Almighty Apkallu: Found, and then lost again.

[Suiram]

I don't know what you think you see. This whole thing seems rather silly to me, I see:

[15:09:35] Ninja attack round 1, main hand crit message
[15:09:35] Ninja attack round 1, main hand damage
[15:09:35] Myxomycete attack round 1, miss
[15:09:36] Ninja attack round 1, off hand damage
[15:09:38] NM attack round 1, shadow absorb
[15:09:39] Ninja attack round 2, main hand damage
[15:09:39] Myxomycete attack round 2, miss
[15:09:40] Ninja attack round 2, off hand damage

That seems reasonable to me for a 6 second chat log.

[ByeByeTasai]

Wow, I see a lot of new posts on here and think that new info is found and... wtf...

Anyway the Myxomycete linked to Noble Mold, I claimed mold and funguars link. For those who havent camped him, there isn't just one in that area like people say there are 2 that can be in the tip of that spot on the map. This SS is proof that I wasn't Dat editing lol. Anyway back to AA please.

http://a99.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/...02af6e170a.png

[ByeByeTasai]

I just did a memory check and almighty apkallu hasn't spawned on Phoenix since last maintenance, which has been quite a while now.

edit: neither has Apkallu 7

[Murdock]

any new finds? this topic seems to have lost intrest.

[Ashira]

any new finds? this topic seems to have lost intrest.

I think since most of us are getting the insta-ports between Nashmau and Whitegate lately, no one's really been trying. :/

[MaachaQ]

It linked to the NM? lol

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z...6120747a-1.jpg

My own Noble Mold fight. Yep, the 2nd one links when the NM is pulled. I went 1/2 on this hat (My husband has TH4, which probably helped alot).

[Murdock]

any new finds? this topic seems to have lost intrest.

I think since most of us are getting the insta-ports between Nashmau and Whitegate lately, no one's really been trying. :/

I thought they fixed that in the last update -.- guess not. gdi SE -.-

[DragonCloud64]

any new finds? this topic seems to have lost intrest.

Time to change the thread name to Almighty Apkallu: Lost!

[TheHeph]

Makes me wonder if they ninja broke the ship ride on purpose so they can fiddle around with their broken A.A.

[Yukihoshi]

Ok, so having read through all 57 pages of this topic (33 from the original, then the 24 of this one), and now that my eyes have stopped wanting to bleed, I have a bit to contribute:

In camping the Nashmau -> Whitegate boat, I set my homepoint in Nashmau. I noticed something a bit peculiar with my experience - every 2 boat rides in a row were almost identical in the way the mobs popped. First 2 - no mobs were up on my ride. Then crab + pugil. Warp. Next ride Crab + pugil. Warp. Next ride Apkallu. Warp. Next ride Apkallu. Warp. Next ride Kulshedra. Warp. Next ride Kulshedra.

I was then reminded of farming thf subligar in Phomunia Aqueducts for a friend - the THF fomor popped in a cycle from a single "placeholder". For those who haven't had the...joy...of farming thf subligar, basicly a room will have a certain number of mobs that pop. One of those is the THF (for our example here). You kill the thf, and only the thf, but a new thf doesn't pop - it's now a rng (or w/e it was. been a while, but it's a non-thf). You pull and kill that one, and once again it's the rng (non-thf). You pull and kill that one, and the next one to pop is the thf. The next one is then the rng...the rng...then the thf.

In reading through these posts, as well as SE's hints about the mob, I got to thinking - maybe it's luck. Since there's no program for luck - then there must be an actually encoded pattern. More apkallu seem to spawn when you kill all the /other/, non apkallu mobs that pop on the boat...perhaps because they work in a cycle. You have a possibility of 3 mobs on the boat. Only 2 of which can be apkallu at any given point in time, because there's only NPC code for 2 NQ (you can't have a mob with the same code up twice, it has to have a different code). Now, if Apkallu doesn't like to be alone, then perhaps his spawn condition is related to having the right cycle - both apkallu codes up at the same time. Then perhaps he doesn't even spawn on that trip, perhaps you meet that condition, and he will spawn on the next boat ride. This makes it possible for the NM to spawn as the first mob if the condition of the 2 Apkallu up at the same time is met on the previous run.

