guess I don't have to EP anymore" kind of thing, or meme-ing by posting pictures pretending to toss altana's repast +2 with their master levels page open and it's all ML50s as far as the eye can see.

But no one would do that, that's just trolling. XI players are far too respectful for that.

ftr SAM is easy to ML50, and if you have a SAM easy to ML other jobs

There's a reason all the ml bots are sams.

member when you wouldn't invite someone who was below rank 6 in their nation because they probably sucked? or they gave everyone those obnoxious stars for mastering a job? ***is baked into the game

yeah

Gross.... *** cesspool of a server. No wonder 99% of the people I meet who have transferred from there are useless.

Its not so much the job sam I'm proud about its the way I've gotten my ep. I'm aware sams stupid good at killing ep mobs, I still very rarely ever ep and only with a full party. 95% of my ep has come from playing the job in actual content. Thats the thing I value.

Thats easy when you can bring samurai to everything. Or it's your only job. Just perks of the job is all really. It's not the same situation or pride for someone whose main is BLM, who WILL need to grind EP to get comparably that high

If only there was this camp that wasnt nerfed by adding a new type of mob that nerfs aoe dmg to the ground, which let you round up a bunch of mobs and aoe them down with a variety of ws'/spells/abilities that every job had access to in some fashion

I have been previously informed by people here that some players give RMT their account information the RMT logs them in to farm galli.

So, you can buy primes.

even removing cruel joke, that was never gonna last. when 1 party can pull the entire donut room and prevent everyone else from fighting there was bound to be a problem.

Solution id think would have been to make more aoe camps imo

I mean. It's impossible to do. You can never sate that kind of desire.

Optimally. They should just the entire game Locus Colibri.

AoE camps only work well for pld. No pld, no pull. And you can't share at all. You get one dbag in the entire zone and now your aoe is suboptimal.

But a billion colibri and everyone will be happy.

i liked Crawlers' Nest (S) before they changed it
Could probably get M.Lv 50 there with AOE setups

Even though that was a good camp
I had a feeling it wasn't going to last

Got lots of /tell saying they were going to report
For pulling most of the zones mobs / hording mobs