New Mercenary Ranks and Assault Missions (03/07/2007)

[Eaglestrike]

I wonder what items will come with this new rank up. The last patch with additional ranks gave us Multiple ring from IS and assaults with Divisor Ring, MDEF+4 feet and other items. Should be a few more good ones in the highest rank.

[JMunin]

Yay Far East cocktease that doesn't actually tell us anything....wait...

Boo extra merc rank I have to get.


Well, this story stuff is unexpected, so it's welcome.
While it's possible they'd make a story write up for a mission, why would they?
It seems like a waste of time considering how simplistic it is.
It's almost as if they're expecting you to suspect something more.

Maybe all the new assaults for the next level are Far Eastern flavored.

[Lordwafik]

Shame those items come from an assault that's super boring to spam and almost never drop Div ><

I'm looking forward to doing new assaults :D fun fun fun. And going by the assault teirs, these should give 300-500 AP.

[Lordwafik]

And that's why the Imperial Army has spent millions of gil

FAIL. Why would the Empire use foreign currency?!

Why does Al Zahbi/Whitegate AH charge in gil instead of imp.coin like guilds can do?
Why does Sis Kebabi dude use gil?
Why do all the other vendors use gil?

blahblahblah

[Aerin]

I wish they added a quest or something where you could get an extra I.D. Tag for Assault, doesn't even have to be permanent. Make it a once a week thing

[BRP]

Obviously, they are being nice to mercenary-folk, but the army? I bet those merchants are more than happy to take gil, it is probably like the American dollar. The army has no excuse.

[Aerin]

And that's why the Imperial Army has spent millions of gil

FAIL. Why would the Empire use foreign currency?!

Why does Al Zahbi/Whitegate AH charge in gil instead of imp.coin like guilds can do?
Why does Sis Kebabi dude use gil?
Why do all the other vendors use gil?

blahblahblah

Solution: Have Aht Urghan mobs drop coins instead? lol fun to play with the thought

[sahearniitth]

I wish they would make assault rank up require atleast 3+ unique assaults per rank up. Kinda sad that people can rank up to max by spamming Golden Salvage (which I hope they patch). By only adding in 1 rank this patch it means that people can just keep doing Golden salvage and by the end of the month they would be ready for the next patch Assault Rank Wise.


Other ways to encourage people to do the higher tier assaults would be to increase the AP you get per run or to actually have higher tier assaults have a much higher droprate on "good" appraisal items.

[LD]

I wish they would make assault rank up require atleast 3+ unique assaults per rank up. Kinda sad that people can rank up to max by spamming Golden Salvage (which I hope they patch). By only adding in 1 rank this patch it means that people can just keep doing Golden salvage and by the end of the month they would be ready for the next patch Assault Rank Wise.


Other ways to encourage people to do the higher tier assaults would be to increase the AP you get per run or to actually have higher tier assaults have a much higher droprate on "good" appraisal items.

You do realize doing it that way (spamming a single assault) takes 5 times as long, right?
That's called a 'trade-off.'
Forcing someone to do a certain number of missions for a rank doesn't necessarily make ranking up any more difficult, so there's no point in concerning yourself with how other people get to CS (lvl8).

[Aerin]

I wish they would make assault rank up require atleast 3+ unique assaults per rank up. Kinda sad that people can rank up to max by spamming Golden Salvage (which I hope they patch). By only adding in 1 rank this patch it means that people can just keep doing Golden salvage and by the end of the month they would be ready for the next patch Assault Rank Wise.


Other ways to encourage people to do the higher tier assaults would be to increase the AP you get per run or to actually have higher tier assaults have a much higher droprate on "good" appraisal items.

You do realize doing it that way (spamming a single assault) takes 5 times as long, right?
That's called a 'trade-off.'
Forcing someone to do a certain number of missions for a rank doesn't necessarily make ranking up any more difficult, so there's no point in concerning yourself with how other people get to CS (lvl8).

He said it would only take them til the end of the month which is pretty much right. 25 pts needed, 1 per day, is 25 days, which is into early April.

Actually in this case it does make it slightly more difficult because it can't possibly get much more easier than Golden Savage with it's bug. And people won't be able to half ass their way to the top.