This then can explain why it never pops on some servers - if no one is killing certain mobs on the boat while leaving others up, it doesn't cause them to cycle to where the spawn condition is met. This can also cause the mob to appear without anyone ever riding the boat, because "luck" so happens to cause the cycle to hit the condition for the mob to spawn. The condition is not necessarily having both Apkallu up at the same time - it's an interjection on my part, and certainly the dat sniffing would indicate that #7 has never spawned but the NM has - maybe the cycle is about something else. One thing that is confirmed is that where we have screenshots of the actual NM being faught, there is at least 2 people. Whether they must be in a party or not may not have any bearing - it may simply be there must be more than 1 person aboard the ship.

I would say have a party of at least 2 people, perferably high output dd & healer who can sustain MP, and kill the mobs that pop which aren't the apkallu. I don't think the Apkallu hate has anything to do with it, because I would infer from the dat sniffing, lack of eye-witness sightings, and from the posts I've read that the NM has popped without anyone ever being on the boat - meaning some other spawn condition has to exist. "If a tree falls in a forest, and it lands on a Mime, does anyone care?" applies rather aptly to this - just because no one is riding the boat doesn't mean that the zone doesn't load, and the server software calculate the mob spawns. The spawn condition could be met - having the right mobs cycle on a run - but without the 2nd condition of having more than 1 person on the boat, the mob simply despawns.

As for cycle conditions - in the examples I saw of the mob appearing, it was up right away when they boarded (or spawned within the time it took for them to load the zone, open the doors, and get up the stairs), and in the other example spawned within a minute of zoning in. Perhaps the condition is something like Mob Slot 1 Crab Mob slot 2 Apkallu, and in order to get that particular condition, you kill the mobs that are up in those slots until it cycles to the right condition.

I unno, maybe I'm not explaining what I mean in an understandable means. It's my contribution, and I will continue to camp the boat, documenting what spawns in what order to try to figure out if there is a cycle, and if that is related to the spawn condition.

On a second note, the whole clues about the NM were a PR direct response to questions asked at the fan festival. The following quotes are directly from the fan festival website, Developer Panel:

What's the deal with Almighty Apkallu?

* All: They don't remember. The mobs are not given names until later in the process and they do not recall which mob this is or why it has not been found. They are going to have to go back and research the issue and provide some information somehow.

Question:
Are there any special conditions for spawning the Almighty Apkallu?

Answer:
We've received this question a lot over the past few days. We'll return to work and see what we can discover and report it to the Premier Sites! Answer posted on Allakhazam/Warcry/and IGN Vault Premier Sites on 11/28!

Their response was to throw out their 3 question/answer hints on the mob. Apparantly, though they didn't mention it in their official wrap up, they were asked quite a bit about the bridman cape, and despite what you may have read into it, they basicly came out and said the AA drops the cape. The announcement was about Almighty Apkallu, and if you honestly still are clinging to some kind of idea that it meant that it /doesn't/ drop it, you really should consider taking a break from reading into this bird. Also another pet peeve: "It's not listed on the AH, so clearly it has never dropped!" This also means that Kirin's Osode doesn't exist, because it's never been listed on the AH. Just because an item isn't rare/ex doesn't mean it can be AH sold or sent through the delivery box.

My final word - even if I'm wrong about the mobs spawning in a cycle and the cycle having something to do with the spawn condition - we can at least narrow it down to "May randomly pop when there is more than 1 person present on the boat."

Edit: ok, not my final word after all, but thought I'd point out: yes, some NM spawn conditions have very much to do with the history of the Mob. Take the Gods of the 4 Winds for example. Suzaku, god of the South Wind, is popped by presenting a Gem of the South and a Summerstone (the season of the South) on the southern island in Sky. Yes, I know, the island isn't in the South, but the ??? says the symbol for south is marked on the ground. Maybe in the few thousand years since the Zilart left the garden, the floating islands have shifted out of place, which explains why the gods of the winds are so pissed off. So for the JP, more familiar with the stories of Suzaku, once they found out all of these NM that popped around and ended up with a Gem of the South and a Summerstone, to them it was a nobrainer - trade the 2 items to the South. This isn't to say Apkallu's history has anything to do with its spawn, but it's not a bad place to start when trying to figure out how it works.

