Heated Endgame Discussion

[Xavier]

Xavier, would the NQ HNM fights, if won, be 100% drop of HQ orb? Or would it be one of the kind where you would have to do multiple times to get the HQ orb, like cloud evoker/enm thing?

I personally like 100%, similar to Ouryu always dropping a Monarch's Orb, but I can understand if people wanted it more like 50%, depending on the lockout period between being able to do it again. There is something to be said about rarity so you wouldn't want 1,000 E. Bodies to suddenly appear on the server within a week.

If you treated it like a Dynamis where it cost 1M to enter and had a 3 day lockout to fight the NQ, I can see something like 50-75% being relatively fair for an HQ orb to drop.

Having the HQ orb drop from the KS99 fights would work too.

[Jeryhn]

The only thing moving orb drops to other HNMs would do is move all of the botting to said HNMs, regardless of how many drop said orbs. If five HNMs drop the Behemoth orb, Linkshells are just going to send five bot/stall teams to each HNM during their respective windows. I don't see how the Orb idea is going to alleviate current problems at all.

I think the idea was (as illustrated on the diagram) to have the orbs that let you fight the King NMs drop from multiple sources (it says to add new HNMs as well as improve the loot pools of existing ones by making them drop these orbs). I think the picture of the 3 Beastmen NMs were just one example of the system working.

There's also not much problem with adding these Orb drops to the KS99s we already do (could fit in the drop slot of Abjuration/Black Belt items).

[TheDiscoBiscuit]

Yea, on your chart, you had NQ re-enter at 21hours, with HQ at 5 days. If 100%, that would be an abundance of HQ orbs, only being able to use 1 every 5 days.

I like the idea, though. Only thing about it is I think SE still wants those mobs to be very rare. Meaning only one killed per day. Sucks too, though, to prevent other people from possibly ever being able to kill those mobs.

Oh, my bad. Whoever's chart it was. lol

[Xavier]

Yea, on your chart, you had NQ re-enter at 21hours, with HQ at 5 days. If 100%, that would be an abundance of HQ orbs, only being able to use 1 every 5 days.

Keep in mind its BRP's chart and its actually from like Page 1 or 2 of the Square Question thread.

I just used the picture as an example of a really good foundation for change.

There's also not much problem with adding these Orb drops to the KS99s we already do (could fit in the drop slot of Abjuration/Black Belt items).

Even if they added the orbs to something like ENMs it would be ok. People say Cloud Evoker is a pretty shitty droprate, but I don't think ENMs are being done by nearly as many people as possible. I'm sure if the motivation was "I'll go do ENM for a chance at an E. Body" they would be done a lot more.

I like the idea, though. Only thing about it is I think SE still wants those mobs to be very rare. Meaning only one killed per day. Sucks too, though, to prevent other people from possibly ever being able to kill those mobs.

Assuming you didn't use something like the 1M to enter every 3 days or straight Kindreds and instead made them drop off of KS99 / ENMs, etc, you could still have the actual encounters fairly low, while completely removing the aspect of cockblocking and botting from the game (while leaving those actual mobs in the game to continue to be botted anyway.)
______________________________

I think if a system like what I described was ironed out it would be the perfect solution to Worldspawns in FFXI, while providing some form of progression for linkshells that focus on said worldspawns. You can still provide the alternative sources of gear for people who focus on Dynamis, Limbus, Salvage. In a sense, you cater to all types of players. You even leave the door wide open for the players who, after gearing up in Dynamis/Limbus/Salvage and want to experience World HNMs, aren't hopelessly left in the dust. I think Sky is fine outside of Ulli, and Sea would be a lot better if the NMs had a higher pop-item droprate.

Too bad it isn't ever going to happen.

[layoneil]

Only thing about it is I think SE still wants those mobs to be very rare.

if they really are holding on to this than they are retarded. the way they built the game, you can't have this kind of global stagnation when the community of Lv 75 players are constantly increasing.

it's the simplest concept of supply and demand.

[aurik]

I'm jealous if sky is fine on your server outside of Ulli. On ours, it's like pulling teeth to get zip or faust and sometimes motherglobe. Seriously have to be up in Ve'lugannon with 2 rangers and a killable party and get lucky on his spawn to even have a chance lately.

[Xavier]

I'm jealous if sky is fine on your server outside of Ulli. On ours, it's like pulling teeth to get zip or faust and sometimes motherglobe. Seriously have to be up in Ve'lugannon with 2 rangers and a killable party and get lucky on his spawn to even have a chance lately.

