Salvage, motivation/organization/is anyone close?

[Pacha]

I have a few questions and comments on Salvage:

1. As far as motivation: Are ppl in your LS motivated to do Salvage on a weekly basis and possibly willing to give up a limbus run or dynamis run in favor of salvage?

At this point, we've been struggling to get ppl to come, imo, because the runs are late (because of other events) and because, for the majority of ppl, the items seem a bit out of reach because of the high expense in time/gil. It seems like something has got to give in terms of 2 limbus runs per week, 2 dynamis, assault, kings, other HNM's. There's so much to do at this point that it's tough to choose which one to go to because ppl still need items from all of these events after all this time.

2. Organization: How does your LS organize salvage? Do you treat it as a scheduled LS event or just something you would do with a static?

Our LS basically split into two groups to do Salvage (we're a pretty large LS). This has created some problems in terms of scheduling runs/ attendance, and it has left some ppl feeling left out.

3. Is anyone close to obtaining a piece of Salvage gear?

[Faranim]

1. People are motivated to do Salvage because it is still new. However, people who don't have Assault Points, or still need/want Assault gear are turned off by Salvage because it just gets in the way of the other gear they want.

Also, because not much is known about the zones, drop rates, bosses, etc. it's pretty common to do Salvage, die a lot, and not get anything good out of the run. Compared to Assault (guaranteed rewards), Salvage is pretty shitty.

2. We have created 3 (or more?) individual Salvage groups between friends/LS members. Each team has roughly 8-15 people, since that seems to be ideal for running Salvage. For now, it's more like having a static PT than a LS event. Eventually when more is discovered about the zones and bosses, I have a feeling it'll be turned into a semi-event (Like Ouryu or Bahav2) where the LS plans to do a certain zone/boss with 18 people.

3. I'm sure by now people have 2/3 of a certain piece if they've killed LBC. Very little is known about the level 35 gear (except a few pieces) and any of the other zone bosses. AFAIK nobody has even gotten to the Arrapago or Zhayolm Boss Floor.

[Kerberoz]

1. Right now we usually have at least 18 wanting to go... I'm sure that number will go way down once people start falling behind on assault points. We do 2 "official" runs and sometimes one "farming/unofficial" run per week and still get pretty good attendance.

2. Ummm.... not an official event. It's sort of a static. Anyone in the LS can attend any run they want but lotting is based on attendance, etc. Only one group so far

3. Depends what you consider close. Lots of people are 2/3 but as far as I know, no one has found all 3 pieces to upgrade one final piece yet.

[Sci]

My LS hasn't started doing official runs yet, but we're getting close to it (I hope). We normally have one limbus run during the week and one on weekends. What's been suggested is cancelling the limbus run during the week and putting a salvage run there. And doing a salvage after the limbus on the weekend.

We haven't had issues with multiple runs yet though. A lot of people don't want to sacrifice AP for doing something "they don't understand". And amazingly some people don't even have the mission requirements to do salvage as well. So usually we've been going with 8-12 people, depending how many random friends of people we can dig up.

For figuring out loot distribution, you can look here: http://www.bluegartr.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=14832

I'd wouldn't mind cancelling limbus altogether, or just allowing people still motivated to farm zones and ask for help with Omega/Ultima. The 100k a week is getting more and more painful. But I'm not allowed to say that sort of thing after getting so much Homam.

And just with doing these runs with small groups, I'm 2/3 on the Skadi feet. Just need to find where the lvl35 feet drop and I could upgrade them. The cost for upgrading the more expensive pieces is if anything a deterrent for loot whoring. But no piece is really out of price range if someone works at farming. O Ingots can be obtained from many KS30s, and you could sell other drops to buy more O Ingots, or worst case there's always mining. Imp. Wootz Ingots are certainly the worst, but Wootz ore is flooding the AH already on my server and prices are dropping. Bloodwood can be farmed as a group thanks to the ton of new soulflayer mobs added. Just bring along a woodworker to desynth the staves, and a thief to make them drop. And the other two are simple to obtain. So to me, only the body is a really expensive piece to upgrade, simply because I can't go around farming up wootz ore. Everything else you can farm yourself or with a small group of friends. Spending my free time farming up some stuff >>> Waking up at 4 am to possibly claim something that might possibly drop something that we want.