[Qeomash]

I was then reminded of farming thf subligar in Phomunia Aqueducts for a friend - the THF fomor popped in a cycle from a single "placeholder". For those who haven't had the...joy...of farming thf subligar, basicly a room will have a certain number of mobs that pop. One of those is the THF (for our example here). You kill the thf, and only the thf, but a new thf doesn't pop - it's now a rng (or w/e it was. been a while, but it's a non-thf). You pull and kill that one, and once again it's the rng (non-thf). You pull and kill that one, and the next one to pop is the thf. The next one is then the rng...the rng...then the thf.

Unfortunatly, that isn't how that mob works...When helping farm those subligar, we didn't see the THF pop for over an hour and a half. We certainly killed more than just two of the RNG.

But, the idea for AA is still sound. It very well could be something such as that. Or, maybe it's a simple lottery spawn of the fish or something. SE really should just say something about it...this NM is just idiotic. >.>;

[Doofus]

How exactly do you break a boat ride to make it so short?
In fact, how does SE break half the stuff they do?
I don't know much about programming but damn, stuff like catastrophe nerf, boat ride, and ps2 freezing when talking to npcs(which is fixed thank god) just shouldn't randomly break, should it?

[Yukihoshi]

How exactly do you break a boat ride to make it so short?
In fact, how does SE break half the stuff they do?
I don't know much about programming but damn, stuff like catastrophe nerf, boat ride, and ps2 freezing when talking to npcs(which is fixed thank god) just shouldn't randomly break, should it?

The ferry rides are a timed zone, much like Dynamis or Limbus. The zone is set to be in effect for a certain duration of time and then dump you at your destination. The boats "broke" because someone was working on the programing for the zone, and ended up putting the wrong time back into the zone for how long it should remain. Simply put: Zone N-Az set 10 min, someone is doing something with the zone, hits a wrong key, deletes a 0, and now the ride lasts 1 min.

It wasn't just the N -> Az boat that was broken though. Az -> N was broken also, and that doesn't have the code to spawn the NM. Someone may have been playing with the programing on the boat to check the existence of AA and fucked with the time by mistake - or it's a giant conspiracy where SE dev team is out to get you. Whatever your flavor...

http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Fomor_Thief
The Fomor Thief at D-11/D-12 in the second map is a lottery spawn from Fomor Ranger, approximately every 2 Fomor Ranger killed, one Fomor Thief spawns.

This is what I was referring to. I guess it was technicly a lottery spawn (NQ mob lottery spawning), but when we were farming the Subligar, we found the pattern to be 1 - 2.

Maybe there's not a pattern programed into their spawn, but there are some noticable paterns. Like when you have an apkallu up when the boat docks, you are most likely to have an apkallu on the boat when you get on board next. This has gotten me thinking that the "luck" is about having the right pattern of mobs up. The confirmed sightings we have so far seem to be morning boat rides, and the AA popped within a min of the ride taking off. Which, if you note, that's when you're passing by the shipwreck with all the birds flying over it who look very much like flying apkallu to me.

Continued observation has also shown me that once you pass that point - the shipwreck with the flying birds - that's the first "depop" point, where the first monsters on the boat depop. My inference is that AA pops before this point - or isn't going to pop on the ride.

Also strange occurance - had a kulshedra & apkallu up when the boat took off. Engaged the Kulshedra, and the moment I did so, the apkallu depopped. It looked like he was upset that I pulled the other mob instead of him. I unno. I think this NM is just gonna be one of those where I have to devote my life to riding on the boat just to try to get spawn, only to have my ass handed to me when he finally /does/ spawn.

Finally, bit of history on apkallu - they were sages, either 7 or 8 depending on which text was translated, in Sumerian mythology. The first of the apkallu was a servant of Ea who ended up pissing off Anu over something, and was later made immortal. He was always dipicted as a man wearing the skin of a fish. Other Apkallu were shown as griffon-men. (Think Zelda and the 7 sages, each one a different humanoid animal.)

For those who have seen AA, do you remember what equipment you were wearing? Since SE has basicly come out an said there's a hell of a lot of hidden effects people still haven't discovered, I'd like to know just what you were wearing. Me, I'm going to start wearing my Ea's Doublet when the boat takes off. Not that I think it will really do anything, but since I have an Ea's Doublet, and the first Apkallu was a servant of Ea (the first maybe being "almighty"), I'll see if I can flush him out with it. Sure, it'll probably do nothing, but despite nothing being programmed for luck - was 0/12 on my moldavite earring, went out and got a 4-leaf mandragora bud, wild rabbit tail, & lucky egg, and it dropped my earring the very next one. Luck is about the mind of the bearer, not the code programmed in front of him.

