Oh God... Here we go -- April Fools' Day

Who's going to take the first shot at who??

Bleh. Really, just, bleh...

I was thinking of a way I could fuck with Elmer a little bit for his escapade last year, but just couldn't come up with anything creative enough...

I hate April Fools' Day.

Well, let's see ON EDIT:

The fuckwads in our neighborhood didn't even wait -- the idiots booming their boom-car bass-shit from about 11:30-12:30 in the evening.

Google has "relocated" to Topeka.

And YouTube came up with a good one -- doing all their videos (or at least a few of them) text-only, to purportedly save on bandwidth.

What a week... Glad it's over...

The update brings a lot of interesting possibilities, so how did the week go for me...

Lots of stuff...

Assaults: We did four Corporal ones and I think a Lance Corporal one to get me to Sergeant.

WotG: One Bastokan BC short of this update's main mission line. Check Kimiko's blog for my Distorter of Time run.

FULL MERIT AND CAPPED DNC!! Laila fight also defeated 1/1.

Probably next meriting: Polearm.

Haven't started VNMs or more than getting the polearm from Magians, but plan to get on that as circumstances permit.

Will have the final Medal and get the Cobra Mage set (and probably a couple of Medal of Altana gear items) in a minute or two...

Saw a first in Campaign for me while finishing DNC -- a 100-Byne dropped, promptly lost with a lot of 61. :P

So that's it for now. Tough play-time week -- the home network was cranky, the roommate was called in for an extra run or two...

We'll see how next week goes.

Some days, it's just not your day...

Dareyl of Siren, I'm sorry.

And to the others who were working on Black Coffin, ditto.

I forget what the guy's name was, but, just after the end of the maintenance this morning, someone was shouting for work on the Black Coffin for ToAU.

(Don't be surprised if you see a lot of summoners getting ToAU done -- the two new avatars both require completion of the entire ToAU mission line to get the quests to get the avatars.)

So, anyway, I decide to get involved and help Dareyl (who's in the LS)...

First, a Puppet in Peril group is quickly forming, and that's where I am on the ToAU storyline.

Second, it takes quite a while for us to get the 6 the group leader feels is required.

Then, I find out I need that fracking coin from Caedarva again...

And THEN, we get a last minute switch to another player who needs Black Coffin and was near the Cutter...

After THAT: A job switch forces someone to forget their necessary food and some of their equipment -- emergency move back to Whitegate and more waiting...

And THEN:

The sun comes out full-force in Riverside and my home network ceases to recognize that my computer is on it (and forget trying to run a wire, people -- it won't work here!!), so I drop completely...

Just not my day... VNM group, anyone?

I've been immortalized, I think...

:)

Kimiko decided to put our Distorter of Time run (the one they did for me, not the one Kimi soloed) from Sunday up on Kimi's blog.

It's not much for a fight -- it's just three mages (including my then-67 RDM/WHM) healing the living crap out of Lilisette, with an occasional nuke to the stupid cat thrown in.

You can check out the merriment at http://www.staronion.com/kimiko/?p=1994

---------------

Brief maintenance for the sixteen non-merged worlds from 10-12 today.

Update thoughts...

Two very cool mechanics, I can say, to start with -- this will get edited more today...

Trial of the Magians

Right of the bat: If you aren't trying to level up your Mythic, you start with a base weapon.

But you are provided that base weapon (and it is Ex) out of a weapon chest, and you trade it to the Moogle and then go from there.

Quests either involve killing a few NMs or a LOT of normal monsters, often under conditions like weather.

Proto-Abyssea (Not official name -- one I made up)

This is the new NM stuff. You buy a key item for 1000 gil. Then, anytime you rest/ /heal in the field, it will tell you if there is what is called a Voidwalker in the area. If so, it will tell you how far and in what approximate direction.

Then you go off and /heal every so often to see if you can find it.

Be careful -- they appear, at the very very least, to be T-VT to a 75. I ran into a slime (Globster -- about 4-5K HP approximately) in North Gustaberg and a Thunder Elemental (Thunor -- Does IVs and aga IIIs -- about 4K HP and killed me). No real tricks that I saw, but they are hypergame material.

Also:

New Campaign Items

You can BUY with Allied Notes the Campaign Weaponskill item. It's a level 73 -- Bastok's is a sword with Glory Slash.