[aurik]

My LS is starting to do Salvage about once a week now, but a lot of people want to do more. The notion of "too much stuff, too little time" seems to be coming in to play. Especially if your HNMLS spends 10h+ a week camping Kings, plus dynamis, plus limbus, plus tiamat/cerb/khamira, plus sea, it's getting really really hard to fit new activities in there.

For me, I now have a major activity 6 of 7 days a week. And we don't do any HNM camping. For someone with a full-time job outside of FFXI, which is many of our members, this schedule is about as ambitious as we can get. As it is, I have very limited free time to XP/merit/craft. I can't imagine adding more to the schedule.

Only a few HNMLS on Asura have anything more than an exploratory group doing Salvage, and some don't do it at all. A few people have been totally turned off from bad experiences, but I'm sure they'll all come crawling back once we're starting to show off our morrigan's robes

As for giving up other activities for Salvage, it's a strong possibility. Limbus is becoming less lucrative (30k coins on Asura now) and we are starting to complete our people who need Homam. I can see reducing our plans to 1 apollyon (splittable) per week, which would give us 1 omega every 3 weeks, and would give people who wanted Temenos items a chance to go farm for those on their own.

[Reynard]

i have a small family-style endgame shell thats comprised of about a dozen people that have been playing together for over 2 years, and a few more flavors of the month members that seem to come and go. We used to do sky together but got burnt out. We finally got to sea a few months back so Limbus is still relatively new for us, and we do that Mondays and Fridays. Dynamis is the big brain drain, as since we are small we dont do it internally, and while most people do it sunday wednesday, some do it tuesday saturday in a different shell. One of our biggest organizers and hardcore players is upgrading a Mandau and thus is a slave to his Dynamis shell, and thus feels he has no time for Salvage atm. We did it once, I had fun, but since its so formative (and so many of our members are WAY behind on assault), we arent actively doing it at all. Maybe once the strats are better understood itll happen. but time factor and splintering priorities are making it a hard sell. If it dropped some sort of currency like limbus i think thered be more interest as there would always be some incremental gain for going.

IMHO, it has a similar issue that has turned me off in my sponsored Dynamis shell (in which I dont pay, but dont get any currency): if shit isnt dropping, you feel like you wasted your time. Its fun at first, but run after run of no drops is demoralizing and repetitive. And with Salvage, since everyone must pay their own entry, this is a real concern. The big silver lining is that you can do it everyday, and thus in theory can go whatever day you want with whoever you want, and not lock out your chance to do it with your core ls friends the next day....

I'm 30, have a demanding rl job, travel alot, have a new girl, and a small but tight linkshell with lots of other demands on their time....so for me, Im not salvaging atm even though Id like to. I am trying to assault alot more aggressively...

[Stilgar]

My LS is apparently full of lamers who can't be motivated to do Salvage or even do enough assaults to afford remnants permits. I on the other hand, have quit attending Limbus, and motioned for the abandonment of Dynamis city runs.

Really, though, there's getting to be too many big events to fit into the week, like Aurik is saying. Limbus will probably be the first to be dropped, as it's fairly easy to get everything you want from it, and it's a lot more small group friendly than Dynamis is.

[Septimus]

My LS is apparently full of lamers who can't be motivated to do Salvage or even do enough assaults to afford remnants permits. I on the other hand, have quit attending Limbus, and motioned for the abandonment of Dynamis city runs.

Really, though, there's getting to be too many big events to fit into the week, like Aurik is saying. Limbus will probably be the first to be dropped, as it's fairly easy to get everything you want from it, and it's a lot more small group friendly than Dynamis is.

Limbus and Salvage are so short that you can fit them both in on the same night and it still takes less time than Dynamis...

Do 7 Assaults a week and you can easily pay for 2 salvages and have left over points to put towards gear to wear or sell. I really don't understand the problem besides laziness...

