Overcamping and stealing camps, the new life of merits

[Mahonri]

No matter how many new camps you create, repop timers you change, or sanction/signet exp bonuses you give there will always be 2-4 camps that will provide the best exp/hr, and every Tom, Dick, and Henry will flock to those camps. Just gotta outclaim, and kill faster then the others..

[shihei]

you war/war/mnk/rdm/brd/brd parties are nerfing my damn exp
just because my pt is pld/sam/thf/drk/smn/rdm and cant get to chain 10 doesnt make you better
maybe if it was more balanced we would all exp at the same pace but alas its not and some jobs dont perform as well as others but they need exp too -.-
anyway like the guy above me said, you camp on top of another pt that was there first and you are a douchbebag
douchebags need exp too......RIGHT?
OMG WHO"S SIDE AM I ON

[S N K]

IF you camp on top of another party, EVEN IF you rationalize it by saying "I'm better." You ARE a fucking douchebag.

End of story.

The Jps taught that really well to those NA players that tried to be nice.

[aurik]

Its pretty easy to get 15k+ in Uleguerand now. If ToAU is crowded, I like that place.

[niisse]

Had this situation last night when I was in a 1/2 LS party of MNK, MNK, WAR, BRD, BRD, RDM all with decent gear (black belts, nice trimmings of king/sky gear etc) We were getting a steady 25k an hour or so at mamools then a party turned up with PLD, SMN, BLM etc and stayed at the top near the zone line. Our exp dropped to 20k an hour which was still goodso we stayed anyway.

One of our BRDs was friends with the BRD in the other party. The other parties brd saw their party set up and wasnt happy camping on us so they fake Dced, but the crappy party waited for them to come back and so eventually when she did they reinvited her. Our BRD ended up getting stressed basically competing with thier friend over pulls. I told them that as long as the other party was competing againts us to not consider them friends for now and just pull, If they have yellow slept mobs or wyverns etc pull that too, camp repops anything after all they were camping on us with a inferior set up.

In the end the BRD said that while they appreciated the excellent exp we were getting they had to leave as it was getting too much for them. We werent doing any stuff in say (thats just lame) but were outpulling them and killing faster and I beleive I may or may not have said something along the lines of "if they have that kind of set up piss off back to Moon" which our BRD didnt like.



On the other hand I have been in pick up parties that have tried competing against my linkshell members. I usally tell them not to bother and to pick another camp or I leave myself cos I cant be assed with small pickings and the lols Also, last month some (more asshattery types) in my ls tried to push out a party at the upper level mamool camp. The older party retaliated by inviting half thier linkshell and exping in an alliance. It has gotten silly, Ive tried other exp areas before (like that undead place with the double damage but twice as much health crap) but it sucks compared to the obvious better plcaes we have in ToA that are heaviliy contetsted, oh wells.

Hmm wall of text D:

[Zilong]

They can make mobs respawn in assault/salvage, I'd say they should create an instanced zone that last like 60-120 mins with meritable mobs, maybe reservable via IS/CP, so it's a system that sustain itself, and give it a gimmick with like if you break chain, you get kicked out, or there is a NM somewhere that gives dedication effect when killed, etc.

That way, you can pretty much gather 6 capable party member and just go to an uncontested zone, merit to your heart's desire, and leave the fucking mire for retards

Or they could double qutrub's exp and make diamondhide dispellable, either works just fine

[Kaslo]

Indoor repop times and no sanction? You'll get more exp fighting for mobs than moving to non-ToAU fail exp sky, the groups that go to mire when there's already 60 people there know this.

Sounds like you have never had a good weapon burn, or even Aern Manaburns in Sea...

Also if your merit PT is in the mire there is a 90-95% chance the party is horrible.

But tbh if there are birds up at the GC camp then it means you shouldn't be there in the PTs I merit with, and we will come in and show you how you should merit there.

