Mission Additions and Various Adjustments (08/02/2007)

[Fayttt]

They forgot to mention that Siren will get Beseiged increased to level 10. Or at least, that's what a handful of Siren players would like to see

There better be a ton of cutscenes for the missions, cause if this is the last of it, and it compares to the other updates, then it all seems kind of rushed. What was in the last update for CoP? the Promathia fight? 8-3 and up?

I believe they opened sea and to 8-3 in an update for COP and then the last update for it (The missions at least) was simply 8-4 and the cutscenes.

[Tempyst]

Limit Break Quests

With the current level of advancement of the majority of the player base, it has become increasingly difficult to find fellow adventurers who have yet to complete the limit break quests. In an effort to alleviate the woes of newer players, the limit break quests from level 50 to level 60 will have their difficulty reduced in the following manner:

Level 50 "In Defiant Challenge"
Drop rates for the quest items will be improved.

Level 55 "Atop the Highest Mountains"
The relative strength of the quest monsters will be reduced so that a party of six level 51 characters will be able to defeat them.

Posting the obligatory, "OMG, They're nerfing FFXI," so we can skip that noise.

BUT BACK IN MY DAY YOU HAD TO TRAVEL UPHILL BOTH WAYS TO ELDIEME AND THE DROP TOOK 12 HOURS EACH AND BLAH BLAH NOOBS HAVE IT TOO EASY BLAH BLAH DRK/BLMS GETTING TO 75 BLAH

[Nekio]

The forthcoming version update brings us to the climax of the Aht Urhgan missions, while introducing several groundbreaking adjustments to Einherjar, the Chocobo Hot and Cold game, Besieged, and more!

[Max™]

The forthcoming version update brings us to the climax of the Aht Urhgan missions, while introducing several groundbreaking adjustments to Einherjar, the Chocobo Hot and Cold game, Besieged, and more!

[Mayareira]

1+ hour besieged's were frustrating (not like midgard can resist that long). Minor but cool updates, I guess.

[Hanyoko]

I bet the Einherjar was from all the flack they received when the dev admitted you could encounter a room with 0% chance of winning.

o.O when did this happen?

Well its 'reading into their words' but~~

1UP: Have you guys gotten any useful feedback about Einherjar? You've always been pretty good about balancing things that need balancing, and from my experience in Einherjar thus far, my alliances often get an unlucky random draw, with our last run being eight dark elementals that didn't really want to sleep whether we cast Sleepga II, or Lullaby. Usually the tanks would go down first and fast, and then the sleepers would. And then it went downhill. [Laughs]

KO: Actually, we wanted to make it difficult from the beginning. [Laughs] We wanted to make it difficult for the high level people. That doesn't mean we're not going to do anything. We just started it a month ago, and so were still trying to find out how well it's going. We are happy that it's difficult, but if any changes need to be made, they will be made. Right now it's just the luck of the draw.

Therefore since its designed to randomly create a difficult encounter, there is a chance it will create something which you cannot win at.

[Kaslo]

The beseiged update really wins for those times when you had all 3 beastmen coming at you and it was a 9 hour conquest >.>

[BerenTebogo]

Deserves its own thread imo, I for one am glad limit break 2 will be easier, I've always wondered what it would be like to finally hit lv55

Epic...

Dude I don' think you get it, i'm SO nub that I still think limit break 2 lets me level up to 55, it's a devastating loop of nubbery.

[BRP]

This should be a rule... OP or a mod should edit in the pictures found on the title page and the pictures included in the news page itself.

I'll repeat what I said in the other thread.

The Einherjar change is not as grand as it could be, but it might be considerable useful. Hopefully HP is reduced by an amount based on how many monsters you get(including x2 types). I really hoped for the possibility of other methods being used, like kiting or even super-tanking or something. Makes things look even more manaburnable.

