Aht Urghan Large-Scale Event Interview

[Septimus]

Looking at ZNMs, it feels like the strength gap of Tier 5’s Pandemonium Warden is far and away much wider than between Tiers 1-4. How many people did you expect would be needed to subdue this monster? Also, could you provide some kind of hint towards accomplishing this feat?

Sase: I would assume that a group of 18 people could take on Pandemonium Warden, but with more people you will have a better chance of defeating him. I cannot give you any specific strategies for defeating him, but I can promise you I did not design this monster to be unbeatable.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHa

rofl.

Maybe they are talking about team up between the Justice League, Justice Society, and the Teen Titans. They might be able to beat PW with 18.

(Probably not.)

[ramble]one of the reasons these minigames dont get much use (like pankration) is because SE seems too scared to implement them into other things, like they did with ... pankration. The only thing about pankration is you dont actually have to play it to get jettons, you can get plenty by trading imp gold if you want.

There is no driving factor in FFXI that even advertises Chocobo racing except for running into it. nobody who doesnt play it will know the top scores, or even how to play. if everything wasnt such a chore to do in ffxi, itd be much more attractive. with that being said, POL is FFXI's cancer. it's probably the reason why so many people are turned off by the game. logging in is a chore.

maybe if they would occasionally send a daily leaderboard to you with the high scores of various minigames that are included into ffxi. like that board game they have that ive never seen anyone play, ever.

i mean, i love the high scores. I used to go to arcades for them and play the old ones i loved.

me? galaga? fuck everything, im the goddamn batman

[/ramble]

With that same logic, you don't have to take pictures to get Zeni, you could buy pictures from people. And you don't have to fight lower tier mobs to get higher seals, you can buy the trophy items off of other people who pop them. And you don't have to fight the tier 4 mobs for armor, you can just buy them off of people. But all of that is impractical as well. They force you to do Pankration to get Jettons if you want to do ZNMs, unless you have very deep pockets you won't get around the Jetton/Seal grind. And they can force me to do Pankration all they want, but they can't force me to give a shit about it- I throw into the ring and euthanize them when they hit level 42 since that is where XP declines when you throw it into the champion's cage. (Even if I were inclined to care, the fact that my mobs will be beaten by an elemental would kill that.)

Chocobo Racing is what killed Chocobo Racing. It isn't the fact that you cannot control the races, it is that you have to spend obscene amounts of time and gil in order to build a bird that is capable of wining the higher races. FFXI's cancer isn't PoL, it is the Dev team that thinks that we want to be forced to do things that we don't want to do, and that AV and PW are completely reasonable fights.

[Nattack]

actually, people do bazaar photos by the ZNM guy now and then . . . so, yeah, by that logic, it does happen O_o granted i myself like to go out and fight the mobs myself.

but you can also level to get jettons, a decent party should net you around 10 gold goins, which should get you 1600 jettons if you spend all of it. which is enough for a lot of soulplates, a shitty camera, and a better camera to use back to back...

And POL is a terrible terrible cancer, if not a cancer, then at least a horrid birth mark.


if you'll excuse me... i gotta... click my name... enter my password. wait to load my mail and my friends list and any potential messages... k ... wait for the icon to appear, or if i have bookmarks, ill just use those. then i wait for the play button, then i hit close twice. check versions. huzzah! . . . accept, select character... select my character i want to use.... load. huzzah i'm in!

yeah, i may be exaggerating it, but seriously. its unneeded, maybe if we were gonna get more games for it (tetramaster doesnt count, and they should have used triple triad, and they should have integrated it into ffxi for nobux) but we didnt, its high time they surgically remove playonline. at least for north america and possibly europe.

[Khalil]

Chocobo Racing is what killed Chocobo Racing. It isn't the fact that you cannot control the races, it is that you have to spend obscene amounts of time and gil in order to build a bird that is capable of wining the higher races. FFXI's cancer isn't PoL, it is the Dev team that thinks that we want to be forced to do things that we don't want to do, and that AV and PW are completely reasonable fights.

You do realize that not everyone in endgame thinks the same way you do and that some people actually enjoy chocobo racing. Just wanted to clear that before you continue posting.

With regards to the interview, aren't game companies always like this when it comes interviews? They'll always hide planned events/projects/items till the mentioned date as opposed to the american way of releasing a little bit of info even if it isn't done. I may be wrong but I read somewhere JPs are more hush-hush about future adjustments/items.

[Indalecia]

So how bout shit thats been in the game for 5 years? Whats the excuse now?

[ninjafox]

There were a lot of questions asked that we already knew the answer to.