I've been a ridill war for a long ass time, and got a ton of merits on the aerns and aern summons before they nerfed it . The example had nothing to do with myself, it's about 72-75 parties with loljobs like your BLU, even the ZAM crowds understand how badly non-ToAU exp fails and that a crowded mire will always be better than sky.

Ok just keep telling yourself that when you can't keep chain on you 100 exp per kill imps while I have a party ripping through Weapons on the 1st floor of the shrine.

Sky exp is not bad. Heck Sky exp is better than the mire 95% of the time. Just cause you fail to realize it doesn't mean it's not true.

And cheapshot at my blu all you want, but remember not all BLUs suck like the majority of the ones you see. Some actually focus on Sword DoT and knowing when to spam a little to keep chain alive.

Why do you keep saying "you" I've never been dumb enough to take a good 75 pt to mire or sky after ToAU came out. You're not ripping through anything with plds and blu's in sky, and if you think those "Mire" level parties are doing better in sky you're fucking high.

Well if they aren't getting any mobs in the Mire then yes they will do better in sky, and I never said anything about PLDs. But I will say a well geared BLU in a TP burn in sky can burn through mobs like MNKs and WARs. Maybe not BB-MNKs or RidillWARs but normal WARs and MNKs. But the BLU has to be well equiped and smart, something you probably haven't seen in a BLU.

[Mifaco]

They can make mobs respawn in assault/salvage, I'd say they should create an instanced zone that last like 60-120 mins with meritable mobs, maybe reservable via IS/CP, so it's a system that sustain itself, and give it a gimmick with like if you break chain, you get kicked out, or there is a NM somewhere that gives dedication effect when killed, etc.

That way, you can pretty much gather 6 capable party member and just go to an uncontested zone, merit to your heart's desire, and leave the fucking mire for retards

Or they could double qutrub's exp and make diamondhide dispellable, either works just fine

Diamondhide doesn't need to be dispellable. Stop sucking.

[Delekii]

If a merit party I am in as Bard decides to try to run someone out of a camp that they were in first, I disband. I don't like being seen as an arsehole, if you want to be that's your prerogative. It means worse xp for everyone, even the party who is killing/pulling faster, it creates major headache for the bard who is pulling, and creates tension where there needn't be any. Before you make a merit party, search the fucking camps and have a look. If there are 51231312 people in Caedarva and 541254 in Bhaflau, don't plan on going there. That easy.

[Melchiah]

I make 12K/hr +/- without xp rings on trolls at the bridge over Cerberus pop area with a static LS group. It's always uncontested, I don't see what the big fucking deal is about camping in the mire... ripping 1400 damage Rampages on Imps and T flys? Well, if that's what it takes to make your gaming experience enjoyable, then rock on with it. I'll stick with my 1300 damage Ramps on IT trolls and my 12K/hour xp rate.

[Xanthu]

Ok, Rkenshin-update-sized response here, bear with me.

From BRD65 to BRD75, I made a living stealing camps and casting requiem on sleeping mobs that unclaimed. I've had my party forced out of camp once total, and I left and found an open camp somewhere else and continued my EXP without making an idiot of myself in /say or /tell.

If you're going to take EXP so seriously that you have to curse someone out, go to Dvucca or Halvung or Lufaise or something less crowded.

There's a lot of replies like this, so I'm blanket-replying to all of it. Here is that basic kinda instinct that seems to happen. There are people that love the rush of fighting for pops...but if you think about it, the people losing usually just get pissed, especially when everyone but the BRD just wants some exp, not 20 min of great exp, then 60 of meh, 10 of awesome, 30 of crap.

It's the god-given right of a superior party to take over a camp and push weaker parties out

Been said before.

This theory only works when people know what a superior party is. Otherwise you just get the same situation as usual.

Bingo. This is especially hard when parties are similarly setup, or there are people trying to become better through merits and have to deal with, in their opinion, bullshit of other people.

