Epic Campaign Rants & Stories, Please!

[Aymee]

I know we have campaign threads in advanced and a WotG discussion section, but I have such an epic rant I'd like to spit out that there's nowhere else to put that wouldn't qualify as horrific spam somewhere else. I know other people have ranting they'd like to get out, so by all means do it here.


So yea, I'll start.
Warning: Long as hell.
Note: I know writing this does nothing, but it makes me feel a bit better.

Above all else, I'm so goddamn annoyed with the /brd crap. Like... I didn't mind it at first. People in the 50s and 60s would stand around by the C.A.s with flag up for an exp pt. They'd cast some stuff, they might cure you if you're resting, they might come attack fortifications. This was okay. As long as they were seeking it showed they were just trying to kill time.

Naturally, this needed to be abused! While attempting to defend my precious Lastok this morning with 65 people in zone, 15 of them showed up on /sea 1-50. That's not including the /anons so it's far worse. What really gets me pissed is 70+es doing it, or 75s. I mean good god, what the hell are you doing standing there as a 75? Good lord. Get the hell out of my burning city. Even if you claim you're not doing anything wrong, you're still lagging everyone else. I don't use a Bastok keychain because of the radioactive chinese metal in it! At least let me pretend I have pride!
((Disclaimer: To my knowledge, there is no radioactive metal in the SE online shop products, nor do I know if they're made with Chinese materals, but I needed an exaggerated statement of some sort. Actually, the package labels for the stuff all say they're made at the SE corporate marketing division, so good times.))

I swear, one of these nights I'm going to snap and drag a leader with AOE down to that corner... the people who aren't afk/botting w/should be able to notice and run away, anyway. I would then come back 59 minutes later and watch all the bodies auto-HP. Much stress relief.

...

In regards to trying to take areas back, I've given up on that now, too. For 4 hours last night before 'tally' I did battle after battle in Grauberg... I was amazed how much the battles were active. Then I started to piece together why...... the turtles never retreat because they FUCKING REPOP. WTFingF? No, this was not lag... they gave fresh radar dots and everything. ...And no, it was not the supply convoy mobs. Even with 2 decent NPC groups (iron musketeers + the drg rdms) and 50 people pounding on the OP for 20+ minutes at a time... just no progress. Bastok influence never went over ~15%, and no matter how low we got the fortifications (103/150 at one point) it went back up to 140 minutes after every battle. Resources never dropped.

Other fun: It would seem that the re-deploy timer on beastmen groups indeed starts when the original group dies, but because of this repop bs the group never officially retreats. There was one battle where the Elite Raiders group got smacked and then CAME BACK during the same battle, but there were still 'old ones' that kept repopping... so they were basically reinforcing and replacing themselves, which is ridiculous. Since they never retreated in the eyes of the server, we get zero influence credit for defeating them.

So yea, if NPCS and 50+ players slaughtering everything for hours upon hours with a [literal] line of people there for Slaughterhouse and none of that does any actual damage to fortifications or resources, and the influence goes up at an apparent rate of 1% or less per win, what in gods name are we supposed to do to take back a zone? Seriously, there is not a single thing more we could have done to press the attacking... and I'd have thought the Ops being done to the OP would like, actually damage it. Alas, no. Maybe if the retreat/victory conditions for NPC groups (beastmen mostly) weren't bugged, we might actually get some influence?

Now it's just a matter of time on Garuda until Bastok and Windy get conquered, since player morale in trying to bust out is now non-existent after the epic effort this past week. Everyone I know that regularly does campaign is sick to death of it and it only doing it for rankups or to renew medals, at this point... we all see no point in trying since we can't actually fight ourselves out. We can't even OP elsewhere, do our Ops, get sigil or do nation quests 90% of the time.

...

I have a [very lengthy] list of simple demands here, and it's nothing that would break the balance of anything (what little there is in campaign)... so really SE needs to rot for not including this basic stuff after watching campaign evolve for months now:

Top 3:
--Sigil guard present during campaign. ...I'd rather not lose exp defending my city, and those latent effects are very pleasant when combined for cheap.

--Teleport C.A. present during campaign. At least let us go outside and pretend like we can attack other zones. Hell, I'm not even able to OP over to Windy so I can watch Yagudo torch the city.

