Dev Tracker: Discussion

[Nyarlko]

Anybody knows if there's a JP post about people whining that Gallantry value for Intense VD seems off?
On both Regular and Intense on ALL difficulties Gallantry is ALWAYS half the amount of Hallmarks (with 6 players, of course).
That is... except Intense VD. It's the only exception and I really wonder if it's meant to be or a mistake SE didn't notice.

If it's meant to be I'd love to know what are the reasons behind such a peculiar choice.

Actually, only half out of all difficulties (both vol.) give gallantry equal to half the amount of hallmarks..
BGWiki page says max gallantry is:
V2: 5/25/50/100/150
V1: 100/200/300/400/500

As for reasons? Patterns are pretty. :3 Let's go with that. Also, VD now gives double the amount of hallmarks that it did at launch... Forget exactly when they did that adjustment, or whether gallantry was affected at all tho...

[Nyarlko]

New JP Dev posts:

This one says that they are most likely going to implement replacement items for the mission necklace, but it will probably take a while since other stuff has higher dev priority.

This one is saying that they are planning on adding new methods to obtain Abdhalis Seal (I think?). It's "Abdhalis" something... Not sure about the kanji used, but GT says its "Brand" which is usually what comes up when it would be "Seal" in the English client.

This one basically says the Devs are out of ideas on how to reduce Ambuscade congestion except: 1) Add a time limitation like Omen. 2) Remove the equipment and related upgrade items from possible rewards.... ._.;;;

[Sechs]

Wtf @ 2?
I guess adding a limit unabling people to enter with less than 3 people is out of question, too late? Things like that usually make people very unhappy, unless events are like that from the beginning.
Adding a cooldown if you enter solo, maybe? But again, would make people unhappy.

In reality they should've simply thought the event better instead of rushing something out without thinking about the obvious consequences =/

[dasva]

Wait if they remove the unique rewards from ambuscade what would be the point? It'd just be an alternate method of farming old content stuff. And then where would the equipment come from!?!

I actually don't think people would be too mad at the time gating like they said unless they do something completely retarded like made it once a day but kept all the points the same. Still think time limit is best though. As long as people are cycling in and out fast it's not too bad. And maybe rethink the metal gallantry costs. Putting half the metals on gallantry AND having them cost so much has vastly increased farming especially for non full pt groups

[arus2001]

Not a fan of time gating, but if they have to do something like once per game day (if you win) and 5x the rewards, I think they'd be a tad less than efficient groups doing multiple runs in the same span factoring in zoning/farming too.

Alternatively, they just start adding reasonable monthly RoV objectives that soloists can do in other parts of the world for the vouchers.

[dasva]

Alternatively, they just start adding reasonable monthly RoV objectives that soloists can do in other parts of the world for the vouchers.

So 10x Bloodsucker killshots?

[arus2001]

Thinking small. Light damage kills on Hydra, yo.

[Sechs]

Wait if they remove the unique rewards from ambuscade what would be the point? It'd just be an alternate method of farming old content stuff. And then where would the equipment come from!?!

I actually don't think people would be too mad at the time gating like they said unless they do something completely retarded like made it once a day but kept all the points the same. Still think time limit is best though. As long as people are cycling in and out fast it's not too bad. And maybe rethink the metal gallantry costs. Putting half the metals on gallantry AND having them cost so much has vastly increased farming especially for non full pt groups

They're clearly struggling to find the balance between "keeping players busy for the longest time possible" (hence raising the amount of points we have to farm each month) vs "stressing the servers too much and making queues too long".

[Sechs]

Not a fan of time gating, but if they have to do something like once per game day (if you win) and 5x the rewards, I think they'd be a tad less than efficient groups doing multiple runs in the same span factoring in zoning/farming too.

Alternatively, they just start adding reasonable monthly RoV objectives that soloists can do in other parts of the world for the vouchers.

Someone said it already, but while I agree some month had it rough for farming Intense KIs (Lamiae anyone?!) I don't think they should focus on the KI farming issue.
If anything forcing player to farm KIs in a different zone was their attempt to buy time for other people to queue and get into the zone.
It was their attempt to "slow down" people.
It kinda serves its purpose well, more or less.
Making KIs even faster to farm wouldn't solve the real issue here (which is too many people queueing at the same time). If anything it would creates even worse peaks, I'm afraid.

[arus2001]

Well, yeah, having like 3(?) Ambuscade pseudo-instances per server is the problem. So, it kinda begs the question of whether or not SE realized even their dead servers have more than 18 people who might want to do the content at a given time, or perhaps they made things a tad too grindy, which naturally prolongs congestion as the month goes on.

Generally speaking, whatever option I've brought up usually tries to keep accessibility in mind. I don't see punishing the low-man as the option, even though I understand why they can be a source of frustration. Everyone wants to get their shit. Not everyone has friends/mules at their disposal 24/7. As much as SE tried to promote party play with the group only points, SE also forgot their players can and often are dicks about invites.