The catch: You have to have THE HIGHEST MEDAL (unattainable for the next five days -- the first of the people who get the medal below it got it when the restart happened 90 minutes ago) of the nation for Campaign to get it.

There's another item you can get for each nation's highest medal as well.

The XP ring previously referenced is NOT buyable.

More to come. An early doubleheader Besieged (didn't they say no Besieged in the first three or so hours after a maintenance??) to probably get 68 RDM.

HOLY FREAKING XP RING FROM HEAVEN!!!

Have to post this. Full credit to Allakazham's ImmortalAlchemist.

Info at: http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.html?forum=10&mid=1269276307226732316&num=101&page=1

Data mining the new update, he found this gem!!

Allied Ring
XP Bonus +150% (That means for every 2 XP you get, it gives you 3 more!)
Max Duration TWELVE HOURS
Max Bonus 9K
5 charges.

Unknown as to if it can be recharged.

You have GOT to be kidding me!! Perhaps this is an answer to all the botfests which the Tablet quests have become.

Either that, or that's the reward for finishing up the next round of WotG mission quests.

E E - Y O W ! ! !

While I'm downloading it, let's get a look at it...

Taking from the POL official update post, let's get a look at some of the stuff I'm downloading right now (with a middle finger to wireless interference which kept me completely off the Net til about 10 minutes ago!! -- not that it made any difference, it's 10 PM PDT and we're still at least 2 hours from restart!)...

Brief comments of mine are in italics:

Event related:

New areas in Past Vanadiel: Castle Zvahl. Probably Throne Room as well.

New WotG missions.

I got to the last BC on Bastok before these missions -- now if I can find enough past Bastokans to get this one done so I can be caught up!

Trial of the Magians. Few details up top, just the Moogle where everyone saw it in the VanaFest clip.

Will be very interested to see how this works out.

Several new quests, including those for the TWO large avatarS (Alexander and Odin) added.

Moblin Maze Mongers fishing maze rewards adjusted.

New hunts for the Hunt Registries...

How about some which you can pop using items???

New fish for "Inside the Belly", and a change in scenery for a reviewing of the cutscenes for a particular ToAU quest.

----------

Battle-related:

Monster redistribution in Xarcabard [S].

LET'S HOPE THEY TOOK THE HINT!!!

Castle Zvahl battles, new decorations, Campaign Ops (hopefully not just the Zvahl[S] ones) and Allied Note items, Shadowsoul adjustment (first allow us to fight the Xarcabard battles without getting ripped), and evaluation progress for a Campaign Op completion is adjusted.

New NM's, and a new required NPC you have to speak to in Ru'Lude for that new set of NMs.

Hmmm... Interesting. Let's hope it has something good in store -- perhaps some Magians NM's as well?

Some depop timers and repop timers (the latter, at least, in Sky) adjusted.

SMN: Astral Flow now available without having an avatar out.

Meaning, as I might've suggested, that Odin and Alexander might not be summonable at all without already being under Astral Flow?? "Big risk, big reward, in the Twilight Zone..."

PUP: HTH skill, at least this update, is only going to B+, not to A as previously announced at VanaFest.

Perhaps the PUP HTH would be a bit too strong at A??

The PUP's level will be taken into account as to how maneuvers enhance the stats of the automaton.

Would that not be obvious?

Effects of some attachments and performance of some frames has been adjusted.

Ranged automaton accuracy not affected anymore by distance to the target.

------------

Item related:

Treasure Caskets "overhauled".

That's the word they used!! Synergy stuff now included, and other revisions -- probably lots of them...

Renaming of some Allied Note items (the once-a-week dispensing stuff)...

New EQ, new synthesis...

Synergy:

Cap is now level 60, and more recipes.

Recipes include BST jug pets, earrings for all three nations and most remote towns (!!!) (the Warp Items they were talking about!!), and a whole host of other stuff.

Synthesis bonuses from equipment and furnishings DO now count.

Again, should this not always have been true?

New elemental traits have been added with some limitation.

New evolith as well.

No more Lower Jeuno furnaces.

Some selling prices have been changed, for a lot of the BST jug stuff.

Mining in the Troll areas now has a revised table.

And a couple other things like holiday stuff...

System:

Gardening: Another (probably RMT-induced) nerf: Harvesting now takes a week, crystal feeding for some, two days...

Anything to fuck over RMT is good in my book. And, for the legit gardeners, you pretty much have to know that you should be making money some place else, after all RMT has done to gardening recently.