--Teleports to new locations. I can see how the Recall spells were meant to get you semi-close to the beastmen cities, but why can't we get around to our own cities? It's ridiculous that we can be sent anywhere... but just not to another nation or to the entrance to a dungeon. Bastok in particular suffers from this (as they do in the present, as well).

Battle-related:

--Retaking zones. Greatly detailed explanation above. ...And would it be too much to ask to have NPCs turn to attack newly-popped beastmen defenders instead of continuing to attack the fortifications and get picked off one by one?

--Common rally point/active movement for defending NPCs. It'd be nice not to see Hundredfist and Shadowhorn smacking the tower while Maximillian is 20ft away by the HP. Casting diaga on the group with ninjaboots on, having Maximillian grab one every lap around town and praying the tide of battle turns before dawn is not a very desirable campaign strategy.

--Actual defending. Even with NPC groups "defending" cities, they often aren't even in the battle... or their AI attacks a few mobs out of one group and lets the others slide through to attack fortifications. How about setting defending NPCs to link to/with Fortifications that get attacked, so that any NPC that doesn't presently have hate will go and actually do what they're supposed to be there for? In Bastok, for example, even if you get lucky and get one of the 2 groups that pop by the center tower, that doesn't help an incoming group that runs straight down the stairs to the guild and bypasses them completely.

--Mismatched NPCs vs NPCs. Are there any zones where the 'normal' NPC groups attending actually seem like an even match? The most laughable example of this is the Field Musicians vs er--well, ANY defenders in Pashhow... but there are a lot of others. The most lopsided things are generally -ga/AOE things vs straight melee units. Hard to win in NGust when Venomtail holds Invincible Shield up and 10 mobs nuke him senseless.

--Allied medics vs beastmen medics. What's with their endless MP, AOE buffs and constant high-tier cures? I both laugh and cry a little at the same time when a mushroom-hatted hume medic casts Cure1 on me after I take 750dmg from a -ga3. ...Then is kind enough to cast P1 on me when my own P2 wears.

--BRD and /BRD fixing. Honestly, I have no idea how you'd do this... but wow does it need some kind of fix. Perhaps limit the amount of EXP obtained via a certain action per campaign battle (as defined by the server), instead of every time you get tags. The limit could go up at higher levels and eventually go away at 75. For BRD mains, perhaps you could give some kind of AOE-but-lesser effect for players in an AOE... like how SMN buffs work. ...Actually, does it already work that way? I wouldn't know, since I've never once seen a BRD or COR in campaign.

--Put in a lvl requirement for campaign battles. Say, 50 maybe? At least in the cities. 50 is when the lowest tier of everything else starts, so this seems decent. Eliminate the exp penalty under 61 and lower mob evasion so that a 50s melee using sushi might get even 50% accuracy.

Ops-related:

--Continuity regarding Ops during campaign battles. We can't accept or complete ops during battles, yet the NPCs for the resource, synth and camera ops stay? Ironically, the Bridge Too Far NPC stays, despite needing another zone for that op to even be active.

--Limitations of Ops. I've seen on many days there simply not being some Ops on the list. Do we even know why this happens? I don't mean things for other zones, but the in-city stuff like Streetsweeper and Steel Resolve. I'd assume there's a cap per day of number of times the op can be done. This is pretty damn pointless. Especially with resources constantly at 0/300 and low nation morale and prosperity I see no reason why we shouldn't be able to do the normally-available ops.

General:

--Actual benefits for higher rank. Having 15min longer sigil per medal isn't much incentive, and the requirements for mission-quests in terms of rank aren't all that high. At least bribe us with an exp multiplier, or (god forbid) some gil/other stuff. ...And unless the campaign body pieces are absolutely godly, there won't be much reason to max your rank besides just saying you did.

--Patch notes that make sense. Last time, we were told that beastmen forces would change strength based on progress in campaign and use different tactics as well. All that's seemed to mean is that they have higher HP and attack, and are on nothing but full blitzkrieg mode.

