Campaign Rank Decay is poor design

[travOtaku]

Decaying rank is really not something I appreciate. It kind of ruined this expansion. SO WHAT if it's only ever 30 days? It's the principal. What if all your jobs deleveled slowly over time even if you didn't touch them? How would you guys feel about having to buy a bunch of gear for your old jobs just because they deleveled from 37 to 36 lol. Decay is stupid and has no place in MMORPGs. If you want to have temporary rank, then go play FPS.. seriously.

Decaying rank being compared to your jobs deleveling as time goes on? That's the best comparison you can make about it?

We already CAN and DO lose EXP on our jobs. And the ones we *USE* no less.

People don't complain about needing to switch from Merit mode to EXP mode to recap their buffer for a few hours, but they complain about potentially losing ONE rank in a 30 day time period?

Ranking up to the second rank was EASY, do you think that SE is going to be like "Eh, it's easy as hell to get rank 2, but if you lose it you better be prepared for a grueling quest with 20 parts, and each portion of the quest can only be done after the subsequent JP midnight has come and gone."

I can only imagine that you'll be able to maintain your ranks through casual participation in Campaign.

[Ryko]

Losing rank is not something they should intend to keep going, at least if they don't want this to be the last expansion anyone does or takes seriously. People here would be crying foul like a mother fucker if they said you lost your TOAU assault ranks if you didn't do besieged or varied multiple non-nyzul assaults x amount of times a month.

Decaying rank being compared to your jobs deleveling as time goes on? That's the best comparison you can make about it?

We already CAN and DO lose EXP on our jobs. And the ones we *USE* no less.

Do I really have to explain the flaw in your response to him regarding that subject?

[Ryko]

Do I really have to explain the flaw in your response to him regarding that subject?

You can if you want.

Losing exp on a job you use often and gain exp on either passively doing random events or actively doing merit parties is entirely different from having to keep up on exp for jobs that you rarely if ever touch. I've not touched my ranger, dragoon, monk, blah blah blah blah in up to a year, with even my more commonly used jobs sometimes not seeing action for weeks (warrior, samurai, etc) because what I do predominantly keeps me on PLD or DRK. You'd lose your shit with obligatory maintenance for jobs you rarely pick up if you just started randomly losing levels every couple of weeks, making you desire to use it even less and eventually it's back at level 60 something given enough time, which I think we can agree would be some ol' bullshit.

Edit: Suddenly the post is missing

[Maxxthepenguin]

Losing rank is not something they should intend to keep going, at least if they don't want this to be the last expansion anyone does or takes seriously. People here would be crying foul like a mother fucker if they said you lost your TOAU assault ranks if you didn't do besieged or varied multiple non-nyzul assaults x amount of times a month.

Campaign ops aren't NEARLY as important as assaults...

[Not Kuno]

It's every 30 days so who cares.

[Charismatic]

Losing rank is not something they should intend to keep going, at least if they don't want this to be the last expansion anyone does or takes seriously. People here would be crying foul like a mother fucker if they said you lost your TOAU assault ranks if you didn't do besieged or varied multiple non-nyzul assaults x amount of times a month.

Campaign ops aren't NEARLY as important as assaults...

At least not yet

[Ryko]

Losing rank is not something they should intend to keep going, at least if they don't want this to be the last expansion anyone does or takes seriously. People here would be crying foul like a mother fucker if they said you lost your TOAU assault ranks if you didn't do besieged or varied multiple non-nyzul assaults x amount of times a month.

Campaign ops aren't NEARLY as important as assaults...

So if the discussion on the lack of content at the beginning of launch is going to get responded to with "youll have to wait and see what they add later" (which defeats the purpose of discussing launch content in the first place, but I digress) I then can't turn around and state that something that is going to be the backbone of this expansion requiring obligated upkeep just to not fall behind in case they add stuff to it later (which they obviously will) is lacking foresight on their part?

Assault these days, aside from your 1500 points per run for salvage and nyzul farming (and the obvious extensions to sanction time, something that I assume will be carried over) are absolutely worthless otherwise, don't kid yourself.

[travOtaku]

Do I really have to explain the flaw in your response to him regarding that subject?