[Byrthnoth]

BCNMs have 3 copies per server.

Things like Ambuscade (anything that uses a "Layered zone") actually uses a server shared between worlds that generates instances on demand. We don't know exactly how many it can take, but it's almost certainly more than 3 per world. This would be Delve, Salvage, Assault, Ambuscade, Omen, MMM, Sandworm, Skirmish, etc. If a zone has bad packet dropping issues, it's probably part of this system.

[Nyarlko]

Of course, they are overlooking the most obvious solution... Drastically reduce the amount of points needed for gear and related rewards (or drastically increase the number of points rewarded for completion)... If we could get the full +1 set and all related upgrade items within a month using V2VD doing once-daily runs, then the congestion would clear out considerably.. By the 2wk point, I'd figure that most of those doing it would be currency farmers and/or slowpokes, so congestion wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue.

[Sirious]

If you wanted this fixed, or to be fixed now, all you have to do is take every instance during jp prime and afk for the full 30 minutes.

Force their hand. Should've been the first day of the first month.

Lower the costs for gear, and gear related items (cape items), leave gil items the same, congestion will drop off very fast. And stop letting people solo, screw em. Force them to team up. Gallantry is essentially zero solo, so stop it.

[Ophannus]

Thinking small. Light damage kills on Hydra, yo.

Don't you dare trigger my Magian trial PTSD.

[Ophannus]

Off topic, but remember back in when they introduced Synergy they capped it at like 70, saying they would increase the cap later? They never did. I always wondered why.... It was an interesting concept but the execution sucked. It was a cool idea though to have several crafter come together to make a powerful item, like a boss fight...for crafters.

[Nyarlko]

Off topic, but remember back in when they introduced Synergy they capped it at like 70, saying they would increase the cap later? They never did. I always wondered why.... It was an interesting concept but the execution sucked. It was a cool idea though to have several crafter come together to make a powerful item, like a boss fight...for crafters.

Synergy caps @ 80. I got two separate confirmations from the devs last year that they were working on some sort of adjustments for synergy in the works, but haven't heard a peep about what or when they are planning on doing. :/

Have a feeling that they stopped development due to the miserable trainwreck of a failure the evolith system was. ^^;; I imagine that they would feel rather disheartened and probably give up on it rather than continue pushing it forward... Which appears to be what happened.

[steellord]

Out of ideas? Holy shitballs, just lower the # of points for items so people can finish quicker

But in the whole history of this game, if there's one thing forbidden for the devs to even think of, that's it. But even from their twisted "Keep em subscribing every month", if you can only farm one +1 set a month then it shouldn't matter if you finish in a few days

[Nyarlko]

4 new devposts:

1) In response to guild points (and cooking in particular). Says that they have no plans to adjust/increase points.

2) They have no plans to allow for a race change option or to allow REMA to be POL sendable.

3) In response to someone who wanted WKR difficulty lowered so it was more soloable in order to complete the ROE related to them. Their response is that WKR is group-based combat and they have no plans to make it easier to solo it, BUT the next WKR campaign is scheduled for May and people should be doing it then.

4) HUGE post (for a devpost) about the proposed Ambuscade congestion changes. First, a backpedal that the proposed changes are not set for implementation. Due to the negative feedback over it, those have been rejected now. They are probably going to have a poll w/ the next FP broadcast regarding this issue.
* If a time limitation were implemented, it would not be accompanied by adjustments to other content to compensate for the increased difficulty to farm REM mats from Ambuscade.
* There are no plans to reduce the costs of rewards, though they are adding new methods of obtaining Adbhalis Seals, which kinda-sorta accomplishes the same thing.
* The two proposed solutions were the only options the dev+management teams were able to brainstorm that both "CAN be done" and "WILL reduce congestion".
* Gonna quote the GTrans for the last one since I think the implications are kind of important. >_>

Is it possible to solve by increasing the number of entrance NPCs?
Since there is no change in the number of system entrances just by adding an appearance entrance, there is a high
possibility that the number of people knocking increases and the standby time is rather long.
At least it will not shorten wait time.

Also, the number of systematic entrances can not be increased.
This is largely due to the basic parts of the system in the first place as well as parts such as personnel and man-hours.
So please think that it is almost impossible to shorten the time in the mechanism part.

So, we're already functioning w/ the maximum number of instances they can squeeze out.

EDIT: English translated version of #4 got posted in my thread requesting a devpost translation sticky. ^^

[Anoat]

Is the Ambuscade congestion a serious problem on more populated servers? Quetz is fairly dead by comparison to Asura and I don't think I've had to wait anymore than 2-3 minutes for Ambuscade.

[dasva]

Is the Ambuscade congestion a serious problem on more populated servers? Quetz is fairly dead by comparison to Asura and I don't think I've had to wait anymore than 2-3 minutes for Ambuscade.

Sometimes. Shiva's not huge but at the start of this update jp prime times were pretty bad. Last month I don't think there was ever more than 2 people in line lol