I fail to see how this is unique to ToaU areas. It has been like this for merit camps since before I ever hit 75. Instead of Ullikumi, deco weapons, demons, and skeletons it's now mamools imps and birds. What's the difference? Same shit, different place. Go hit up the old stomping grounds if you don't want to deal with it, they're still good EXP. In fact, they're twice as good as you remember them because there's no one there now. They're also twice as fun because there's an element of semi-challenge involved.

This is worse now because of the rush of people hitting 75, probably was blunted and accelerated at the same time by the introduction of ToAU, but it woulda happened eventually...god imagine sky camps or Lufase Meadows with 3+ always D:

I don't like overcamping other competent parties, but if they're leaving 2/3 of a camp's mobs up or more (especially on 5 min repops) they're asking to be run out. Especially at Nyzul Colibris. If a party full of what look like half-brained DDs and at least 1 BRD is there, it's not worth the hassle of overcamping unless they're embarrassingly bad, but if you see something like PLD, RDM, THF, SAM, SAM, SAM there, they're practically begging to get pushed out.

There are plenty of mediocre camps spread across the game and across ToAU that people in mediocre parties can use without stopping up the few camps that good parties can use. There aren't that many top-notch camps where a good party can really push itself.

It's just as self-centered, in my opinion, to go to what is commonly known as a good camp with a bad party as it is to overcamp a bad party with a better one, because there's plenty of other places that bad party could go and end up getting the same XP, but not block one of the few camps a really good party can use.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm spoiled as hell by good parties, but I really don't like having my own game experience degraded because some joke of a party decides they want to go to one of the highest-traffic merit camps in the game and pull just enough mobs to be an annoyance to another party while leaving nearly every pop untouched because they can't kill fast enough.

I think everything you just said was extremely elitist. Crying "omg n00bs ruining our amazing xp" doesn't solve anything, it just makes you look like an asshat. A bad pt ptying at a good xp spot is far better than a bad pt at a bad spot. The only way to "fix" this would be for the "good" players to take intiative. If the xp sucks because slower killing pts are always there, then find a better camp you can get to yourself and chain kill everything. Be creative, be innovative. Stop whining to SE to solve your problems for you. /rant over

I'm partially agreeing with Ryu here. This does come off extremely elitist, and a bad party still wants the good exp spot, because they do better there. On the flipside it's tough to be creative sometimes because there is a finite limit to what's known for viable exp.

if you cant kill all the birds or mamool on your floor at nyzul, GTFO

there is no other place that has the capacity to maintain a chain at the same level of xp for some parties. its just as rude to deny a 3 war, 2 brd, rdm party the only camp that can support them reasonably well. Imagine the feeling from our side of it when we roll in and see a party with 2 members 73, no bard, and maybe a pld tossed in or good measure... they're gonna get just as much xp off mamools, or in the mire, but instead they're here, in the only place with enough reasonable mobs to keep a chain off. I dont give two shits how long you've been there, or how close you are to your level, my party has 2 bards, and 3 vokes, and a hell of a lot of sleep. you're not finishing your chain, and you're a dick for being there in the first place.

Are they being a dick if they're there before you? I can understand the logic of "omg y nubs takin our mobz" but if a higher level group comes in, do they have the right to those mobs when they're camped for about equal exp by 70 and 75 alike?

lol, I'm not gonna make an LS merit pt leave the camp just because a party is killing one at the pace of us killing 4.