--Kindred. Since we can't attack them, they have no zones they need to defend nor resources they need to maintain. Subsequently, the Kindred groups are always available for attacks and pound the cities repeatedly... and since the campaign AI doesn't seem to make any NPC counter-movements for Kindred forces (I'd assume because they're 'hidden', and not in the log, etc.)... those battles are usually just epic pain and fail. Also, see next. ...Worse yet, even if a beastmen army AI is set to defending mode for a week, Kindred can just come in constantly and still force a large % of city battle time.

--Northlands. ...Why don't we have access yet? Then again, since we'll all be locked in our cities we won't be able to OP or probably even walk up there safely. Those zones could be such epic fun with NPC groups from all nations joining in the same battle (taru BLMs + elvaan PLDs + hume musketeers + epically strong leaders = actual battle strategy).

--Big guns. Where are the uber NPCs? Like, the super top tier... mythril musketeers, Shantotto, etc. That said, there are also brutal beastmen NPCs not accounted for yet that'd be fun to see.

--...Really big guns? Speaking of large guns, can we find some way to implement a special feature for each nation to use in desperate times? For example, the much-lauded Bastok cannons would be nice for an occasional air raid. They're mentioned so damn much by NPCs in the present (ever talk to all the NPCs and do all the quests in metalworks?).


Above all else, if there were just 1 change to make...

--Full reset! If a nation gets completely conquered, reset the beastmen army strength to (essentially) zero, and start over from scratch like when the expansion first came out... with Allied control of the 2 closest regions to town and beastmen the opposites. Yes, I know this is just a bailout and punishes us for only wasting 4 hours a day on campaign instead of 6 or 8... but it wouldn't make us feel bad for losing. I mean, at least we could move around and fight in different places... you know, battles that are fun and different every time. Kinda like I think campaign was supposed to be. This would also cure the [really obvious eventual] problem of under-populated campaign zones for people doing that content at a later time.

--Too many more things that I might add later because my brain hurts now.


...

No need to respond and say "well none of this is going to happen", because I'm already well-aware of that. It just greatly saddens me that what was an incredibly fun game activity and 100% what the game needed for a lot of more casual players got completely ruined and isn't fun for anyone anymore. ...Except maybe Sandy people, and even that probably won't last forever.

Ah yes. And going back to the beginning and you lazy /brd people... At least go off /anon so we know what you're doing, and at least PRETEND like you'd like some exp by putting your flag up. ...And watch your back next time Shadoweye shows up.

[kayn]

After laying dead in every campain zone I went to, I too got fed up with it. Instead of posting on BG though I went to the POL comments and suggestions. I agree with you on many of the points you made. Campain (I assume because WotG is still new) pretty much sucks. To me it's little more than a way to xp while I'm lfg or if I don't have time to devote to a party. I decided that the beastman's fortifications weren't going down because they keep doing supply runs. So I figured I'd attempt to intercept one of them to prevent them from making it to the fortification. Funny thing, provoke, flash, shield bash and savage blade and the mobs flat out ignore me and truck on up to the fort. Then warp out. So what it seems like is there's nothing you can do it at all. When i go now, if we have strong NPCs, I'll voke the NM and pull it to a huge crowd of NPCs. all the pos players can manage the regular mobs but the NMs can wipe the whole zone. more or less, it's a crapshoot. go get xp. dont worry about conquest.

[Max™]

The /Brd bots are now called Nerobots.

Singing while Bastok burns.

Also: As much as it sucks, City campaign really is awesome, cause you can go in and ALWAYS jump straight into a battle basically.

It went from hoping you're the first person to notice a battle starting to hoping you notice it ended so you can go get an assessment.

[Hanyoko]

I spent 30-45 min killing the Transporter and yet supplies would keep going up.
Fun Fact: if you sleep the Transporter shortly after spawn the guards completly ignore you.

I LOVE how NPCs can now Raise you

What I truely wish is we could attack fortifications without needing the dang music playing...

[Sylphet]

Brevity
Brev"i*ty\, n.; pl. Brevities. [L. brevitas, fr. brevis short: cf. F. bri[`e]vit['e]. See Brief.]

1. Shortness of duration; briefness of time; as, the brevity of human life.

2. Contraction into few words; conciseness.

Brevity is the soul of wit. --Shak.

This argument is stated by St. John with his usual elegant brevity and simplicity. --Bp. Porteus.

Syn: Shortness; conciseness; succinctness; terseness.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

Also, as you mentioned there are already places on this forum designated for campaign discussion.