Add-ons: Certain items can be purchased from Squintrox for the 2009 add-ons, but ONLY if you are FINISHED with said add-on.

Augments: Adjustments in the favor of the players have been made to maximum augments, their chances, and the chances of augmented items.

Corrected issues:

Maximum allowed movement speed has been reinforced -- there apparently had been a way to break it without illegal conduct.

A certain Synergy fuel consumption situation has been corrected. Also, effects of zoning when having a claim of a Synergy Furnace has been corrected as well.

A couple of furniture corrections completes the update.

--------------

As for me: Update is complete and installed. About 45 minutes for the whole process. Still at least 40 minutes (yep, they actually moved it FORWARD an hour to 11 PM PDT as I typed this...) to go til restart.

It's now a SIXTEEN HOUR maintenance!!

Boy, am I glad my Net was shot most of the day.

Wow... Two extensions have now pushed the restart to MIDNIGHT PDT Tuesday morning. It's now 16 hours.

Why not just do 24???

Another "Update Before the Update"...

Just a couple things today:

I'll go into the update about 3K short of full merit DNC -- from there, capping out DNC, fighting Laila, then meriting Polearm.

Assaults: Corporal level: 20/25 points to the next level.

Another Limbus run, and this one won.

WotG: Finally got all the way caught up in the main mission line. Now, to do the two Bastokan quests -- will get one (Behind the Mask) done. The other's a BC which requires 6. Thanks for Kimiko and Keichan, again, for helping out.

No further progress on CoP/Zilart, and doubt we'll get any tonight, due to the update.

Lots to post about later tonight. See you then.

ON EDIT: 5:30 AM PDT. Behind the Mask done. BC mission pre-BC cutscenes taken care of. Last fight to be updated to today's update.

And, just a moment ago: FULL MERIT DNC.

See you later.

Oh, someone pissed my dear roommate off tonight...

More "going into business for ourselves" shit...

Promotes event as one for the online "Relay For Life" effort, but then breaks every rule in the book and tries to undercut just about everyone to promote THEIR Internet project, putting my friend in the middle.

Listen, you con-artist shits: My friend lost the soulmate she loved to CANCER -- one of the few things that keeps her from snapping is working for the day no one else has to!!!

Pissed off?? I don't know who is worse: Her for having to be put in the middle of this because of her friends and her RFL team -- or ME because it's just another example that we seem to enjoy doing the Social Limbo...

"How low can you go?"

Version Update -- and minimum TWELVE-HOUR maintenance -- announced for next Monday.

March 22, I hope you have other things to do most of the day.

8 AM to 8 PM PDT maintenance for the update and the server consolidations.

I almost quit FFXI for good last night...

Almost...

Basically, after four deaths and much frustration, we finally down the Count for Betrayal at Beaucedine...

I am basically already on my last nerve, and, then, my wireless cuts out as I'm at the Pawprints.

Thankfully, when I restart and get back on, I just get a cutscene.

If I had to redo that fight, I'd have deleted my character right then and there. The more I watch this game, the more I become certain that they build some of this for the bots and the like -- let's just say seeing the Mog Tablets quest come up again was not fun.

Anyway, I'm still here -- though the main person organizing a lot of our events won't be much longer - once the update happens and Odin opens up again (side effect of the server mergers), he's off...

Quite an interesting week...

Dare I say, a little TOO interesting... Roommate has had to deal with some issues with the Net project, most appear resolved for the moment (except for one guy who's trying to bilk the project's Relay for Life team for money to take part in a charity portion of said project -- c'mon, who do you think you are???)...

To tell you how brave some assholes are, two things in RL:

1) Last night, out to get some groceries, when some jackass decides to drive by in his truck and yell "GET A TOUPEE!!!"

Fuck -- you -- and -- the -- horse -- who -- rode -- in -- on -- you.

I know I'm going bald with the ol' sunroof, but, frankly, I'd rather be Stone Cold Steve Austin (at least in the hair dept.) than waste money on a toupee.

2) Speaking of wasting money, someone tried to force me to do it last night.

When I got back from the other little misadventure, I was toodling around the Net as an adjunct to playing FFXI (get to that update in a moment)...

When all of a sudden, up pops this window for "Antivirus Soft"...

Has anyone heard of the concept of ransomware?

If not, let me tell you about it, because the shitheads are getting real insidious about it.

