Pandemonium Warden - The aftermath theories.

[RKenshin]

I don't think people necessarily believe it as much as they're using it as an example of what SE thinks is reasonable in this game. Knowing that the PW fight also appears to take that long also makes people reconsider the idea of SE purposefully intending for an NM to take that long to kill.

I still don't quite believe AV, if figured out, would take 18 hours... But knowing they think an 18 hour fight is perfectly fine, is definitely speaking to me over how they wanted this PW fight to be as it was to us. I'm sure that if we asked SE about this before our attempt, they may have said something along the lines of it being planned out as a 24-hour fight.

[Xno Kappa]

Wouldn't SE consider they'd probably be held liable in the event someone like dies or something from one of these marathon fights? I'm not an expert on the justice system but the person who sued McDonalds for their coffee being too hot won didn't they?

[Stiker]

I don't think people necessarily believe it as much as they're using it as an example of what SE thinks is reasonable in this game. Knowing that the PW fight also appears to take that long also makes people reconsider the idea of SE purposefully intending for an NM to take that long to kill.

This.

A fight that goes anywhere this long is not epic, it is ridiculous. I can see a fight spanning a few hours being an epic type fighting, stretching people to a limit. Anything going into the double digits in terms of hours is ridiculous.

PW is the South Park WoW episode actually implemented. This time though, I don't think anyone is laughing (except maybe SE... >.>)

[Tempyst]

Wouldn't SE consider they'd probably be held liable in the event someone like dies or something from one of these marathon fights? I'm not an expert on the justice system but the person who sued McDonalds for their coffee being too hot won didn't they?

for the love of god people stop quoting this case as if it means anything

[Toksyuryel]

This.

A fight that goes anywhere this long is not epic, it is ridiculous. I can see a fight spanning a few hours being an epic type fighting, stretching people to a limit. Anything going into the double digits in terms of hours is ridiculous.

PW is the South Park WoW episode actually implemented. This time though, I don't think anyone is laughing (except maybe SE... >.>)

No, that happened before the south park episode was even dreamed up- does no one remember LB's 36 hour AV?

[Zilong]

for the love of god people stop quoting this case as if it means anything

Seriously, it's a fucking legit lawsuit based on the corporate negligence on the temperature.

The coffee served on mcdonald prior to the lawsuit is way above the accepted regulation.

To put it simply, the coffee wasn't hot, it was scalding.

[Spekkio]

Wouldn't SE consider they'd probably be held liable in the event someone like dies or something from one of these marathon fights? I'm not an expert on the justice system but the person who sued McDonalds for their coffee being too hot won didn't they?

the McDonalds case is somewhat exceptional. iirc, the award was not b/c the woman was clumsy enough to spill coffee in her lap, but the temperature was excessively hot, to the point where drinking it could cause burns. a fast google search resulted in this website which contains information regarding the facts surrounding the case and the negligence that McDonalds displayed in ignoring prior cases of burns from their exceedingly hot coffee.
http://lawandhelp.com/q298-2.htm

case law would be hard to dredge up i'd imagine, though it may try to center around the myriad cases involving GTA violence, though it would be a remarkable stretch. more likely would be the attempted lawsuit of a woman who's 21 year old son committed suicide after his friends spurned him in an online game (similar to the myspace suicide of more recent memory) however that too would be a remarkable stretch. only way i could see pulling it off would be demonstration that the product was addictive and the makers encouraged the players to continue beyond their physical limits, but the obvious defense of personal responsibility and the difficulty of showing a clinical addiction to the game would be so great that it would never go anywhere. much more problematic would ofc be the negative publicity the event would generate, but i'm not even sure that would be so damning. take all the above w/ a grain of salt though as i'm not a lawyer, but the above at least seems reasonably rational.

btw, big props to you guys for busting your asses for so many hours to try to take it down. you guys really put your money (and xp) where your mouth was and made a big contribution with what you've found, even if it is leading to be another "lolav" thread. i'd just like to know how something as towering as hydra or cerberus could even FIT in that tiny space they allotted to PW. hydra's head would be bopping itself on the ceiling.

[Armanio]

I spoke to this point earlier, and I feel that I can say with utter confidence that even if you have multiple linkshells helping with this fight you can still expect 18+ hours in total. I do not believe it is possibly by any means at all to bring this fight below even a 15-18 hour fight.

The problem is that each form has lamps and an HNM that spams hard-hitting AoE that can easily kill any DDs/mages/support inside or outside the main ally. Throwing more DDs at it may increase your kill speed in theory, but in the end you'll be killing about as fast due to the TP spam and higher amount of AoE/damage taken among people. Most of the AoE isn't dissipated by the number of people, so you're still going to have the same problems as a single LS would.

Furthermore, you can't even deal constant damage on lamps as they're always chasing the tank. So you're restricted once again by their movements. Then, the final fight with the boss which is often the more lengthy part, has to be done with one ally.