This won't solve the Besieged problem, but it is a pretty nice step into the nice direction. Sadly I foresee this causing the lost of many exp bonuses as sometimes the level boss isn't defeated in time. In any case, they need to adjust so certain 2hrs or monster WSes aren't so damn potent because of the number of people around them and make waves smaller if the area is underpopulated. I wrote my thoughts in another forum and I'm just going to quote it here. Made small so it doesn't take up much room.

Besieged

Flaws:
-Unbalanced for underpopulated servers or at times when population is low. (This might become more severe as the end-game focus is moved from Aht Urhgan with a new expansion).
-AFK players "taking up space".
-Very little incentive to do things outside of the actual battles in Al Zahbi to help against the battle.
-Certain aspects of the battles in Al Zahbi being broken.
-Besieged taking too long.

Changes made to the Battles in Al Zahbi.

1. The number of monsters/opponents that appear in each wave(in case you weren't sure, Besieged works in "waves") is based on the number of players in Al Zahbi.

How many monsters are removed can change throughout the battle. Wave #1 might be reduced more than Wave #3 because more players entered during the fight.

Example based on made up numbers: If the standard for a level 5 is 500 players and a Wave is to include a General/Sub-General and 10 monsters... if only 300 person are in Al Zahbi than only 5 or 6 monsters will appear with that General.

2. If a player is completely unmoved within the first 30 seconds on Besieged, he will be prompted a message similar to the kind that GM send to players they suspect of being bots. The message would have a timer of 60 seconds that a player could see count down.

Do you wish to participate in Besieged?
No
Yes

When the counter hits 0 or when a player selects "No", that player is teleported out of Al Zahbi and into Aht Urhgan Whitegate.

3. Have a "maximum" Besieged duration timer that activates the moment the "exp-bonus"/"level" General has been defeated. This counts the time it took to defeat that level general.

The reason I'm being more careful with this is that I'm not exactly sure what decides Besieged's duration, and if I say what I think does that would be speculation. Either way, adding a max duration might hurt some servers that try to gain the exp bonus.

(I have feeling it's the defeat of all the "enlarged" normal Beastmen. I also have a feeling the number of remaining serpent generals plays a big role. I recall many "OMG SAVE THE AC" fights lasting hours and hours).

20 Minutes + 10 minutes * level of Beastmen forces. (Minimum level 1=30 minutes. Maximum level 8= 100 minutes... oddly similar to Salvage)

(This might provide useful for battles that is desperate race to prevent the Astral Candescence from being captured).

4. Serpent Generals are immune to Doom or Death. This makes some Beastmen opponents not be especially broken.

5. Eidolic Qufeel Ja is adjusted in a manner that makes him less unbalanced. When he uses Utsusemi, he loses 10% of his health and his clone(s) have that 10% of health as their maximum HP. Eidolic Qufeel Ja is unable to Mijin Gakure, but his clones retain that ability.

6. The Mijin Gakure of Mamool Sappers and Astral Flow of Lamia Comandress are adjusted greatly when hitting large amount of players at once. Much like AoE spells, their damage will drop when many players are hit by those effects. (Example: if a Mijin Gakure is going to do 4000 damage... it will instead do 1500 on 20 people... 1000 on 30).

7. The amounts of health that can restored from Blood Saber, Malediction, and Grave Reel will have a cap based on the maximum HP of the user in Besieged. This will be roughly 10% of max health. This will not be reflected in the damage taken by players.

8. When the "Mega-Bosses" are defeated outside of Besieged, preventing them from appearing(Level 5 and above), their exp/IS bonuses(200) is automatically gained.

9. Opponents in Besieged will sometimes drop Medicine into the temporary item pools of the alliance that the last hit belongs to. This would normally be Potion, Hi-Potion, Ether, Hi-Ether, and Icarus Wing on normal monsters. On bosses this might be rarer medicines, such as replacements to the ones we receive at the beginning of Besieged.

10. At the end of Besieged, all status effects(including positive ones) are removed and all dead players are instantly raised. If you are familiar with Ballista or Brenner, the process is identical.


Changes made to Besieged elements outside of Al Zahbi.