[HAcoreRD]

I wish they would make assault rank up require atleast 3+ unique assaults per rank up. Kinda sad that people can rank up to max by spamming Golden Salvage (which I hope they patch). By only adding in 1 rank this patch it means that people can just keep doing Golden salvage and by the end of the month they would be ready for the next patch Assault Rank Wise.


Other ways to encourage people to do the higher tier assaults would be to increase the AP you get per run or to actually have higher tier assaults have a much higher droprate on "good" appraisal items.

You do realize doing it that way (spamming a single assault) takes 5 times as long, right?
That's called a 'trade-off.'
Forcing someone to do a certain number of missions for a rank doesn't necessarily make ranking up any more difficult, so there's no point in concerning yourself with how other people get to CS (lvl8).

He said it would only take them til the end of the month which is pretty much right. 25 pts needed, 1 per day, is 25 days, which is into early April.

Actually in this case it does make it slightly more difficult because it can't possibly get much more easier than Golden Savage with it's bug. And people won't be able to half ass their way to the top.

But You get less points in rank advancing by repeating the same mission over and over

[LD]

Awesome, everyone else can do the actual missions and hit it in 5 days.

Like to remind everyone Assaults are, for the most part, reasonably easy and I doubt these next 5 will shake that up by too much (none of them can be more difficult than Lebros Supplies.)

[Aerin]

yes we understand you get less points........ which is not the point once again -.-;

[sahearniitth]

My point was that letting people rank up to max by spamming a lvl 1 assault multiple times takes away the prestige and perks of those who actually work at the assault missions.

Comparing this to Rank missions, it would be like saying that someone who turns in 50-100 sets of fetich parts to a gate guard deserves to be Rank 10 (or some other easilly spammable mission). SE added in Rank rewards and made it so you had to do certain missions to progress (which if you did them at the time were challenging and required ALLIANCES, not anymore). Atm the rewards of higher ranks (IS items, access to missions with good, albeit rare, appraisial) can all be obtained by spamming a soloable assault.

As far as "5 times as long" goes, that is a matter of prespective. It takes a much smaller length of time for 3 people who know the trick to Golden Salvage to do it 4 times than it takes to do some assaults legitlly. Even if it doesnt take less, it is definatelly less than 2x the time. So in the end you are not looking at 5 times the effort.

This is partlly why people dont care to even attempt to rank up assault. Its too simple to just spam lower level assaults for points. If on the other hand higher tier assaults gave more points, ie, 2-3k per individual for a win people would be moe motivated to rank up and if ranking up was more restircitve than it would give people motivation to do different assaults and not just spam 1.

[LD]

Ok, I see where you're coming from....So?
Lets pretend there was no bug in GS and you had to fight wrong answers, the worm hunt doesn't have a bug and doesn't take a genius to beat.

So what if they don't progress the exact same way?
They shouldn't get stuck because they can't find anyone higher than a certain level and it's not like they're really putting in less time or effort than anyone else.

[JMunin]

In case anyone was under the impression they would need to spam assaults after update to get to the next level ASAP, if you are currently SM and have been doing assaults you should be able to rank up right away to the next level. As far as I understand it, anyway.

[HAcoreRD]

wait until SE fixes the Golden Savage chest trick. Then it'll be a SMN thing again. As easy as I can do Golden Savage, I haven't done assault in I think 2 months, only because it's boring and the good drops are that rare, or someone who doesn't need it will cast that winning lot on it.

But I see your point about constantly doing lower level Assaults.

[BRP]

There should be a sense of pride gained from doing all the Assaults at least once. Well, pride isn't enough, something like a item reward would be nice. Even a title.

It's bad enough Mercenary Ranks has such a little effect...

[thur]

OMGAH OGMA!

[LD]

I think the system is fine without a road block that keeps even more people from ranking up.
Having to make 25 points and doing a promotion quest is enough to set a division in tiers.
The fact of the matter is you're still restricted to one tag per day and still getting roughly the same amount of AP, so you're always paying and getting paid the same amount on some level.

Assaults are grunt work for a raging bitch, I don't see how you can talk about pride.
The missions are far too easy to get a sense of acomplishment.
Even Khimaia gaving me more of a 'I did it' feeling than any of these.
The only reason I want to complete them all is because I'm a perfectionist, otherwise I'd boil it down to aquisition and how you're kidding yourselves if you think people believe the journey is more important than the end result.
Playing this game should show you that part of human nature.