[Koga]

Interesting theory and thank you for helping re-rail this thread.
Lately I have changed my goals to finish maxing out emrits of all my jobs so I probably wont camp for anotehr week or so but I will definately give this theory a shot.

[Eticket]

I'm still thinking it's a glitched/broken PH and the few times it's popped have been right after maint. when AA has popped instead of the PH that never pops. Reading through all the testing and the limited pop data, and knowing SE's record of fixing or even noticing anything 'broken', it seems the most logical answer.

[Massimo]

The Fomor Thief at D-11/D-12 in the second map is a lottery spawn from Fomor Ranger, approximately every 2 Fomor Ranger killed, one Fomor Thief spawns.

This is what I was referring to. I guess it was technicly a lottery spawn (NQ mob lottery spawning), but when we were farming the Subligar, we found the pattern to be 1 - 2.

This is still not true. It's a lottery between the two, nothing more, nothing less. I've gotten 5 Thieves in row before, it's about luck. Just cause otherwiki says that it's different, doesn't mean it's true.

[Yukihoshi]

It has something to do with that bird on the boat, I know it. It's so frustrating because I can't decide whether or not to kill it. I could see chance poppings in the past coming from a random blu taking the boat trying to learn yawn. I can see them making a loop, killing the bird, then taking the opposite boat, and it popping when they're on the A->N boat instead of the N->A boat. I could see the NM popping from no one taking that boat and it spawning. The idea of an NM linked to whether or not we have the Candysense bothers me - the goal of besieged is to keep it, not loose it. Having NM's spawn by not accomplishing goals in the game seems ultimatly self-defeating.

Like...having a puzzle is great fun sometimes. The thrill of trying to figure something out. But this...this has no thrill. Hours of my gametime spent in one zone, trying to get a bird to pop, that has no rhyme nor reason to it, drains the fun. So many people have tried everything from the mundane - riding the boat over and over doing nothing - to the extreme - eating food on certain days wearing certain armor doing certain /emotes. And they can't figure it out.

The worst part is, it has gotten to a point where everyone has just given up. Some after trying for days, other after trying for months, but the fact is, SE just royally failed on this NM. If it takes multiple people just to get the bastard to pop, there's one big thing wrong: it can only drop one cape, so then, who gets it? What's the respawn so it can be tried again? The whole idea of rare game is for it to be rare, but SE has forgotten something important: if it's so rare that no one can ever get it, it eliminates the fun. Having to devote so much time just to try to see this rare game - and probably won't be able to kill it due to low numbers of people still interested in finding this game - means that I can't play the game anymore. This insane type of time devotion to get a rare game - if it could actually be popped solo and killed solo - wouldn't be so bad. But forcing multiple people at a time to waste away on it...this mob looks less like rare game and more like a way to keep customers from reaching a goal, and thus keeping them as customers longer.

The long and short: NM's that have a spawn based on not killing mobs are fail. NM's that have unknown spawn conditions, but /possibly/ require multiple people to pop, are fail. When frustrated customers come out and say "We just can't figure this out and it's sucked the fun out of it, please tell us" and all you get is cryptic hints, that's fail.

Almighty Apkallu is fail.

[Cesaria]

Interestingly I'm getting the warp drive boats from Whitegate to Nashmau, but when I was too lazy to run to the moogle and switch to BLM to warp back the other day and got the boat (there was some logic in there somewhere I believe) I don't seem to be getting the warp speed boats in the other direction.

[Rafike]

The long and short: NM's that have a spawn based on not killing mobs are fail. NM's that have unknown spawn conditions, but /possibly/ require multiple people to pop, are fail. When frustrated customers come out and say "We just can't figure this out and it's sucked the fun out of it, please tell us" and all you get is cryptic hints, that's fail.

Almighty Apkallu is fail.

This part made me lol, but ya I couldn't agree more with what you said...

[Koga]

I'm gonna write those 2 posts above me off >_>
Also I have sorta given up on this NM until next update.