"Antivirus Soft" basically states your computer has been infected with viruses, basically on everything you would want to do on the Internet, so it forces all stuff closed.

Except for one -- teensy -- problem...

The only infection is "Antivirus Soft" itself, and the group behind this piece of shit is holding your computer ransom (you can't access the Web, once the startup process has gone far enough for the infection to take hold after login -- you can't access any Task Manager to try to stop it, etc.) until you pay THEM money (real money) to remove it!!!

Well, fortunately, I was able to grab a browser before the shit hit the fan again, and thanks to the good people at bleepingcomputer.com (and, yes, that's the real name of the site), they gave me the information on how to remove it... (Basically, get a better anti-malware thing than you have with Windows, and use it in Safe Mode with Networking...).

Needless to say, I was not pleased. I don't even know where I got the malware -- I accessed no websites I normally don't (though the roommate has reported infection through no less than an ad on ESPN.com in the past!!)...

With that, let's get in-game:

MNK 65 (my fifth Dynamis-eligible job)

SAM 56 (probably soon to be my sixth)

No further progress on CoP...

First Limbus run Friday night, as we 4-manned Temenos West to the final floor -- then the leader got brave and we all died.

WotG missions and quests finally got progress -- now on Betrayal at Beaucedine.

As of now, about 75K to full (75-)Merit DNC.

That's about it for now.

Well, in all my XIII playing, I see I missed something very important...

Quick dispatch from the President and founding member of the Leggy Vanille Fan Club -- can't get enough of her, but they stick her with that dork Sazh????

Congratulations to Siren server on Besieged win #2,500. Two thousand five hundred undefeated wins!!

Personal updates and a couple comments...

The HFS series will continue as I find more news from VanaFest to go HFS about. :)

So, this week:

CoP: Promathia WIN -- Rajas Ring GET

Zilart continuance from Sky this Monday, eventually leading to Bahamut V.1 and "The Last Verse".

Nyzul disc finally upgraded to 30 in helping some other LS members Super Climb 16-30 (3/3 - the 26-30 win came with under 30 seconds left. One of the LS members won a Denali at the 20 fight. Congrats.

Whoever made the Boneyard Gully and Bearclaw Pinnacle BC entrances must've really hated life!

SAM 54 -- soon to be 55.

DNC merits: Under 90K now to full. Then cap DNC, then Laila and I need to have a talk in Qu'Bia Arena.

New hobby: Cycling FoV page 1 in Ro'Maeve to finally replenish some Tabs and use the FoV NM (Kulili) battle in Xarcabard to level MNK to 65.

------------

Couple of comments I have to make on some rants:

First, about the one about Ro'Maeve: I don't think it's personal to me until I speak up. I just think that a lot of players actively attempt to block other players for the same reason many hate this jump of the level cap to 99: They want to be the Big Kahuna.

Second, about the level cap jump: One thought, in the form of a question... Do you think this is Square-Enix' clue to actually get people to select ONE JOB to be elite at, rather than be 75 in all 20 jobs??

Just a thought there...

And I see the shitheads are still out in full force...

Oh, playing the game is so much fun when it's clear that there are people who would much rather never allow you to progress, cock-block your sorry ass, and then claim to have a character so "leet" enough to "embarrass" you out of the game when you call these sorry Internet warriors out on their shit.

Well, more fun in that regard tonight: Ro'Maeve, the weapon FoV, and a looming and starting Besieged got a lot of these fucking lol-cats started.

So here I am in Ro'Maeve, and it's clear from the get-go that these fuckers are going to clean every Ominous Weapon out once they know I'm on page 1. One claims to be doing weaponskill points for his friend, but when I call him out on his cockblocking, he goes into full BluGartr QQ-LOL mode.

All this with the clock ticking on a Besieged, and, more than likely (thankfully not, but only due to Siren's awesomeness at Besieged dispatching the Mamool Ja in about 25 minutes or so), costing me at least one FoV run, if not the one I'm on on top of it.

Look, I'm not dumb. You don't want anyone to progress in this game but YOU. That's why people like Keichan and Medicinebox take what I say here somewhat personally -- because they are a strong minority in this game. They progress, but try to do so in ways that don't obstruct others.