[drewbixcube]

Mobs shouldn't run around the fort for 5minutes looking for people to kill before engaging the fort, fuck that shit. When I pull a mob out on DRG the others will somehow see me and come over and gank the shit out of me where no mages can find me.

[isladar]

Moved from Newbie to the appropriate forum.

[Kaelen]

Here's a group of people that need to be locked up in a portable toilet, kicked down a hill, and set on fire: These jack-off mages, these jack-off mages that just melee with no sort of melee gear while people are fighting. These great minds of out time would rather try to get exp fanning the mob than heal people for way more.

Oh sure, don't heal the npcs. They only swarm and rape the mobs and have huge hp pools for you to heal. You don't even need to be a Scholar to cash in on healing npcs.

Don't even get me started on Paladins trying to melee down a mob in tank gear...

[Septimus]

Here's a group of people that need to be locked up in a portable toilet, kicked down a hill, and set on fire: These jack-off mages, these jack-off mages that just melee with no sort of melee gear while people are fighting. These great minds of out time would rather try to get exp fanning the mob than heal people for way more.

Oh sure, don't heal the npcs. They only swarm and rape the mobs and have huge hp pools for you to heal. You don't even need to be a Scholar to cash in on healing npcs.

Don't even get me started on Paladins trying to melee down a mob in tank gear...

Mages meleeing instead of casting spells is 100% Square's fault. You blow through all of your MP curing people and you get points for it, but then you have to rest your MP back and get no points for that time. (Wacky idea, give people Clear Mind +50 and triple the effect of the Sigil Regen and Refresh when they have campaign tags.)

The tank situation is pretty much comic at this point. Most Paladins don't even try to tank mobs, they are more than content to feed TP to whatever I am fighting instead of grabbing a mob off of the fortifications and soloing it. (Oh wait, that requires some strategy, no need for that!) It's even sadder when Ninjas refuse to try to solo anything and instead just auto-attack whatever anyone else has. Now I can understand not being to hold hate off of my Warrior, even off of my very exuberant Blue Mage, but it is utterly ridiculous when Paladins and Ninjas don't even attempt to try to get even a little hate when my Red Mage is tanking something. I know that I am awesome and all that, but Red Mages are not uber damage machines that rip hate away from any tank in the vicinity.

They need to increase the points that you get for curing and for tanking, as well as a Clear Mind boost.

[Gwynplaine]

Pretty much both the bard/melee mage situation is simply the result of how points are calculated. It's not helpful to the overall battle, but I don't really blame some people for doing it if they're being rewarded for it (there are extremes that are just plain stupid however, BLM meleeing Adamant in full mage gear with dark staff for instance...). Honestly I don't understand why the points can't simply be calculated more like Besieged, and make Raise be worth a 100 points or more. Raise could be an opportunity to make a chunk of points, not a burden. Whether or not players want to actively take part in a battle is up to them. I wouldn't brd spam, because it is boring to me and I make points fine participating anyway, but I don't care too much that other people want to.

[Aksannyi]

They need to increase the points that you get for curing and for tanking, as well as a Clear Mind boost.

This.

It would hugely affect the way people work together in Campaign, and it would give incentive for mages to actually cure people. If I happen to show up to a battle on WHM, I spend 75% of it resting. I can burn 1k MP in less than a minute. That's why, as it stands now, every man for himself. I'm not going to stand around tabbing looking for people to cure when the return for it is shit. If I happen to target you and you need one, I'll toss one your way. Same with raises. But if I come to Campaign on WHM, it's /NIN with my DD gear (which admittedly is still a work in progress), and cures for those who are desperately on the brink of death. And if you ask nicely.

I really don't even come to Campaign battles on my mages anymore anyway. Neither of them really need the xp and I have more fun battling on my gimpy WAR.

If they'd fix resting somehow or maybe lower MP costs during battles, more mages would be willing to play mage. Right now, though, it sucks to be mage in Campaign.

[Kabbalah]

Here's why NINs don't tank shit in Campaign: tool usage vs xp gains. If you get the same amount of xp for tanking something as you do for straight-up meleeing it, then why waste your gil? Otherwise, Campaign is as demoralizing as getting your teeth kicked in every morning. If SE had half a clue, they'd realize just how fucked it is right now.