[TummieGaruda]

two things stuck out in my eyes in that interview

For Nyzul Isle Investigation, it’s a snap getting people together to challenge an HNM floor for gear, but almost impossible to find people to help progress your disc. This makes working your way up the floors very difficult. Is there anyway you could fix this issue?

Itou: We want to implement something to help gather people for non-HNM sections of Nyzul, but first we would like to focus on solving the congestion issues.

And,

Will there be more ways to spend Tokens? (trade for weapons, armor, etc.)

Itou: It’s possible, but still under discussion.

The two can go together.
First, change the way tokens are rewarded for the leader of the run.

If you exit out on specific floors in a set of 5, you get a percentage back on the amount you spend to enter.

20% on the 1st Floor
40% on the 2nd Floor
60% on the 3rd Floor
80% on the 4th Floor
100% on the 5th Floor

So if you do say floor 36, the leader spends 800 tokens. If you only make it to the 3rd floor out of 5, and you exit out, you get 480 tokens back, plus whatever tokens you gain for the run. This would be put more emphasis on winning the runs so the leader doesn't lose tokens.

Second - Allow players to purchase gear and weapons. Players can only purchase gear equivalent to their disc progress. Climbing higher on your disc opens up more gear options. For instance, a person with only floor 26 saved on their disc will only have options for feet gear. A person with floor 46 will have options for feet and legs.
Make the points for gear either static or:

Feet: 10k Tokens
Legs: 15k Tokens
Hands: 20k Tokens
Body: 25k Tokens
Head: 30k Tokens

I believe this method could possibly help people who are trying to climb get others to help. The incentive would be tokens to purchase gear, or to force them to climb in order to have the option to get the higher pieces (Body, hat, etc)

[Ahlah]

There could be a gimmick which can be used to defeat PW (just like AV). Frankly I can understand why SE refuse to release more hints. I have always wanted to beat AV and PW at least once before I quit the game. They are the final goals for many endgame players who are getting tired of the game.

Any experienced group of 6 can easily pop first 3 ramparts in BR if you kill the rampart that doesn't spawn NM at 50% HP.

For me Salvage is the most enjoyable event because you don't need a big group of players to get things done and all 4 remnants require different strategies that challenge player's skills. Will be nice if SE add HQ version of salvage gear. Morrigan's robe and Ares's Cuirass with 2mp/tic refresh

[TummieGaruda]

I have to agree with asking what is the point of choosing left or right between two completely random floors that you can't preview and will never exist again as soon as your instanced run is over.

One thing we do know is that the rare "free floor" objective can only follow a left/right decision. While this has an impact on the rarity of free floors, that same rarity could have been achieved without the left/right choices.

The only other point of left/right choices is that when you choose path before a boss floor, and then you get a boss you didn't want, you get to make a comment like "guess I should have picked left."

Seriously, there is no point to this...thanks for reading my random nonsense post. It was almost as pointless as Nyzul left/right choices.

Left and Right...
You will either get something nice, or something nasty.
I had this theory once that picking the last option in the list had a higher chance of yielding a negative effect. I believed this because I thought SE had a twisted design set to trap people. When you are in a hurry, you will scroll down to the bottom and choose the last option because you don't want to scroll to pick the option to exit out by accident. After getting White Magic restriction on a Soul Flayer floor, I stopped picking the last option and always pick the 2nd to the last option. While it is not fact that the 2nd to last option will always be a positive effect, I think that the whole grand design of Nyzul is anything but random (Aside from what pathos/buff you get).

It would be nice if we could gather data... on what floors and what objectives are people getting right/left options.

[nitsuj]

I had this theory once that picking the last option in the list had a higher chance of yielding a negative effect.

Me too! I always pick the 2nd to last since it's technically more difficult to select. Seems like an SE thing to do...

[Septimus]

You do realize that not everyone in endgame thinks the same way you do and that some people actually enjoy chocobo racing. Just wanted to clear that before you continue posting.

I used to like Chocobo Racing. Then I had to do the basic races hundreds of times over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again for Chocobucks. How many times do I need to sit through the same 6 races with the same outcomes? (Bastok Ringer, San d'Orian Ringer, Windurstian Ringer, All three Ringers, No Ringers, No Ringers, repeat ad infinitum.) I don't know anyone who actually enjoys this.

[Kerberoz]

I like the idea of chocobo racing. Hell, I enjoy fun little useless side-quests. But chocobo racing just isn't fun after the first 3-4 times you do it and watch the same cutscene over and over and over just to get points to enter the "big" races.

[Knightfell]

The ungodly grind that I hear about is a turn off as well.