And I can't blame you...but you took your LS party to an area with a lot of people already in it and from what I heard chased out 5 or 6 parties in Mamool Ja Staging Point. I will concede that yes there are no /seacoms, so it's harder to tell. It just seems that SML is the 600lb gorrilla: Where do they exp? Anywhere they want to, because they can. I don't really disagree with it on some aspects, when it's your camp, it's your camp. But can you say it's yours when there are 5 there already? Does spending the extra 200 ISP and 10 min hurt? Or is it the sad and suck fact that everything's already taken?
Again not angry/trying to fight you IRL...oh god please let me go on Salvage still ;-;

Just off the top of my head, I remember 22 merit camps that can each easily yield 10k+ exp/hour. These 22 are for 5-6 man teams, it doesn't include the duo and trio locations which are also viable alternatives. A few contributing factors to overcrowding are people not knowing the alternative sites, poor quality parties that think it's AWESOME to get 5k/hour so accept a crowded camp(pissing off more skilled parties), and overall laziness(some people don't want to try new camps or only want camps that are close to town).

Share prz? I promise to do them LS only-not on your server-blah-blah-blah.

...poor quality parties that think it's AWESOME to get 5k/hour so accept a crowded camp(pissing off more skilled parties)...

This is exactly what I have been beating to death every time some gimp party camps on top of my good party. There's no motivation for that pld/sam/thf/drk/smn/rdm party to leave since they are still happy with their xp and the whole pain of sharing a camp falls on the good party. It's like some homeless guy moving his box on the lawn of a mansion.

I'm sure square knows about their areas being crowded and I figure this is just by design. (and the whole non-TOAU thing always is why get 15k/hr in old areas when you can get 25+ k/hr in some ToAU areas) There's so much dead space (in terms of spots that nobody ever xps in) in mamook, wajaom, thickets, havlung, the reef, and caedarva that a few enemy swaps could easily double the viable camps. But like I said, if they planned to do that, they would have done it by now.

Logical here mirroring again what I've said: the "weaker" parties are still gonna camp in the big spots, because they still get better exp there than in a "worse" camp. It only becomes crap when they have to fight other "stronger" parties. And where is the burden of "blame" and "responsibility" on with all of this? The "stronger" party? The "weaker" one? Whoever showed up to the camp first? Whoever chains higher?

No matter how many new camps you create, repop timers you change, or sanction/signet exp bonuses you give there will always be 2-4 camps that will provide the best exp/hr, and every Tom, Dick, and Henry will flock to those camps. Just gotta outclaim, and kill faster then the others..

Again, this. But is it better to fight? Who should move? etc.

I was in a 1/2 LS party...a party turned up with PLD, SMN, BLM etc and stayed at the top near the zone line. Our exp dropped to 20k an hour which was still goodso we stayed anyway.

One of our BRDs was friends with the BRD in the other party.... Our BRD ended up getting stressed basically competing with thier friend over pulls. I told them that as long as the other party was competing againts us to not consider them friends for now and just pull,

This is one of those situations that I don't like, and I find it shares issues with my own situation. Friends getting butthurt because friends of friends or some 3rd-party relation like that winds up making problems in exp. This BRD gets pushed by a party, including their own LS, to fight against her own friend in the one of the closest things to pvp we have in FFXI*. Most people joined or play FFXI for one of two major reasons: They did not like PvP, and/or they wanted to play with friends, usually in a non pvp situation. If I wanted to fight against friends I'll go play CS:Source or something similar, but FFXI I want to work with friends, not have to defend friend against friend.

*By this I ment open-world-unannounced-unagreed pvp. HNM camping is the other PvP in my mind. Ballista and Brenner are agreement based thus don't count.

If a merit party I am in as Bard decides to try to run someone out of a camp that they were in first, I disband. I don't like being seen as an arsehole, if you want to be that's your prerogative. It means worse xp for everyone, even the party who is killing/pulling faster, it creates major headache for the bard who is pulling, and creates tension where there needn't be any. Before you make a merit party, search the fucking camps and have a look. If there are 51231312 people in Caedarva and 541254 in Bhaflau, don't plan on going there. That easy.

This is my general take on it. I don't like moving into camps when people are already there. But if you move in on my camp, I don't care if you're "better" or whatever, I'm voking/stunning everything because Fuck You for moving on on what we've already claimed.

[Rocl]

I ENJOY MERITTING IN SEA

There, I said it.
I had to do it sometime, and now felt right.