Its not "always open" or fine but we've been able to get the sets to Seiryu/Genbu/Suzaku within an hour as long as we go up to Sky at oddball times, like 11am-2pm, etc. Its definiately a bottleneck on most things during more populated playtimes, but I think the other part to sky is that you can find all of the mob items in a bazaar to buy if you really get desperate enough, whereas you can't buy the items to pop Fafnir.

[chiyio]

yea, Salvage gear is better depending on the job, but since Limbus came out a whoel expansion ago, it doesnt matter. Salvage stuff SHOULD be better. But it doesnt change the fact Limbus was implemented way better, and is also more fun, with a better sense of reward despit the gear beiong old now.

Everyone in my shell who wants homam- has the whole set (or they have mixed homam + nashira)- some even have full sets of both. ABCoins are saturated to the point of being almost worthless- all but a handful of AF+1s are laughable, with little/no increased utility.

IMO Salvage is a much better system that involves a challenge- with a bit of a random element to keep things dynamic. I'd rather not be spoonfed easy rewards... If i wanted everything to be as easy as limbus i'd be playing WoW.

Yeah... I went there...

pfff, your linkshell is full of unskilled noobs raven. I happen to know for a fact that 2 of the 3 limbus groups wiped or ran out of time on your last limbus run. so either limbus is hard, or your linkshell blows.

[aurik]

I'm jealous if sky is fine on your server outside of Ulli. On ours, it's like pulling teeth to get zip or faust and sometimes motherglobe. Seriously have to be up in Ve'lugannon with 2 rangers and a killable party and get lucky on his spawn to even have a chance lately.

Its not "always open" or fine but we've been able to get the sets to Seiryu/Genbu/Suzaku within an hour as long as we go up to Sky at oddball times, like 11am-2pm, etc.

Not on Asura, 24/7 RMT coverage.

[NynJa]

pfff, your linkshell is full of unskilled noobs raven. I happen to know for a fact that 2 of the 3 limbus groups wiped or ran out of time on your last limbus run. so either limbus is hard, or your linkshell blows.

or its full of cheap bastards who refuse to use fucking food...
christ.

[chiyio]

pfff, your linkshell is full of unskilled noobs raven. I happen to know for a fact that 2 of the 3 limbus groups wiped or ran out of time on your last limbus run. so either limbus is hard, or your linkshell blows.

or its full of cheap bastards who refuse to use fucking food...
christ.

add reraise items to that.

[Jeryhn]

pfff, your linkshell is full of unskilled noobs raven. I happen to know for a fact that 2 of the 3 limbus groups wiped or ran out of time on your last limbus run. so either limbus is hard, or your linkshell blows.

or its full of cheap bastards who refuse to use fucking food...
christ.

add reraise items to that.

And echo drops.

[NynJa]

pfff, your linkshell is full of unskilled noobs raven. I happen to know for a fact that 2 of the 3 limbus groups wiped or ran out of time on your last limbus run. so either limbus is hard, or your linkshell blows.

or its full of cheap bastards who refuse to use fucking food...
christ.

add reraise items to that.

I dont usually use reraise items though unless I'm doing something risky, like doing a 6 man limbus in beastmen temenos on the demon or tonberry floors where astral flow can usually kill ppl.

[Xavier]

Using reraise items just gives you an excuse to die.

[Fng]

And echo drops.

I have resorted to just letting folks die if they dont have echos.

/p 500 gil says <t> doesn't have echo's

30 second later
Playerx is defeated by whatevermonster.

/p Yup.

[Sci]

The ENM -> Cloud Evoker/Ouryu -> Monarch Orb/Bahamut progression works well because there are rewards at each stage, and even the 2nd tier fight is challenging. After botting, the biggest problem with kings is lack of difficulty. If they were going to add 3 kings and their loot tables to some sort of a BCNM fight, then they need to up the difficulty a lot. I wouldn't mind giving lots of players the chance to fight the 3 kings for drops, but the fights should be difficult enough that weak groups that kill KB and Nidhogg easily now should wipe to the BCNM version. Give Nidhogg Absolute Terror and Horrid Roar like Ouryu has. King Behemoth should be able to do fun stuff like King Vinegarroon, i.e. AoE Draw in -> TP move. Draw In -> Thunderbolt -> Meteor would be fun. :D

Basically I wouldn't mind lots of skilled players getting good gear in a short amount of time. I prefer that a thousand times over even one horribly fail botting player getting any good gear. Then again, people on my server are just sad. A botting linkshell decided to start killing Tiamat and failed more times than I could count. Until they started stun botting TP moves.

[Jeryhn]

And echo drops.

I have resorted to just letting folks die if they dont have echos.