My suggestions:

Any attack on a beastman capital city is suicide. It should be the same for Allied forces.

Ninja Tool Expertise +50% during Campaign. Come on, throw the NINs a fucking bone already, and maybe they'll start tearing mobs off forts the way I do. AN and XP is nice, but gil is gil.

Clear Mind +50 or something during Campaign, more points for buffing, healing, raising.

Lower the weakened time during Campaign or something.

Upgrade the medics. Cure is a band-aid when people are needing tourniquets. They seriously need more MP, AOE buffs, AOE raises, AOE cures, more HP, a fucking brain, etc...

NPC hunt-and-kill parties with huge detection ranges that auto-aggro any straggling monsters (including the ones that stupid people love to solo). Faster response to attacks on key locations (you know, less than twenty minutes). Overwhelming responses to attacks on key locations. One time in Campaign, I timed out the response time of Bastok's army in response to their capital city getting raped by Shadowhorn, Shadoweye, and Shadowhand. Twenty minutes later, they sent out one fucking division. Of Dancers. When your capital city's just been attacked, a normal fucking government would respond with overwhelming force in less than a minute then after the fighting's died down, would send out search teams to make sure that all hostiles are dead or out of the area. Now I know Japan got their asses whomped so hard in WW2 that they're too scared to even consider a standing army and what they learned from military tactics came from KOEI, but take it from people who come from countries that actually have standing armies, that's how it goes.

And for fuck's sake, fix Bastok's AN rewards already because they are full of suck and fail. They suck so hard Stephen Hawking plans on writing a book on how Bastok's AN items are going to end up being the event horizon that signals the end of the SE's universe. Seriously, Windy gets two kickass sets of armor, Sandy gets Enmity and Magical Resist gear out the ass, and Bastok gets shit that makes my character feel like a Detroit Lions fan. Why does nobody love Bastok? Because they offer shit as rewards. I'm not sure that WotG has released all of the AN rewards yet, but Bastok had better get something fucking ZOMFGWTFWINWINWIN at the end of the line for all those loyal Bastokans riding the failtrain.

People with guns should be on higher ground.

With the sole exception of Maximillian (aka 'buffet of manliness'), Bastok's NPCs suck: they have neither the defensive capabilities of Sandy's NPCs or the pure damage of Windy's NPCs. Bastok has technology, they can do better than this.

Shadowhorn shouldn't have Mortal Ray. It's cute when you're not lagged out by fifty other players because you can turn before the move goes off, but in Campaign, it's just pure cheese.

And as a Bastoker, where are my fucking cannons and dirty tactics, you assholes? Last time I checked, Bastok threw every dirty trick they could at the Quadav in an effort to genocide the bastards.

[Kkel]

NPC hunt-and-kill parties with huge detection ranges that auto-aggro any straggling monsters (including the ones that stupid people love to solo). Faster response to attacks on key locations (you know, less than twenty minutes). Overwhelming responses to attacks on key locations. One time in Campaign, I timed out the response time of Bastok's army in response to their capital city getting raped by Shadowhorn, Shadoweye, and Shadowhand. Twenty minutes later, they sent out one fucking division. Of Dancers. When your capital city's just been attacked, a normal fucking government would respond with overwhelming force in less than a minute then after the fighting's died down, would send out search teams to make sure that all hostiles are dead or out of the area. Now I know Japan got their asses whomped so hard in WW2 that they're too scared to even consider a standing army and what they learned from military tactics came from KOEI, but take it from people who come from countries that actually have standing armies, that's how it goes.

I participated in my first Bastok Markets [S] Campaign Battle this morning while doing some research and i was kind of dumbfounded by the troop deployment. Not only is Bastok Markets [S] a real estate nightmare compared to the fluidity of Southern San d'Oria [S], the troops seem to be deployed in areas of the city that just don't make any sense.

Now, granted, i'm not very familiar with Bastok Markets compared to San d'Oria. I'm not exactly sure where the main fortifications are nor the secondary Beastman entry points, but why the hell did Bart's unit spawn way out on the East side of the Gold Street? Do Beastmen ever really attack out that far? It seems like the equivalent of deploying troops to Cavalry Way or Watchdog Alley in San d'Oria (no troops are).