The entire fight is strewed with limitations on how fast you can advance through it, and simply adding more members won't change that. And it says a lot about the problems an NM system has when even if you allied multiple shells it'd still take over half a day.

I understand. The idea of multiple LSs, however, doesn't mean having 60 or more people involved in the fight. I would think 36 or 40 people would be a reasonable number given the current difficulty of the fight which may be rare for a single LS to have that much people( that's supposing you didn't have two full alliances involved). Maybe adding a few SMNs to the kitting PT so they can damage the Warden while the others kill the lamps(unless the Warden is immune to all sorts of damage until all the lamps are defeated or is basically impossible given the area or the AoE moves, as someone mentioned before). It would still be a long fight, I have no right to argue that.
I would like to think this NM could have a future "fix" similar to Jailer of Love after it was first defeated; maybe reducing the HP of the lamps and hopefully something to reduce number of bosses; though by no means the first Jailer of Love was as difficult as PW is now.
I apologize if this post was too fast since you haven't given all the details of the fight yet.

[Burrmanchu]

Maybe adding a few SMNs to the kitting PT so they can damage the Warden while the others kill the lamps

omg why didnt they think of that??! Please tell me you aren't serious.

[Faithe]

I think having multiple linkshells work together on defeating PW first is a good idea. Have a full linkshell 64 plus.

The first Kirin we had 4 years ago, we had 40 members and that took almost 6 hours.

Get 72 people, 4 alliance, 12 parties.

1 alliance focus on main PW.

Different from has different setup –

One mage/damage party, one salvage party (2 monk, brd, rdm, whm/sch), and one ToAU HNM tank party.

All other 9 party/3 alliance focus on lamps. Each party get one lamp to kill.

Kill first, analyze, then focus on small team with party drop and hate changes. Forget the drops and go for the win first.

[Xanthe]

The answer is clearly 9 18-man alliances, 1 for each lamp and PW.

[Armanio]

omg why didnt they think of that??! Please tell me you aren't serious.

Did you read the rest of the post? Hopefully you read the end too.
I am sorry being serious.

[Burrmanchu]

OK ya I'm pretty sure i read in one of ruke/syl's posts that at one point they had to add SMN's and almost go old-school kirin style for a while "which they dont usually do" (just to debunk that right off the bat)...but seriously all BS aside, no one is going to throw in some 2 cents about needing 800 people or "a couple more SMNs" that will make this tragedy any easier to stomach. 18 hours is just, plain, retarded. Grats to BtL for trying and making it that far /comfort.

[Deeke]

Much respect to everyone involved in this attempt. I can't even begin to imagine how crushingly bitter the memory of that fight must be to you. Especially considering that you (most likely) did conquer the endurance-aspect of the encounter, only to THEN find that the (again, most likely) final Dvergr form was the evillest NM since sliced AV and promptly get your collectively-bedraggled, vomit-stained asses handed to you on a plate.

Damn.