[Darkmessenger]

Meriting during early NA time is probably the best solution for your merit party problems.
Caedarva is meant for 70-75 parties, any decent merit party will just stumble upon (gimp) 70ish parties and gimp their own exp. And I honestly don't get camping over another party when they're already there, you just know you're going to mess with your own exp. It's a whole different game when another party decides to invade your territory of course.

And Sky is soo 2004, it's a good solution when you're 70-73ish, but meriting in Sky is like taking 6 Kraken DRKs to Serket.

Also, merit parties should be atleast 15k/h, I'm not wasting my time on 10-12k/h parties.

[Zilong]

They can make mobs respawn in assault/salvage, I'd say they should create an instanced zone that last like 60-120 mins with meritable mobs, maybe reservable via IS/CP, so it's a system that sustain itself, and give it a gimmick with like if you break chain, you get kicked out, or there is a NM somewhere that gives dedication effect when killed, etc.

That way, you can pretty much gather 6 capable party member and just go to an uncontested zone, merit to your heart's desire, and leave the fucking mire for retards

Or they could double qutrub's exp and make diamondhide dispellable, either works just fine

Diamondhide doesn't need to be dispellable. Stop sucking.

Yeah, but I really don't see any points in exping on trolls when a fucking colibri gives same base exp, have half the HP and defense, and doesn't spam diamondhide.

[BRP]

They can make mobs respawn in assault/salvage, I'd say they should create an instanced zone that last like 60-120 mins with meritable mobs, maybe reservable via IS/CP, so it's a system that sustain itself, and give it a gimmick with like if you break chain, you get kicked out, or there is a NM somewhere that gives dedication effect when killed, etc.

That way, you can pretty much gather 6 capable party member and just go to an uncontested zone, merit to your heart's desire, and leave the fucking mire for retards

Or they could double qutrub's exp and make diamondhide dispellable, either works just fine

Diamondhide doesn't need to be dispellable. Stop sucking.

Yeah, but I really don't see any points in exping on trolls when a fucking colibri gives same base exp, have half the HP and defense, and doesn't spam diamondhide.

I got a point!

You are the only one killing trolls.

Also Diamondhide is weakened like -aga spells. You should be pulling trolls in pairs or trios.

[alphacat]

I don't like overcamping other competent parties, but if they're leaving 2/3 of a camp's mobs up or more (especially on 5 min repops) they're asking to be run out. Especially at Nyzul Colibris. If a party full of what look like half-brained DDs and at least 1 BRD is there, it's not worth the hassle of overcamping unless they're embarrassingly bad, but if you see something like PLD, RDM, THF, SAM, SAM, SAM there, they're practically begging to get pushed out.

There are plenty of mediocre camps spread across the game and across ToAU that people in mediocre parties can use without stopping up the few camps that good parties can use. There aren't that many top-notch camps where a good party can really push itself.

It's just as self-centered, in my opinion, to go to what is commonly known as a good camp with a bad party as it is to overcamp a bad party with a better one, because there's plenty of other places that bad party could go and end up getting the same XP, but not block one of the few camps a really good party can use.

I'll be the first to admit that I'm spoiled as hell by good parties, but I really don't like having my own game experience degraded because some joke of a party decides they want to go to one of the highest-traffic merit camps in the game and pull just enough mobs to be an annoyance to another party while leaving nearly every pop untouched because they can't kill fast enough.

omg eliteist!!1! all my xp parties suck, leave me alone

if you cant kill all the birds or mamool on your floor at nyzul, GTFO

my party has 2 bards, and 3 vokes, and a hell of a lot of sleep. you're not finishing your chain, and you're a dick for being there in the first place.

Well, that's some dumb way of going about. What if a PT with 3 ridill wars, 2 brd, and a rdm come by, is it time for you to move? What about a PT with 3 ridill wars with ares, 2 relic bards, and an af2 hat rdm, time for the previous pt to move?

