Ballista

[Spliffy]

Currently Odin Ballista is fucking dead.. it is the most populated server and no ballista lol. I am trying to bring it back to life! any ideas? I kind of want to hear from the people that don't ballista.. why don't you ballista? Because of no drops? no reward? or is it just not you're thing? Any advice or replys as to why you don't ballista would be great ^^.. so I can understand the people's point of veiw that don't ballista. I personally think sky/sea/hnm/exp/quest/mission/campaign gets BORING after a while.. ballista is a huge different way of playing this game and I find it so much fun.

[chapstick]

I used to ballista all the time (Asura server). It became filled with regulars who only seemed to play for revenge on each other. It was always the same 10 or so people, with a few randoms from time to time. Also, for a while, it became a turtle-fest where there was hardly any combat unless it was like full buff>ws a mage>get GB>run away. Not to mention people just started leveling bandwagon ballista jobs, like PLD, BLU, and SAM. All of this made me lose interest in it after a while, along with my friend who I played with quitting game.

[TacoTaru]

I prefer Diorama myself because of anytime it can be done. Ballista would be fun, but it's hard for me to get enough people to go when the matches are.

[Spliffy]

You need the ballista points to be able to do dio lol.

[TacoTaru]

A friend in LS has a boat load of points saved up so we can do Diorama whenever we please. And I've tried to get my own by doing Ballista, but like I said, no one is ever able to do it at the same time.

[hypnotizd]

I kind of want to hear from the people that don't ballista.. why don't you ballista? Because of no drops? no reward? or is it just not you're thing? Any advice or replys as to why you don't ballista would be great ^^.. so I can understand the people's point of veiw that don't ballista.

It has never interested me. If I want to attack other players I'll jump on Halo or something. The no drops/rewards is another reason as well. It just doesn't seem worth my time to ballista.

Instead of me telling you why I don't ballista, how about you tell me why I should ballista =)

[Araelus]

I'd participate in Ballista if there was an option to make the effects of JA spells etc etc the same there as elsewhere. (That is, for testing, haha, not the intended use huh.)

Diorama is fun for blowing off steam but there's aways something else to do (WS points, skilling, meripo, and so on) so the content gets skipped by my crowd just because, as hypnotizd pointed out, there's no strong incentive to Ballista, so I don't.

Actually my big grief with Ballista is that it freezes you when you change gear WTF IS THAT.

[hagun]

Ballista can hurt people's feelings very brutally so most avoid it after their first match which will tend to be very depressing. Coupled with the fact that no reward is gained, it's pretty simple to see why most will not participate.

Ballista has a simple solution really: reward 10k EXP for each one hour match and there will be a line at the herald every 16:00 hours.

[Marcicus]

Currently Odin Ballista is fucking dead.. it is the most populated server and no ballista lol. I am trying to bring it back to life! any ideas? I kind of want to hear from the people that don't ballista.. why don't you ballista? Because of no drops? no reward? or is it just not you're thing? Any advice or replys as to why you don't ballista would be great ^^.. so I can understand the people's point of veiw that don't ballista. I personally think sky/sea/hnm/exp/quest/mission/campaign gets BORING after a while.. ballista is a huge different way of playing this game and I find it so much fun.

All of our Odin transfers that came to Lakshmi pretty much said Odin was dead lol. It's pretty lively over here, but it's predominately JPs doing 60-75 cap when it's up, although we do have quite a few NAs that participate with them.

Also 10k exp per Ballista match is dumb; I don't want to have 40v40 cause I'll never be able to see anyone load on my screen.

[hagun]

All of our Odin transfers that came to Lakshmi pretty much said Odin was dead lol. It's pretty lively over here, but it's predominately JPs doing 60-75 cap when it's up, although we do have quite a few NAs that participate with them.

Also 10k exp per Ballista match is dumb; I don't want to have 40v40 cause I'll never be able to see anyone load on my screen.

This is the same retarded argument against a massive EXP reward people spew out. Sorry, but I rather see 40v40 with its lag than not see a single fucking match occur in over seven months as in the case of my server and the majority of servers out there.

[Tifrece]

Ballista simply isn't that appealing, the actual game is pretty lame, petra collecting takes away from the real attraction: pvp gameplay.

Also despite OP warps and such, having a outdoor zone also be a ballista zone makes it feel like your going out of your way, also the zones themselves were too large. Diorama was a step in the right direction, but it still failed.

Lack of reward and balance also hinders it, if the xp/time ratio was similar to campaign when you lose, and slightly above if you win, people would start playing ballista again. It would be a nice alternative to parties and help break up the grind.