I try to be nice (mostly because people do not want the violent alternative), but when I see this type of deliberate obstructionist behavior, it makes me wonder. And, since griefing is legal, apparently -- as long as enough people do it to claim control over a zone (which see the Astral Burn bullshit that is bannable if they read their own damned rules -- I hope to whatever deity you ascribe to that the "accuracy is reduced with more mobs in the area of effect of Astral Flow" applies to more than just Odin!)...

And then this jackalope (along with his friends, now LOLing the whole mess), threatens to not only hate on DRG/DNC (you think I trust people to give the random heal in this game? What planet do you think I got dropped on my head on??), but bring his DRG on to "embarrass me".

Go fuck yourself up the ass, bitch. Chances are you only got your shit because you either bought it or botted it. You can't embarrass me without getting me banned, moron.

How much of an idiot is this guy? Oh, let's see -- when I tell him what is up, he doesn't choose to take into account that the FoV run I was on was instituted several hours (game days) before -- when I had to log off so my roommate could come in and work tonight on her Net project.

But he's more leet than I am, so I have to STFU and GTFO.

And "no one can be this stupid", jackass?? TRY ME!

HFS Part 3: The Server Merge: What it means, and what it REALLY means...

One of the more controversial subjects about the events at VanaFest last Sunday was the announcement that, in fact, Square-Enix was obligated to reduce the number of servers by a factor of 1/4, from 32 to 24.

Again, for those keeping score, there were 16 "safe" servers, 8 servers being merged into, and 8 servers being merged out of existence into the previous 8, due to low character traffic.

Fairy goes to Sylph.

Kujata goes to Valefor.

Remora goes to Leviathan. (Poor Remora.)

Midgardsomr goes to Quetzacotl (or however they are spelled)

Hades goes to Cerebrus

Seraph goes to Bismarck

Garuda goes to Lakshmi

and Pandemonium goes to Asura. (Yuck for Pandy.)

and all this happens at the next update this month.

Gyogi, on my linkshell, says this is a signal of a failing game.

He's right!

HOWEVER...

This needed to be done. It was clear, as I have said at least once directly on the blog, that many parts of this game were becoming abjectly unplayable during the week (like Campaign, for example), and that there was probably going to have to be some server consolidation.

But EIGHT servers, *without* a Third-Party Program banhammer with it??

Makes you wonder how many they'd have to yank if they did ban all the App users...

But there was one other thing that they said by juxtaposition (and, no, I don't mean the LBR little troublemaker) that I found interesting...

The person reporting on the Special Task Force added the server merges on the end of the RMT report -- appearing to infer that RMT was the only thing supporting 32 servers on FFXI - once the STF got rid of a lot of the RMT (hardy har har har...), they basically found out that, without loss of generality (and of great gain to the playability on some of the servers), they could dump 8 servers already!

Makes you wonder how many more are going to be dumped, say, June.

That said: It had to be done. You're not going to have many people playing high-end content if there's nobody doing the likes of Campaign and the like.

HFS Part 2: Hypergame: Square-Enix' last hope for FFXI

I almost feel like I need Regis Philbin, the "Super Millionaire" lights, and the 3rd-tier music for this post:

"Welcome to the Next Dimension of this game..."

*Camera goes upward into the lights, ominous music, and your character is now sitting with 25 new levels of XP table to deal with...*

Welcome to something I will now term HYPERGAME.

FFXI changed in a three-hour cacophony of music, sound, lights, video, and presentations in Japan Sunday -- and I guess I'm much happier than most, believe it or not.

Square-Enix has admitted that it can no longer expect to really get new players, so it's going to concentrate on those they have.

And, since 2/3 - 3/4 of all the characters on the game are 75s -- not to mention those lower levelled characters of players who have 75s...

Hence, hypergame.

And there are a number of facets, some beginning in March, some going forward from there. But 2010 will be the Year of Hypergame for FFXI, really the last hope to prove me wrong vis-a-vis whether FFXI is dead or not.

FFXI as we know it is dead. Square-Enix admitted as much at VanaFest.

So they're going to blow it up -- it obstructs their view of Venus.

First: The level cap, starting in June and going through the two remaining version updates after that, is going to 99.

Easily the biggest announcement in a series of huge announcements at VanaFest.

There are so many facets to this that I know I'm not going to get to them all in one post.

a) It may be the thing that finally allows players to play zones like Xarcabard (S), Castle Zvahl (S), and a variety of endgame/hypergame functions that are either in the game now or will be soon.