You're retarded. Case closed.

[Shuvo]

I ENJOY MERITTING IN SEA

There, I said it.
I had to do it sometime, and now felt right.

I love it there.. I keep telling my blm friends to duo with me there but they keep insisting on sitting in their moghouses /sea MountZhayolm'ing all day. ._.;

[Baha]

I only DoT yellow mobs if it has been done to me first, don't feel all too great about it otherwise, annoying to have to be at other people's throats just for merits. ;p

It's really annoying to go to colibri's, and see some RDM RDM PLD SAM BLM THF party doing shit and killing one bird in the time any decent party kills four. Yet I don't see the point in trying to steamroller out any half-competent pt, if 3 people are at mamool SP, I'll go somewhere else, it's not worth the headache.
Also, fuck Mire, hate that shit. It's like meripo valkurm dunes.

[Amastacia]

My fav exp camp remains at ooga booga range, but I can't go because my merit buddies blew IS points on whores and are still saving up for perdu katanas

I think everything you just said was extremely elitist. Crying "omg n00bs ruining our amazing xp" doesn't solve anything, it just makes you look like an asshat. A bad pt ptying at a good xp spot is far better than a bad pt at a bad spot. The only way to "fix" this would be for the "good" players to take intiative. If the xp sucks because slower killing pts are always there, then find a better camp you can get to yourself and chain kill everything. Be creative, be innovative. Stop whining to SE to solve your problems for you. /rant over

I am extremely elitist about meriting unless I'm partying for fun with LS/friends and just looking for enjoyment instead of efficiency. Otherwise, I said it myself. I'm spoiled by good parties. Be disgusted if you want, can't say I much care.

Problem with "taking the initiative" is that there are TWO places a truly top-notch merit party can go without having their wings clipped. Nyzul Isle and Uleguerand Range. Taking the initiative to go elsewhere is taking the initiative to force a square peg into a round hole, basically. There's a few other places a good party can go and get a decent result (like Mamool SP), but it's still subpar unless it's empty.

And I can't blame you...but you took your LS party to an area with a lot of people already in it and from what I heard chased out 5 or 6 parties in Mamool Ja Staging Point. I will concede that yes there are no /seacoms, so it's harder to tell. It just seems that SML is the 600lb gorrilla: Where do they exp? Anywhere they want to, because they can. I don't really disagree with it on some aspects, when it's your camp, it's your camp. But can you say it's yours when there are 5 there already? Does spending the extra 200 ISP and 10 min hurt? Or is it the sad and suck fact that everything's already taken?

This is hyperbole. I can't say that it's never, ever happened, but it's a rare exception, not the rule. We will run out really bad parties (like ones that leave 75% of a camp's mobs up), but if a camp has 5-6 parties there already, we'll always look for another option and almost always choose not to merit rather than try to push that many people out.

If SML is a 600lb gorilla, it's a 600lb gorilla in a tutu, we don't just plow in and take over because we can, we plow in and take over when we don't have any other options, and I can't think of a single party I've been in with LS mates where we've forced out a competent party. If a party is doing a decent job of keeping a camp reasonably clear, they're welcome to it and it's definitely not worth the headache of fighting another good party for pops. If we force a party out, it's because there's enough mobs about that we can chain on what they're not touching, and our natural speed of pulling leads to us claiming everything that pops.

I'm not going to deny that SML parties are occasionally rude about muscling into camps, but it's not like we decide that it's Nyzul or bust and anyone else there needs to gtfo. We'll check any workable camp that won't leave us wishing we hadn't left town to see if it's open, and only overcamp if there isn't one open, but one or more is being significantly underutilized.

[NynJa]

Some assholes on Gilgamesh go to Colibri camp, even if theres allready 2 parties there, camp the middle ledge, and send this asshole paladin whos mooching xp to the lower ledge, so they can claim mobs from both floors reliably.