[Sci]

Salvage is kind of becoming a catch 22. No one wants to do Salvage until there's some handholding information out there so they can maximize their time. And there's not that much information out there because not enough people are doing salvage and the zones can be pretty complex. Hell, look at Arrapago, people aren't even sure of the lvl15 drops. And Bhaflau seems to be about the only zone that people understand how to get the lvl35 drops, and as best as people can figure now, it's luck based. It might just be something as simple as the Mad Bomber pops on the east side on Firesday, Lightsday, etc and on the west side on the other days.

But the rewards are pretty great for it. And that's without even knowing what the set bonuses will be. And it doesn't cost any gil to enter, unlike Limbus or Dynamis. I get all the hi potion tanks I need from farming assault points to supply myself plenty of potions, and I usually just snag a scroll of instant reraise from my huge pool of lolConquest Points. You could spend 1 hour using 4 assault tags a week, and have enough AP to do two salvages and you're set. It's actually one of the few things SE has designed really well for a casual gamer. So the fact that more people aren't eager to bite down into it is a bit disheartening.

[Judai]

There's actually a ton of info out there. Just have to find it in the different threads + wiki. Only place there is little info is Arrapago cause nobody wants to bother going there. I'm sure the last few pieces needed to complete sets are there too.

[Ayn]

1 - Alot of people in my LS are motivated to do Salvage. Much like Limbus, however, I run a separate group for that sort of thing, which is usually the same group of people I employ when I do these excursion type activities. We're in the same boat though -- debating giving up a Limbus run in favor of salvage, once more people are outfitted in the gear they want.

2 - We're still new at it, but the current plan is to have at least the option for one large LS salvage run, if people choose. Those who have accumulated a ton of assault points can join smaller runs as they see fit. Personally, I'd prefer to keep it as something with a static group of people that has the option of rotating in people if needed for a particular section.

3 - No one yet. Most of us are 1/3 on pieces.

My position is similar to Aurik's; our HNMLS is a fairly busy one. The people in my individual Limbus / Salvage group all have *very* busy schedules. I know I've cut out ENMs already from my usual rotation of things, and to be honest, cutting out a day or so of Limbus wouldn't hurt me. I might just make it so that one day of Limbus (if it's Apollyon) is split into two runs..but we'll see how people like that.

[Stilgar]

My LS is apparently full of lamers who can't be motivated to do Salvage or even do enough assaults to afford remnants permits. I on the other hand, have quit attending Limbus, and motioned for the abandonment of Dynamis city runs.

Really, though, there's getting to be too many big events to fit into the week, like Aurik is saying. Limbus will probably be the first to be dropped, as it's fairly easy to get everything you want from it, and it's a lot more small group friendly than Dynamis is.

Limbus and Salvage are so short that you can fit them both in on the same night and it still takes less time than Dynamis...

Do 7 Assaults a week and you can easily pay for 2 salvages and have left over points to put towards gear to wear or sell. I really don't understand the problem besides laziness...

Well, you've gotten right to the heart of the matter. Laziness, mixed with a bit of incompetence. Most people bitch and moan if the daily event goes much past 3 hours, and it almost always does, as people take time to gather, or don't have maps of sea or just act like fucktards in general. I dunno what to do; we can't just kick people out because they aren't in the 95th percentile of capable and knowledgeable players... much as I'd like to, that'd only like like 10 bodies in the whole shell.

[Isildur]

1. Only about half my LS is motivated for Salvage, the other half havent done missions / have enough AP, or have never done Salvage to discover the fun factor involved in it.

2. Two Salvage runs per week, they're optional due to the 2,000 AP cost and we believe that forcing people to spend AP on Salvage when they want Assault gear could be a little rough.

3. My LS has a grand total of 4 Lv15 pieces LOL! we took a 2 week break and didnt do anything but now we're back to raiding, hopefully we can make Salvage a big deal soon.



The Limbus / Salvage on the same night idea is pretty good, both those in 1 night could be the equivalent of 1 Dynamis in terms of time, but gather time for Limbus has always been a problem for us, i doubt we could pull it off.

[Norelco]

Most people in my LS went off and joined Salvage shells before we even had to discuss whether or not we wanted to do this as a linkshell.

One of the biggest points was getting enough people with enough assault points on a consistent basis, so it seems logical the best bet at salvage is to go with a group of likeminded people.