You guys and girls did fucking immensely well, regardless.

~~~

Anyway, one subsequent thought I have (that belongs purely in the realm of pointless speculation) is: if SE will somehow nerf the fight based on the community's response, how exactly should they go about that?

There's always the option of simply dropping mob's HP levels. They could tone down AOEs. Perhaps code the fight so that PW skips forms so it only switches to one randomly-picked mob type from each 'grouping'. All of these options actually make the fight itself easier, obviously. A very physical nerf.

The topic was brought up earlier about how SE obviously forgets that in FFXI there is no Save button. And then the notion that perhaps PW remembers which form he was at before death was mentioned. Which was a lovely theory, but all too soon disproven by a member of the linkshell that's already fought it twice.

Still.. it is a nice idea.

If SE were to 'nerf' the fight simply by keeping it exactly as it is, but implementing a memory of how far the fight had progressed onto the character who initially traded the pop item.. That would allow SE to keep their precious 'THIS IS MUCH EPIC BATTERU' Tier 5 encounter and yet, y'know.. also allow players the option to actually get some fucking sleep and not end up LOSING the damn fight simply because of a human-being's biological limitations.

The option to fight and kill and fight and kill and fight and etc and eventually win all in one sitting for 24hrs straight would still be there, but at least a player could know going into the fight that their group can make PROGRESS with this encounter and not feel utterly loathe to ever go back to farming Zeni again after PW eventually pops up to say hi and takes an enormous zone-sized dump on their attempt 24 hours later.

The way in which the battle's progress could be measured need not be based on separate forms (indeed, this might be a rather too excessive 'nerf'), but rather it could measure progress based on complete groupings: All Chariots > All Beastmen > All Generals > All Bigfuckoffuglyassmonsters > Mister P. Warden Himself.

I'm aware that I'm babbling now. And making a dangerously long and foolish First Ever Post In The Advanced Section Of Newby Doom. Aside from the initial praise to the LS that fought PW, is any of what I've wrote particularly relevant, meaningful or otherwise useful? Of course not. As I initially stated, it's just me musing upon how to fairly nerf PW -- a subject that obviously belongs wholly within the Land Of Whimsical Thought. Still. I think the progression save idea would work pretty well.

[Armanio]

OK ya I'm pretty sure i read in one of ruke/syl's posts that at one point they had to add SMN's and almost go old-school kirin style for a while "which they dont usually do" (just to debunk that right off the bat)...but seriously all BS aside, no one is going to throw in some 2 cents about needing 800 people or "a couple more SMNs" that will make this tragedy any easier to stomach. 18 hours is just, plain, retarded. Grats to BtL for trying and making it that far /comfort.

I see what you mean; I will be quiet now.

[shieldsofwindurst]

My 2 cents:
I want to stress first that I do not condone the idea of any fight that takes more than 10 hours. I think we all realize that video games are for entertainment, and expecting any group of people to perform for as long as Ruke's did, and perform at the high level such a group of people is capable of, moves well past entertainment into something vaguely resembling torture; something like telling your kid they can't have a cookie until they do all of their homework-correctly-for the next month. Sure it can be done, but it's so unreasonable as to be physically dangerous. Massive congrats and thanks to Btl for their effort.

However, I am starting to think that AV and now PW are not so much SE's ideas of "reasonable" mega bosses, or even attempts to get the community to work together in a glorious act of selflessness, but actually a challenge to that "hardcore" gaming community which they've said multiple times they do not wish to promote or cater to. They've said many times that they do not expect people to camp kings, or any HNM, in the way that most HNMLSs do; thus, no matter what they try, there's almost always someone calling it "easy" or "trivial" in a very short amount of time because they don't expect the level of effort the players put into solving a particular event (there are exceptions but that's besides the point).

Thus I'd suggest that these fights are the "final challenges" that the dev team dreamed up because they were sick of people finding shortcuts or strategies in the more reasonable mobs and calling them easy to trivial. They look at it like "ok, if you think Bahamut v2 & kirin & DL/COP dynamis & U/O & Odin & everything else are so easy, here's something that you can't take shortcuts on, and if you actually do it, then it's an accomplishment that will be truly rare that you can brag about to everyone on the server". In their minds, it's probably a positive thing because they figure it really is a way to reward those who are the absolute best in the game. Unfortunately, in this case as well as AV, designing a fight to legitimately last that long primarily scares people off instead of entices them, because asking people to commit to a video game for 18 straight hours is just ludicrous.

I'm with Ruke that if they cut the fight down to 1 random representative from each "group" of forms, it would cut the fight time to 5-10 hours, retain the "you have to be able to handle Anything" mentality which is a positive aspect of the challenge, and lock out all but the most determined and organized groups, thus having the effect that SE apparently is looking for. Alternately, if you could somehow choose between a 1 form/group version of PW and the current verison (via different pop items, idk) and just make the current version have 100% full drops on everything vs some reasonable % on a 1 form/group version, you could retain the stupid challenge from the current PW, if there really is a need for that.

Just my 2 cents.

[Rocl]

This is the topic sentence of this paragraph. This is a body sentence. This is a supporting detail. In conclusion, this is the conclusion of this paragraph.

[Max™]

[rant]

Spoiler: show

Yes, I've posted it repeatedly, not quite every page, but often enough... because hell, so far it's the only alternative to EIGHTEEN FUCKING HOURS OF GRINDING HP BARS...

200k Hp for the lamps, 100k for the warden, you kill the lamps, he pops up, sees what you did, laughs, and makes the fight harder... and harder... and oh maybe this time... NOPE, FUCKING KHIMAIRA WITH WINGS UP, HA HA FUCKERS, DIE!

Then, oh thank god, you get an actual Dvergr... with little Dvergrs.. (he doesn't pop those when he shows up between forms), so they get killed... then at 75% he resummons them, avvy's, and uses the scorched earth tactic on that section of Aydeewa... awesome.

My bet, if you beat that Dvergr... he'd repop again as something else.

Yet, the first attempt, the 1 lamp up affected the repop, it still remains unknown if killing a warden form with all the lamps up would change it (which would fit the "theme" of the fight)... so yeah, I'll bring it up periodically until someone finally says "WE TRIED IT, IT DIDN'T WORK, SHUT THE FUCK UP MAX!"

[/rant]
*breathes*

That's all.

[Xno Kappa]

Wasn't trying to defend or derail with the Mickey D's case or anything, just trying to point out SE should watch out what they can be held liable for.
My personal theory on PW is that you need a snap shot from AV, then you could put them against one another for 18+ hours. After the pixel dust settles come back and one shot whoever is at 1% to collect said items.

[Korremar]

This is the topic sentence of this paragraph. This is a body sentence. This is a supporting detail. In conclusion, this is the conclusion of this paragraph.

http://consc.net/misc/moser.html