Salvage, motivation/organization/is anyone close?

[Terrance]

Boss fight is nice designed; i agree on that. we tried it before the Homing Missile strategies were posted so we lost.
but then again, Salvage is made of 100mins so a single well-designed NM doesnt made up for all the other 70-80mins of bashing fest.

The cells idea is a nice addiction too, but drops related to luck arent because your run can be screwed, or at least slowed down, but cells pool.

Drops related to luck, didn't you just describe 99% of FFXI?

If your first 60 minutes are a "bashing fest", you're doing it wrong. Alliance make-up, path choice, mob choice, and cell distribution strategy are all important keys to success.

He is saying everything other than the final boss is a bashing fest. Are you saying you're getting to the final boss in less than 60 minutes?

And he's correct, there's really nothing more interesting than a spam merit party here. In Bhaeflu it's a particularly boring bash fest as mages can't even cast spells for at least the first 30 minutes and have nothing to do at all.

[aurik]

Boss fight is nice designed; i agree on that. we tried it before the Homing Missile strategies were posted so we lost.
but then again, Salvage is made of 100mins so a single well-designed NM doesnt made up for all the other 70-80mins of bashing fest.

The cells idea is a nice addiction too, but drops related to luck arent because your run can be screwed, or at least slowed down, but cells pool.

Drops related to luck, didn't you just describe 99% of FFXI?

If your first 60 minutes are a "bashing fest", you're doing it wrong. Alliance make-up, path choice, mob choice, and cell distribution strategy are all important keys to success.

He is saying everything other than the final boss is a bashing fest. Are you saying you're getting to the final boss in less than 60 minutes?

And he's correct, there's really nothing more interesting than a spam merit party here. In Bhaeflu it's a particularly boring bash fest as mages can't even cast spells for at least the first 30 minutes and have nothing to do at all.

You can easily get to the boss in <60 minutes. We got there in 65~ minutes last night, and we had terrible luck on floor 1-2, and we geared up a full 18 people. If your mages hvae nothing to do for a full 30 minutes, it sounds like evidence of poor planning...either that or another last-window behemoth.

I guess a better question is, what would you RATHER have? You say it's no fun but you can't tell us what, under the constructs of FFXI, would be fun. I thought we banned FFXIFlux already?

[Judai]

Boss fight is nice designed; i agree on that. we tried it before the Homing Missile strategies were posted so we lost.
but then again, Salvage is made of 100mins so a single well-designed NM doesnt made up for all the other 70-80mins of bashing fest.

The cells idea is a nice addiction too, but drops related to luck arent because your run can be screwed, or at least slowed down, but cells pool.

Drops related to luck, didn't you just describe 99% of FFXI?

If your first 60 minutes are a "bashing fest", you're doing it wrong. Alliance make-up, path choice, mob choice, and cell distribution strategy are all important keys to success.

He is saying everything other than the final boss is a bashing fest. Are you saying you're getting to the final boss in less than 60 minutes?

And he's correct, there's really nothing more interesting than a spam merit party here. In Bhaeflu it's a particularly boring bash fest as mages can't even cast spells for at least the first 30 minutes and have nothing to do at all.

You can easily get to the boss in <60 minutes. We got there in 65~ minutes last night, and we had terrible luck on floor 1-2, and we geared up a full 18 people. If your mages hvae nothing to do for a full 30 minutes, it sounds like evidence of poor planning...either that or another last-window behemoth.

I guess a better question is, what would you RATHER have? You say it's no fun but you can't tell us what, under the constructs of FFXI, would be fun. I thought we banned FFXIFlux already?

Sometimes Cell drops screw you, but in Bhaflau I have seen that only once and we still got what we needed and had plenty of time to farm what we wanted.

If you are strugling on the first floor in Bhaf, you are definately doing something wrong. I really don't know how you can screw up this area, we have done fine with only one monk here before.

(end of the world stuff when Aurik and I agree?)

[Sci]

My last Bhaflau run we had NIN, MNK, RNG, RNG, WHM, BRD. Cleared the whole first floor, got the rampart on the 2nd floor and probably fought it for around 15 minutes I think. We were throwing away so many cells even on the 2nd floor. And we got to the 3rd floor and attempted to pop the rampart there by killing the Archaic Gears on both sides. Did that, then started to clear out one side of Archaic Gear mobs, and almost finished that. I think I used probably 5 Hi Pots the whole run. With a full 18, I imagine you could get to the boss in easily 50 minutes and that's with everyone having the gear they need. On one run we managed to get there with 11 in 65 minutes, and killed the boss with time to spare.