I'm probably going to start my own Salvage shell on Asura and pick a Sunday afternoon and probably 1 weeknight and see how that goes.

[safer]

ive done a few salvage runs with people outside my linkshell, but since those times were so erradic, i felt i should do something along the lines of more consistant runs, as well as runs that are attendable by members in my ls

yesterday we had our first run, 8 people showed up, but 1 couldnt enter for various reasons... i asked others in the shell but they either werent interested or werent cleared for missions..

we went in and failed horribly... my fear was not enough people with capped H2H skill... even though i knew it woulda been a problem, and an ls mate advised me to wait, we pushed on through anyways because we had been waiting for a while already for people to gather

however i feel that the people that did attend were the ones most excited about salvage, and even though we didnt get anywhere but lose 2k AP, most had high hopes for our next run.. few of them went immediately after our run to go skill up H2H to get ready for next time....

hopefully when people start to see our success, it'll spark their interest into doing salvage... (ive already received 2-3 more people interested in doing runs, they just need clearance)...its gonna be hard later however to incorporate people into our runs once we become more established... we're all good friends in the shell though, so im sure we can come up with something

long post, but basically.. lead by example and you'll start sparking interest in people

[Sidanoir]

My LS took a fairly long break for the holiday so we haven't tried our hand at Salvage yet...looking forward to it though and I like the idea that the entry fee is "free" despite the fact that meds will be semi-costly ...I also like its short duration..and obvioulsy the uber loot!
Since the annoucment of Salvage people in the shell that were still lolPSC have started doing assaults so I would say there is motivation there..
Probably going to have a couple smaller groups in the shell do it, due to scheduling issues not sure it will be a LS wide event since the pick 18 people to go per run idea doesn't seem optimal..

To me kings would still take priority over Salvage can't control Kings TOD <.<...and our LS does every event imagineable so its gonna be hard to squeeze it , but I am sure we will do it often...there definitely is a lot of end game stuff to do and people want different things, part of the reason I think smaller groups might be good for Salvage besides strategy alone, also the idea of dropping down limbus/dynamis a bit isn't a bad one (read you can probably lose money doing limbus/dynamis nowadays and with most af free lot ya >.>) or doing limbus + salvage same day(although some limbus are fairly long, plenty of others are really short >.> well at least Temenos central)

Anyone think they haven't added at least 1 of the 3 pieces per final item yet? Or you just think they are gonna be pretty tough to get?
If its just that 1 of 3 pieces thats tough...would make loot distribution a lot easier as you would only have to really care about 1 piece going to the right person.

[Norelco]

I like the idea that the entry fee is "free" despite the fact that meds will be semi-costly.

Instruct your Salvage members to start collecting and saving the various meds dropped from assault runs. These will add up and ultimately save you alot of gil on meds.

[Sidanoir]

I like the idea that the entry fee is "free" despite the fact that meds will be semi-costly.

Instruct your Salvage members to start collecting and saving the various meds dropped from assault runs. These will add up and ultimately save you alot of gil on meds.

We have been at least we know now why they drop in assault

[Kyomu]

We haven't started yet, but there's already been a few "but I want Assault Gear" mumblings from some of our core members. That and the fact that 50% of the LS is not caught up on missions yet -.- and 25% probably have less than 2k AP in the first place.

The AP requirement doesn't *really* bother me because I have a stupid amount saved up from an area I already got my assault stuff from, but I can see how this might be a problem for smaller LS's with less hardcore players. There's only so much time in the day, really. I hate to be a coward and let other people figure out strategies and stuff, but sometimes that's he only way to keep morale up when you have people who have trouble affording CoP and Limbus already.

[Sci]

We haven't started yet, but there's already been a few "but I want Assault Gear" mumblings from some of our core members.

Such a weak excuse. Before salvage ever came out, I managed to get 7 of the 20k AP pieces. And I wasted so many tags, there were several weeks where I didn't do any assaults. And even if you just do 2 Salvage runs a week, that's 4k AP. When anyone should be able to easily get 7k AP a week. So they can still save up AP to get whatever piece they've been too lazy to get.