1. Experiece/Limit Point awards would be added to the rescuing of prisioners and turning in Archaic Mirrors. The reward, much like Besieged, would be equal to the amount of IS gained.

Archaic Mirrors would grant 200.

Rescuing a normal citizen would grant 100 and a serpent general 500.

2. The rate Beastmen gain force level is no longer related to Archaic Mirrors. It is set on a timer that is easier to calculate. A Besieged will happen once everyday or every two days. This timer is only effected by the number of NMs alive in that Beastmen stronghold. It goes quicker if they are defeated and goes slower if they remain up. (4 + Beastmen leader). At optimal settings, the Beastmen will begin preparing the next day at the exact time their most recent Besieged ended. At least optimal settings, it would be two days at the exact time their most recent Besieged ended. (This timer can be messed up because of multiple Beastmen invading at the same time, but this isn't exactly a bad thing as it naturally fixes itself).

Archaic Mirrors will still play a important role in the deciding the strength of Notorious Monsters within and outside Besieged, including Astral Candescence Recovery.

3. The Preparing Stage of Besieged will shorten greatly:

5 minutes * Force Level.

(Maximum, level 8= 40 minutes).

In combination with the time it takes them to get to the city, players often have to wait too longer for a Besieged to start.

4. The item description "Besieged:" is removed from the game. It is replaced by "Assault:". After this change, "Assault:" and "Salvage:" items work in Besieged.

What this does is make a lot of items that are largely ignored and make them potentially much more desired. Most "Besieged:" items either come from spending IS after obtaining a higher Mercenary Rank or from NMs subtly connected to Besieged.


Changes to Astral Candescence Recovery

1. The nature of the keyitems required to enter the mini-dungeon before the fight and fight itself are changed. They no longer disappear when you discount or zone.

2. Along with 1000 IS, 1000 Exp should be rewarded to the winners.

3. Another reward should also be granted to the winners: A Multi-Use Runic Portal Permit of 5 charges. Recently SE explained why they had not added one before: it would allow people to use Runic Portals when the AC was taken. But, to someone who spent the effort to save it, it wouldn't be much of an "exploit" at all.

The other changes range from alright to good. I don't think I need to comment on them. While nerfing difficulty to easy quests is not something I've always agreed with, G2 being completed by a party of 51(or 3-4 people a bit higher level I guess) is alright in my book. As long they don't nerf Maat...

[Zilong]

We could use better reward system for Archaic Mirrors trade in so people would actually go out of their way breaking them.

[Not Kuno]

Don't get rid of afk people in AlZahbi. I dont want to stay in Whitegate all day it fucking sucks ass.

[Tajin]

Money would be a good reward, given the current state of things. Or assault points, that would be interesting.

[Mifaco]

Next update they'll "adjust" the HP of mobs that drop testimonies. You just wait.

[Indalecia]

I'm liking it so far. Let's just see what else they got to throw at us.

[Septimus]

We could use better reward system for Archaic Mirrors trade in so people would actually go out of their way breaking them.

Get rid of the mirror guards so that people can solo them again.

[aurik]

Monk can solo them, mirror guards and all

[Xanthu]

I can solo them, mirror guards and all. For I am ALL THAT IS MAN

Fixed
I don't even know if that's really true, but it was funny to me, ok? OKAY?!

[Octavious]

SE always seems to pair good updates, with a 'WTF' part. "We're now taking DRK off Kraken Club, as the abuse of Souleater & Kraken Club has lead to the breaking of certain fights, that will be all" >.> idk, just speculating...With SE, all good comes equally paired with something stupid.

[Lordender]

thought the chocobo circut was the wtf part

[Xavier]

SE always seems to pair good updates, with a 'WTF' part. "We're now taking DRK off Kraken Club, as the abuse of Souleater & Kraken Club has lead to the breaking of certain fights, that will be all" >.> idk, just speculating...With SE, all good comes equally paired with something stupid.

In accordance with the difficulty of the limit break quests being lowered, the level cap for all players will now be LV60.