/p 500 gil says <t> doesn't have echo's

30 second later
Playerx is defeated by whatevermonster.

/p Yup.

I do this too. Oftentimes, I find out said person actually has echo drops, but is too fucking cheap to use them when I could be casting something more important.

[TheDiscoBiscuit]

Only thing about it is I think SE still wants those mobs to be very rare.

if they really are holding on to this than they are retarded. the way they built the game, you can't have this kind of global stagnation when the community of Lv 75 players are constantly increasing.

it's the simplest concept of supply and demand.

The former part of your first sentence is correct, so than the latter must be also? How many people would literally quit the game because they feel a certain item(s) is unachievable? I guarantee less than the number of those who still do it, resting their hopes on the chance they will get it. SE dont care if the amount of masses get their stuff or not. They know people wont quit because they feel they cant get what they want.

[Pacha]

I wanted to comment specifically on Salvage:

Salvage has been a bit disappointing to alot of ppl including myself for various reasons. Iki has named some and I wanted to elaborate a bit more on reasons why Salvage is struggling to catch on in our LS and other LS's across the servers:

1. Artificial Challenge:

Salvage is not hard because the mobs are particulary challenging. Rather, Salvage is hard because it places restrictions on the player. The gear that all of us have worked so hard to obtain over the years is taken away from us along with all of our stats. For about 50-60 minutes of the 100 minute run, many of the players won't be able to do much and some may not ever get their weapons/stats etc. People want something that is hard because it's hard, not because their characters are artificially gimped.

2. Quirky/Lame drops/pop conditions:

Success in salvage involves obtaining cells to take away the restrictions on your character. However, these cells do not always drop the same way or in the same quantity. Thus, a run could be completely ruined from the start, not because of skill but rather because of crappy luck. Furthermore, in order to get ramparts to even pop in the first place there are some lame conditions involved that many aren't even totally sure of at the moment (read mad bomber). Then, even if the rampart pops, you have to get really lucky to get a drop. Again, these things are based on luck and can render an entire run useless if you get unlucky. People want something that's challenging because it takes skill to win, not because you have to get lucky.

3. Oftentimes you come out completely empty-handed:

Salvage takes 2k AP points to enter and usually takes at least 2 hr's to form up and 100 minutes to run. 2k pionts could be used to buy salvage stuff and sell on the AH so points are worth money. Also, as always, time is money. Despite the cost, Salvage often yields nothing. Mobs don't drop currency or items for upgrade. Also, the droprates on the upgrade gear are pretty low. Lastly, if you screw up on one thing, wipe, someone doesn't bring reraise, or you get shafted on drops, then your run is pretty much done and you gain absolutely nothing for your 3 hours spent and 2k AP.

4. Too much instanced content that we still need stuff from:

Let's use dynamis as an example. Dynamis has been out for what ~3 years or so? Despite this fact, not many people have been able to get everything they want from dynamis to the point where they can move on. Thus, we have to keep doing dynamis day after day. Limbus is essentially the same way. Therefore, you have all this stuff that you still need from these events and there's simply not time to do Salvage. People look at limbus and dynamis and see items that they can get in a single drop on any given run and they like the thought of that rather than doing salvage which nobody really knows all that much about and takes a huge amt. of time and money to obtain the items.

5. The gear isn't that much better:

Lastly, Salvage gear really isn't that much better than gear already in the game that alot of people already have. Ares Cuirass is only debatebly better than koenig for pld for instance. Ares isn't going to decrease dmg taken significantly or make much of a noticeable difference in general. Morrigin also isn't that much better than anything else. It might add a few dmg per nuke but it's not game-altering. The points I'm trying to make is that the amt of time and money that you put into these items is not really worth it to most people to have a slight improvement in their performance.

I think there will need to be some changes to Salvage before ppl really want to do it. I really think what the majority of the end-game community wants are more challenging HNM's or instances which provide a non-artificial challenge, where we can use all the gear that we've worked for, for so long which provide decent rewards. I am hopeful that the TOA endgame (testing grounds?) will provide something interesting for the endgame community. However, I am setting my hopes low because I'm usually disappointed. I feel that many ppl have blind optimism for each patch. There's nothing wrong with complaining about something if you don't like it and aren't having fun. I still like this game alot but I really hope there is some new content that is better than Salvage. It's hard to get really excited about chocobo racing...

[Xavier]

The only thing I'd disagree on really is that I think Limbus is far easier to max out on than Dynamis, just because the Bosses have 100% drops (even though its not a full drop and its random what you get), whereas you can go into a Dynamis and get nothing.