Sure there's luck on the cell drops, but I don't see how it can completely cripple a balanced group. And making a negative blanket statement about Salvage after doing 5 runs in just one zone is silly.

e.g.
All of Dynamis sucks. I've only done Dynamis Windurst 5 times and it sucks. There's all these summoner mobs that astral flow you, and all these crows that cast silencega all the time. It's just two hours of casting sleepga on a bunch of links and zerging the same monster in a big lag fest. There's no skillchains or magic burst or tactics at all. And the drops are completely random. And it's 1 million gil per run, so we wasted 5M gil on entry fees alone.


Do you think the people who first did Dynamis zones knew exactly how to pop the boss? Or where to find time extensions? I guess all some people want now are zones like Limbus where it's truly a kill them all, get to the end and get a chip kind of challenge. I like the challenge of new unmapped zones with random drops the whole way. It makes each run different, unlike every other fight in the game where you know exactly what you're going to encounter and what you need to do.

[Medivac]

there is a lot of info on salvage out there. how ever its like when sky and cop first came out. its all scattered som1 needs to put it all togethor. im lazy /not it!

[Medivac]

My last Bhaflau run we had NIN, MNK, RNG, RNG, WHM, BRD. Cleared the whole first floor, got the rampart on the 2nd floor and probably fought it for around 15 minutes I think. We were throwing away so many cells even on the 2nd floor. And we got to the 3rd floor and attempted to pop the rampart there by killing the Archaic Gears on both sides. Did that, then started to clear out one side of Archaic Gear mobs, and almost finished that. I think I used probably 5 Hi Pots the whole run. With a full 18, I imagine you could get to the boss in easily 50 minutes and that's with everyone having the gear they need. On one run we managed to get there with 11 in 65 minutes, and killed the boss with time to spare.

Sure there's luck on the cell drops, but I don't see how it can completely cripple a balanced group. And making a negative blanket statement about Salvage after doing 5 runs in just one zone is silly.

e.g.
All of Dynamis sucks. I've only done Dynamis Windurst 5 times and it sucks. There's all these summoner mobs that astral flow you, and all these crows that cast silencega all the time. It's just two hours of casting sleepga on a bunch of links and zerging the same monster in a big lag fest. There's no skillchains or magic burst or tactics at all. And the drops are completely random. And it's 1 million gil per run, so we wasted 5M gil on entry fees alone.


Do you think the people who first did Dynamis zones knew exactly how to pop the boss? Or where to find time extensions? I guess all some people want now are zones like Limbus where it's truly a kill them all, get to the end and get a chip kind of challenge. I like the challenge of new unmapped zones with random drops the whole way. It makes each run different, unlike every other fight in the game where you know exactly what you're going to encounter and what you need to do.

when people first started doing dynamis people were buying currency for 40-50 a peice. which easily payed for the entry. however salvage is 2k assualt points...not tha that hard to get. i really hate assualt but i do see it ehh paying off somwhere

[Tomino]

Drops related to luck, didn't you just describe 99% of FFXI?

luck can determine if my zomg relic hands drop or not.
luck shouldnt determine if i can do something or not; the gaming experience should be fair for everyone, even more in istanced content.

If your first 60 minutes are a "bashing fest", you're doing it wrong. Alliance make-up, path choice, mob choice, and cell distribution strategy are all important keys to success.

job selection and parties are made pre-entering.
path choice/mob choice are pre-determined using guides and informations gathered.
cell distribution strategy is pre-determined once we have our partecipants.

they do are all important keys to success, we just dont do them *while* bashing mobs.


no, really, aside from pubbling mobs without linking them and basic notions like not having mages all around that AoE-user mob or standard hate-management, what strategies do salvage need?
i dont see any strategy in taking a path hoping Mad Bomber to be up; and this is Bhaflau example, but aside Silver Sea is not that other areas are crowded with NMs. among those found in the .dats, very few have been discovered.

now i sincerely hope the mechanics are there and we just need to find them. that'd make salvage runs worth a planning, with runs careful studied to gather the most useful drops. but it's just wishful thinking.

[Sci]

when people first started doing dynamis people were buying currency for 40-50 a peice. which easily payed for the entry. however salvage is 2k assualt points...not tha that hard to get. i really hate assualt but i do see it ehh paying off somwhere

Maybe on your server. All currency was 1k-2k when I started doing dynamis, and it eventually went up to 5k and stayed at that price for ages. But keep in mind, there was no such thing as clearing a zone then, and killing went really slowly so there were no where near the number of drops that people get from dynamis now.

Anyhow, there needs to be luck on some of the NMs popping, because some of them have a 100% drop rate. It all feels ok to me so far, I have 4 upgrade pieces already and I get to do something more fun than sitting in a laggy pit for a couple hours.