Go for it.

Regardless of whether the ranks decay or not, aren't the people that don't care about Campaign just going to forget about it anyway? They'll earn their rewards and then quit. And the people that like Campaign will maintain their ranks because they are participating.

It's just like everything else in the game. If there are decent rewards, people will continue to do it anyway. If they added decaying ranks to assault, who would suffer? The people that never do assault wouldn't suffer because they don't care, and the people that spam assault for salvage and for new assault gear wouldn't suffer because they'd be able to maintain their ranks.

I suppose maybe casual players might suffer potentially, but given how often I see shouts for pick-up assaults, I see that as highly doubtful.

The point is that Decaying Ranks wont affect anyone because the people who lose ranks won't care because they wont have been doing anything to maintain said ranks, and the people that do the activities wont lose their ranks and they'll be happy too.

SE wouldn't make maintaining ranks or even reobtaining ranks impossible as that would be detrimental to the casual players who can't invest a lot of time with the game.

EDIT: >_> Deleted it to add more stuff to it (forgot about edit... major brainfart... too used to Gfaqs I guess...)

Sorry Ryko ; ;

[BRP]

Assault these days, aside from your 1500 points per run for salvage and nyzul farming (and the obvious extensions to sanction time, something that I assume will be carried over) are absolutely worthless otherwise, don't kid yourself.

Well, it's not rare for people to aim for Captain rank or try to get a good appraisals like Divsor Ring, especially since neither are exclusive from the things listed above. Additionally, it isn't impossible for someone to not have APs for an item they suddenly want because of a new job leveled.

Uh, anyway, I don't see how the rank decay is bad design.

Perhaps if it was stricter and harsher, but it would appear you really have to stop caring in order lose most of your progress. Get back one's rank or just advancing progresses roughly 4-5 times faster than demotion(assuming you don't get yourself demoted on purpose). It's very light maintenance and all the while there is much exp(and notes) to be gained. Even the most casual players or players who are busy with other things in the game should be able to keep up should they choose.

It should be noted Campaign doesn't exclude players like Assault rank does. Solo Ops aside, anyone is free to tag along with a single tag holder. Its biggest event being "Campaign Battle" is very open to the public.

Campaign's reward system does put some focus on getting to a higher rank(to have access to more equipment), that could be seen as a flaw. I don't know if it is a strong enough one considering how easy it is for players to plow through ranks or maintain their current.

[Khamsin]

Well, the NPC says you have to work harder each rank in order to keep it, so what if you have to participate in Campaign every day for a month to not get demoted once you're at the final rank? Like 2k AN quota per day or something to maintain rank.

[Max™]

I highly doubt there would be something that absurd, especially with Campaign borked as it is.

It may be possible, but considering you wouldn't necessarily even be trying to rank up, just maintain a rank, I'd suspect that a campaign a week, and using say, 1/4 to 1/2 the OP credits you're given per month, would maintain a rank.

Assault you do as a merc on your own.

Here, you're a soldier campaigning for his nation and the survival of his people, some would find it a little silly that you could just rank up to Captain equivalent, have all of the NPC's calling you sir and kneeling as you pass, and then just utterly retire, come back a year later and still get your balls sucked on.

Anyways, if it works out to be as useful to maintain buffers/finish off a stray merit or whatnot as it was at first, it's not like it will be hard to find a reason to warp out to Sauromugue [S] and kick some yagudo ass a couple times a month, and do a couple of the retardedly easy OPs to get... omg, more exp and AN.

We don't know what sort of uses AN might have, what the benefits of higher ranks might be (watch them do something silly like require a certain medal to get into Xarcarbard. "Sorry soldier, we can't send some newbie grunt out there, this is a major operation, and you'd just be a hindrance. Stay back here and defend the fort while we go get all the glory and phat lewts!"), and what have you.

Besieged is flawed, but if all you had to do was show up for a Besieged a couple times per month, and do less assaults than it takes to get your Salvage/Nyzul loots, and you'd maintain your Captain rank... would you really care that much?