I can't speak enough of my frustrations with Xarcabard (S). You can't Campaign in there, for God's sakes. Any time you try to fight something, here comes this True Everything mob that just runs you over the coals and sends you back to your home point.

That's why you never see people actually playing that zone. And they probably won't do the new Castle Zvahl Baileys/Keep (S) either (coming in the March update as well!). This will change once the players get the ability to go to 85 and the like.

And that's just one of a number of them.

b) It's a recognition that low-manning is becoming more and more necessary these days, to do just about anything.

So now, when you do finally get players to 99, they can do a lot more stuff than they used to. Now they might be able to low-man a Dynamis a lot easier than now. HNM's might get down to a semi-manageable number. Some stuff might actually be soloable by more combinations of players.

This opens up options for players.

c) This allows Square-Enix to open up a whole new game, as it were (and we're not even talking about XIV).

And that gets us to some more of the Hypergame content...

2) Trial of the Magians

Designed for 75s, and I hope somewhat soloable by us (at least some of it), they're going to have us upgrading our weapons and armor in ways we choose, probably to deal with some of the hypergame content.

The weapon quest chains will start in the March update, if I read the VanaFest recap threads correctly. Armor, probably in June.

It's probably going to come down to exactly how this is going to be affected. I'm pretty certain this is how people are going to be allowed to get their gear up to speed for hypergame, or at least to start hypergame.

I'm looking forward to it.

3) Abyssea

It's basically another Dynamis-like situation (parallel world to Vana'diel, a third set of AF (probably hypergame-levels), new hypergame-level challenges, what have you), although this one _can_ be managed with just a party (or so they say).

My biggest gripe is that Abyssea is the 2010 Add-on Pay-to-Play content. One zone each update, starting in June, $9.99 each.

I really hope that hypergame isn't , for all intent and purpose, pay to play, but we'll see on that one. I am interested to see what they do and, whatever deity of choice you believe in willing, I'll look into the first one if I'm still here in June.

4) A new "hyper-limit" system at 99.

Be scary to see what they come up with there. Can't even think of what they'd do -- Bio IV? Cure about VIII???

5) Other hypergame considerations, some reaching into the first 75 levels as well...

June: Abolishment of Promathia-area level caps, like Riverne.

Be interesting to see if the promies get abolished as well. There goes one of my farming area-limit point situations. We'll see how that plays out.

Subjob changes: This might be one of the big ones. As you probably know, most of the "job-defining" abilities of the jobs don't come into play until AFTER the job hits 37 (Ni-shadows are one of the few exceptions, which is why shadow-tanking is basically required for things like Nyzul Isle.).

Now, a 99 main will have their subjob at 49. This opens up most of the game-breakers -- like Convert for basically EVERY MAGE JOB IN THE GAME...

They say they will be making changes in the subjob mechanics (probably to make subjob things like Convert weaker (like, say, +2MP/tick or something to that effect). We'll see...

5) And then there's the Law of Unintended Consequences -- you may read this as what a lot of the populace is now bitching about.

I've made no secret that I am not usually happy with the FFXI and SE, and I'm sure there will be elements of this which will have me bitching when they come out.

But the preponderance of what I've seen over the last two days has been very negative toward the level cap increase.

They had to do it, people! Square-Enix had to make a statement on how they were going to keep FFXI going, and they could no longer do it with a level-75 cap. It's that -- damned -- simple.

I think most of the griping comes down to one thing: Most of the players (at least the American side of things) want to be the Big Men on Campus, the Big Kahuna, the Big Cheese, the Shit that Stinks, the Bull of the Woods, etc. And the breaking of the level cap no longer allows them to do that.

This takes from them one of their major enjoyments of the game -- to lord over everyone else their achievements, that they are the best, that they are the only ones who should be entitled to play FFXI, etc.

And, for some, that takes away their reason to continue to play at all.

Yes, 75 - 99 will be an absolute bitch to level.

Yes, there will be abuses (please, Please, PLEASE let the "accuracy diminishes with area of effect" on Astral Flow be true for ALL Astral Flow effects....)...

And game balance?

WHAT GAME BALANCE?

The cheaters and exploiters blew up game balance a long time ago. Square-Enix is actually trying to RE-balance the game, if they can.

And, as for the low levellers, those who won't have a 75 by June and will probably be left behind even further than now, perhaps that will be a push to get them on FFXIV when it comes out.

But the level break was needed and welcome -- though it will present problems and exploits.