I hope SE eventually does adjust pvp in XI, but personally I'm more concerned with other issues since FFXI is primarily a pve type of game.

[Falisa]

When I was on Fenrir server, there was about 80-90 people per ballista match and I remember a ton of people migrating to Fenrir just because of ballista. I wonder if its still like that, because there was a whole group dedicated to just ballista. Might want to look into that if you're really that interested in it, it was run by Urbanlegend. Who knows whats happening with it now.

[Kirschy]

Ballista on Fenrir is still pretti big. I never got into it myself, but a bunch of cute taru server transfers still play .

EDIT: Asked one of my tarus:
crunch: uncap has become iffy... it has to be PRIME time. early-mid evening NA time. jugner is usually reliable for 20 or so people.. the others are less reliable
crunch: 60 cap is huge all the time
crunch: ppl like 60 most by far

[GeneJackit]

lack of reward and i also think that it just becomes a huge E-peen fest w/ certain people...like, i dont feel the need to prove that my NIN can beat your MNK, or whatever the case...also the actual game of getting petras and what not is pretty boring (imo) I know there are some people who just crave PvP...the fact that I don't and the fact that it isnt really well done makes it something Im not interested in

That being said, I think SE should somehow improve it b/c there is a big section of the player base that wants SOLID PvP...I think some kinda way to dual someone would be cool...or an exp bonus...maybe not 10k, but like 3k-5k like campaign would be very and an excellent way to get people going...maybe adding interesting items that you can buy...armor / weapons / etc would be a great way to get it going

I just feel bad for poor excenmille...he was so important 20 years ago and here he is now just trying to get people excited about a poorly conceived event!

[chapstick]

I remember when all level-caps would yield almost 20 people. 60's would get up to like, 40, and one uncap got up to almost maximum. Those huge ones are pretty insane. I remember on Asura we held an NA vs JP Diorama match, and it ended up only being a 5-10 point game in the end with like 30 people per team (or more? I forget).

[sleekmotorwurkz]

I dont ballista because

1. No reward
2. There can be great ballisters that suck at every other aspect of the game, and great overall players who suck at ballista (im in the latter group).
3. A couple jobs own ballista and very rarely does any other job come close (think dark elemental in pankration) its just heavily unbalanced.

[GeneJackit]

I dont ballista because

1. No reward
2. There can be great ballisters that suck at every other aspect of the game, and great overall players who suck at ballista (im in the latter group).
3. A couple jobs own ballista and very rarely does any other job come close (think dark elemental in pankration) its just heavily unbalanced.

yeah, number 3 is a HUGE reason

[Konda]

Ballista needs the following:

Material rewards; preferably some sort of charge based thing, to keep people coming back

increased xp reward; Ballista Points x10 would be ideal. ~1k to ~2.5k depending on how well you play.

the timers for call wyvern and deploy also need to be reset when you return to camp.

the issue where SMNs lose bloodpact when the targets run. BP delay needs to be reduced to the delay it takes for a weaponskill to process.

Some new zones would also be nice; along with on demand matches, instead of waiting till certain times of the day for them.



@ the poeple who cry about the penalty for changing equipment:
choosing what equip setup you are going to use is alot of what ballista is about. otherwise people would just swap to full -dmg and defence equipment whenever someone looks at them. Also, when players blink, you lose target, and it's a pain to retarget them; especially if you are trying to kite them etc.


@ the people who complain when people get gate breach and run away:
thats the idea of the game. get GB >>> score.
Ballista is a TEAM effort, not a 1v1 whenever you see someone you think you can kill.


overall, ballista is a good game, and works well. each job can contribute well, except maybe pup and/or smn. (although, if you ever see a smn land 2hr on a group of people, its awesome).

Some jobs dont work very well when in a 1v1 situation, because they're not meant to function with frontline battle when outside of ballista. (how many smns do you see tanking mobs?)

[Falisa]

To be honest, if SE cared about Ballista at all, they would have mentioned something about it but yeah, no. Don't see any adjustments for a long time, if at all.

[Gwynplaine]

Ballista is still relatively popular on Siren. I don't think I've ever participated in an official match however. Typically I like doing new and different things even if there's little reward, but my reasons are:
-I'd have to haul out level capped gear.
-I'd have to create an entire macro set that minimizes equipment swaps.
-Attending an official match rarely seems to coincide with free time I have open.

Diorama isn't really an option because you have to get points from an official match to use it. And quite simply no one does Brenner. I considered making a Ballista setup back when some ls members were doing fanfest battles, but even then I couldn't be bothered.

Maybe if there was an FFXI menu option to block all equipment swaps you could toggle on/off I'd do it.