One day per month should probably completely take care of rank maintenance, they're giving us the army reserve service requirements, with the full college fund, status, and retirement bonuses it seems... and you can do it all on your own, at your leisure.

If I could just log on and do assaults at will, if I could hop around AU areas doing Besieged battles at will, I'd have all of my assault gears, and probably have started setting up merits for jobs I'm not even leveling hardcore yet. Unfortunately, I didn't get into assault while it was new, was doing other things, dynamis, sky, finishing CoP. I never got into a reliable assault static, and doing them with random assault newbies can be fun, but it's also a chore sometimes. Requiring 3-6 semi-competent people made me a sad little 'ru.

*Edit: Whoa, tl;dr'D*

[loial]

I think we will need to see the rate of decay before we can make an intelligent evaluation of the campaign system. Who knows, maybe achieving max rank once, flags you for "easier" promotions if you become demoted later on.

[Max™]

...

Once every 30 days you lose 2 Medals if you don't do anything, or did I complete misunderstand how the npc phrased it?

[Aodh]

It really does make sense that people who are active in Campaign get more power to pick how it's done compared to people just doing it occasionally for some random exp or the lulz. Additionally, one has 30 days before they get demoted, giving them quite a bit of time to relax.

I thought this was a game where someone could do things for random EXP and lulz as opposed to a job. Just my opinion as someone who's trying to take the game a lot less seriously.

[Viena]

Given how casual I can be when doing this kind of content, it's not really appealing. Besides, I always prefer a big effort to make a purchase instead of a progressive effort to rent something. But that's just mho.

[Mytiwar]

Unless I missed it, nobody even knows how much of an effort it takes to maintain your rank and stuff right? (It's not been 30 days yet anyway so I assume nobody knows...)

Odds are nobody even got the last rank yet since it's 5 days to get a new medal...


So I simply don't understand why people are complaining. Just wait until you really have a reason to do it... I know it's SE but I doubt they'd make it so you have to do campaign non stop for a week to keep your medal.

[Khamsin]

If you just don't speak to the evaluation NPC after a month, will you maintain your rank until you do talk to him? Or will your key item suddenly disappear on its own?

[Lordwafik]

Unless I missed it, nobody even knows how much of an effort it takes to maintain your rank and stuff right? (It's not been 30 days yet anyway so I assume nobody knows...)

Well considering I got a rank up to the third rank by participating in a whopping 3 campaigns in the whole week I had the 2nd medal, and doing a few ops, I think there's very little effort needed to do so.

[Teakwood]

With regards to something discussed upthread:

Do what my LS does, every time Campaign starts in a zone and someone in my LS is there to notice it, they say "Fucking Poundy Drums in <zone>" or something of the sort, and anyone who wants to get there who's in range of the relevant NPCs gets their ass there in time for a good Campaign Battle. Beats the hell out of /cmap.

[Okuza]

So I simply don't understand why people are complaining. Just wait until you really have a reason to do it... I know it's SE but I doubt they'd make it so you have to do campaign non stop for a week to keep your medal.

How long was the Ulilikumi situation "broken" to the point of being intolerable before SE decided to make a change? Over a year. If you wait until it's an immediate and urgent problem before you point out SE's idiocies, you're going to be stuck grinding out OPs for a VERY long time before it's fixed. Need to raise a fuss NOW so that it will be fixed before it becomes urgent and critical.

Even more disturbing is that SE is sneaking the concept of decay into FFXI at all. In the past, I've instantly quit any MMORPG that made a determined effort to include decay into the game (or just never bought retail if they didn't listen during beta). Having it crop up so suddenly in a game this old after so much existing effort has been put into characters over the years is a bad sign. Offline decay is an MMORPG killer. It turns a recreation into a chore.

SE has snuck offline decay into the game in the past: gardening and choco raising both have it. Those activities are so optional, though, that you're not missing any of the game if you don't participate or even if you're not aware of their existence. Campaign is a major part of the expansion. If decay there isn't ripped out, you will eventually say to yourself "GDI, I've got to log on and do some campaign or I"ll loose rank." Voice your objections now or you'll be muttering that to yourself for years longer than necessary. You might even find decay tossed into future additions to the game that are more central than campaign.