There was a very discernible path the Beastmen took from the Gustaburg [S] Gate, the main entry point, to Firewater Circle, which seemed to be the target of every Beastman assault. Between those two points there was a single unit of Galka in front of the southern Mog House. There were a lot of units deployed, but I was amazed that no units actually deployed into Firewater Circle. By comparison, four of San d'Oria's most powerful units deploy into Victory Square. When Beastmen attack San d'Oria they have to charge headfirst into San d'Orian units, who typically surround the Fortifications.

San d'Oria also has three Generals who run across San d'Oria when they're deployed. Mieuseloir B Enchelles will actually run all the way from Lion Square, the far east side of San d'Oria, to Count Caffaule's Manor, the far west side of San d'Oria, and slaughter every beastman he encounters along the way.

[SamanosukeShiva]

suggestion: remove campaign all together! such bullshit getting in the way of me and ixion!

[terranova]

I would like a clear mind adjustment to campaign too. Tanks don't tank because they don't think they will be healed, etc. YES, WEAKNESS TIME NEEDS TO BE LOWERED IN CAMPAIGN.

[Gwynplaine]

San d'Oria also has three Generals who run across San d'Oria when they're deployed. Mieuseloir B Enchelles will actually run all the way from Lion Square, the far east side of San d'Oria, to Count Caffaule's Manor, the far west side of San d'Oria, and slaughter every beastman he encounters along the way.

The reason is that the leaders spawn where they would normally be standing during non-campaign time. Once they spawn they run to where their unit is deployed in the zone. This makes it so they fight anything between them and their unit in the meantime. Sonia often does the same thing on her way to the cages fort target.

[Kaelen]

I have honestly never had any mp issues on my Scholar. But then again, Scholar is just awesome for Campaign.

Bastok is kinda iffy for battles, but what I do on Scholar is just peel one off the tower/npc group and take it to another group of npcs. It makes the battle go a lot faster and smoother so I can get on with my day and get to what really matters, taking areas back.

Now for my Samurai, that's a different story. You want to cheat Campaign? Go SAM/DNC with a Soboro to solo mobs, or if you wind up tanking a mob. You got your heals, you got your debuffs. Really, anything subbing Dancer with a multi-hit weapon does very well.

[Varg]

Windurst is a nightmare as well for troop deployment. Yay patriarch protectors are here to save the day! Oh nvm.... they and the scorpion casters are both sitting at the mog house doing nothing the entire battle while the croc mercenaries and libran casters defend the aurastery where noone even in the present day visits! I wonder how many units spawn in south windurst waters, I bet it's a bunch. only 3-4 units + all the freelancers seem to spawn near the opistery where 90% of the fighting takes place - the rest are in the middle of nowhere and you have to drag Yagudo/Kindred bosses across a far flung map just to get them to do something.

[Melios]

Windurst is a nightmare as well for troop deployment. Yay patriarch protectors are here to save the day! Oh nvm.... they and the scorpion casters are both sitting at the mog house doing nothing the entire battle while the croc mercenaries and libran casters defend the aurastery where noone even in the present day visits! I wonder how many units spawn in south windurst waters, I bet it's a bunch. only 3-4 units + all the freelancers seem to spawn near the opistery where 90% of the fighting takes place - the rest are in the middle of nowhere and you have to drag Yagudo/Kindred bosses across a far flung map just to get them to do something.

Only the Crocodile & Python Mercenaries are down by the Rhinostery, from what I've seen. All the Windurst troops are at fortifications, which are all at the three ministries as well as the main square and the Mog House entrance.

[Gwynplaine]

Yes that's right. The areas some units spawn in are usually alternative forts. The forts at Bastok are 2 on the main fort, 1 on the house, and 1 on the cages (stupid that NPC's dont spawn in front of the house they spawn too far to agro mobs on it).

Iin Windurst it seems to be the Opistery (first building), Rhinostery (far south building), Aurastery (east building), and the structure at the Mog house entrance. Funny, while I was dragging mobs around to see what areas have a fort, Shadoweye glitched and got stuck inside the Aurastery. No one was able to target him to pull him out so he stayed there for a long time tearing shit up, all the while hitting people nearby with Firaga/Petrify.