[Kaeko]

My LS took a small group to Bhaflau with 7 people and we got LBC to 12% last night. We'd have won had we planned things a bit better. Whoever calls Salvage a zerg-fest is jumping the gun - strategies take time to develop. It's a new idea with very new challenges - people have to think outside the box to be successful and that just doesn't happen quickly.

If you're really frustrated just wait a month and use all the good strats the people that find exploration fun have come up with. I don't mean to sound harsh but there are a lot of things that at some point seemed impossible in this game but someone eventually finds a way (6 man jorm, the "epic" AV stopped 2hring thread, etc.). I don't mean to derail the topic but I'm just citing examples.

[Lordwafik]

/shrug, just because you can't see how to use strategy in this zone, don't say there is no strategy for salvage. It's extremely key where you go in the zone.

no, really, aside from pubbling mobs without linking them and basic notions like not having mages all around that AoE-user mob or standard hate-management, what strategies do salvage need?
i dont see any strategy in taking a path hoping Mad Bomber to be up; and this is Bhaflau example, but aside Silver Sea is not that other areas are crowded with NMs. among those found in the .dats, very few have been discovered.

If you haven't played other MMO's before, there's a thing called "Chance pop NM", NM that will just randomly pop or not. He actually won't be up on the other side if you guys pos hack over, he's up on neither side if you guys don't run into him at all, his chance to pop returned a 0, and he didn't pop. This isn't something new or COPeriffic.

now i sincerely hope the mechanics are there and we just need to find them. that'd make salvage runs worth a planning, with runs careful studied to gather the most useful drops. but it's just wishful thinking.

We already told you there is strategy involved. Example, what are you going to trade for the Flux Flan, and which path are you taking after it? Are you going to farm a certain room for MP cells then go back for more MP cells like an idiot? Or chose another room. Are you sending 1 member off to the porter to wait there? Are you skipping mobs that are completely unnecessary to fight? Blahblahblah

You don't have to reply, because I know it'll be a complaint, but if other people are winning zones like we are, let me tell you they are not zerging their way to the top, infact if you do that on the boss then you'll be toast.

Bhaflau is the Dynamis Bastok of all Salvage zones, want a challenge? Go to silver sea / Arrapago.

[Wulfgang]

I didn't find Silver Sea that bad, although the Fomor AOE with added Choke can be somewhat crippling early.

For those with AP issues, if you're only doing Assault for points for Salvage, Golden Salvage distance trick ftw. Get 3300-3600 per three tags.

Motivation is definitely an issue though and drives me a bit nuts. I may start an independent Salvage shell of my closer friends across LSes soonish and get to work. 1-2x a week would be ideal imo, otherwise Assault >> Salvage burden on top of HNM activities might be too much.

[Tomino]

Lordwafik, is this topic on salvage motivation?
I wrote "chance pop NMs" ruins mine. i dont see how you can prove my opinion "wrong"; if you think this is a great addition, then we have opposite views on the matter.

Also, I wished (and that's a personal feeling) for actual luck based events to be somehow triggered via tactics yet to be discovered; again, do you disagree?

Finally, i complained on salvage tactics because mobs behaviours are copied/pasted from the normal ones; no special WSes, no 2hrs, no special properties. Ramparts and Gears are nice tho.
Basically you bash everything the same way you do while doing merits; not having to deal with 2hrs or something weirder drops the challenge, in my opinion.
Assaults, ISNMs and The Ashu Talif missions are much more complex and feature some nice gameplay ideas.

* sure enough, everything i wrote is based on actual knowledges. I'd me more than happy to state myself wrong should some nice mechanics pop after some trial&error discoveries *

[NynJa]

re: mages who bitch and moan about nothing to do.
Offer for them to pull mobs.

Its funny how many excuses come up when you give them something to do. "I DONT HAVE ENOUGH DEF, LOOK AT MY HP, I DONT KNOW HOW" etc etc...

[Lordwafik]

re: mages who bitch and moan about nothing to do.
Offer for them to pull mobs.

Its funny how many excuses come up when you give them something to do. "I DONT HAVE ENOUGH DEF, LOOK AT MY HP, I DONT KNOW HOW" etc etc...

Ya. It's ok, these same people who bitch about salvage sucking will be crawling for their LS's to salvage once knowledge is more available. Vultureeeesssssssssssss

[Shuemue]

Salvage is awesome. People actually want my monk. I feel loved and useful. It's great!

[Siatdiat]

I really want to be in there doing salvage. I dont want to miss the opportunity to trailblaze, but its really hard to find people with a real interest in it. Even talking among people who seem genuine about it, when it comes down to it something will always come up. Just curious what kinds of systems people are using for it.