Campaign Gets Reinforcements! (06/15/2009)

[Bishop1]

Just because XIV is around the corner does not mean that SE is going to suddenly stray from the usual formula of reward. ANNMs did not crash Imperial Wootz Ingots but instead increased the prices as more people believed they could upgrade salvage bodypieces.

We can all pleasantly enjoy the screenshots of "omg a 100 piece" from this new event soon enough, the media thread will enjoy them. Think of it as CoP dynamis boss drops transposed to a new event.

Id love to be proven wrong but this is SE afterall.

WRONG! More people dont "believe " they can upgrade a salvage body. More salvage body are dropping now. Before the update we had 0 usukane body in 1 year. Now everyone in linkshell has usukane body. They upped the drop rate so more people gonna upgrade which is why imperial wootz went up.

[Gilhaven]

Hmm...I'm somewhat confused....are these "unions" going to be in place for regular campaign battles where u have lots of ppl trying to take down mobs/nm's? Or is this going to be geared more towards pop/hnm's like xion, or annm's? If its just going to be during campaign battle I can imagine the drama that will abound when it comes to drops and lotting "rights" from the "union treasure caskets". But I'm sure SE already thought of this...right?...right? I guess we'll see.

Edit: nvm...I just reread it and I missed the part about it being campaign op's.

[Gouki]

Watch this happen:
"NPC: To join a union you have to pay a participation fee of 3000 AN. You will also lose the right to get any experience points or Allied Notes until you are disbanded from the union.
NPC: Are you sure you want to join the union?"

To join a Union, a player need only seek out a Campaign Arbiter while in possession of Allied Tags.

I dont think that it is a new campaign op.

[Epysian]

"Which campaign job is best" is utterly and entirely moot at this point.

BLM's I can see having a bit of room to complain, since they can't soak or heal a ton of damage.


Any melee, especially with a multi hit, any heavy buffer, or heavy healer, etc., that can't cap their exp per minute is just failing, hard.

I can get good xp sleep/grav/bind nuking a mob. Just gotta make sure someone doesn't decide to whack it, so take it pretty far away from the fort. Also, eventually enfeebles don't stick, so then you get beat on for more xp! Sweet!

[Yeager]

I really think SE is going to implement this into regular Campaign Battles to help get more people to do campaign.

There are several in my linkshell that have never bothered to do any Campaign Battles since they started @ WoTG release. I think the lure of possibly getting Ancient Currency will get more people to do Campaign.

[Sunrider]

If they want people doing more Campaign, all they need to do is boost exp rewards.

More exp always gets people's attention. More exp, and more/better loot.

[Hyan]

If they want people doing more Campaign, all they need to do is boost exp rewards.

More exp always gets people's attention. More exp, and more/better loot.

I don't think that helps. They'd have to raise the exp/hr to same level as you'd get from partying, but in that case people wouldn't party anymore... etc.

And when the other option is to sit in wg getting 0 exp or campaigning for 4~5k/hr, I don't think adding 1k more/hr would make those type of people suddenly bother with it any more than before. Maybe for a short time, but not for long.

[Plow]

if they made it half as good as a good merit pt (i.e. 10-12k), it would probably be packed enough that it would get somewhat challenging to cap exp/min for a couple weeks

[ronin sparthos]

SE is deathly afraid that making Campaign too rewarding will kill the party dynamic from 60-75.

What SE doesn't know is that dynamic is already dead thanks to level sync, playerbase "WAR, SAM, DRG, RDM, COR, BRD only" merit mentalities among other things. (SMNburns)

I really don't see the problem in 8-10k/hr solo via Campaign, the endgame EXP is already screwed to begin with.

Unions and ANNM are good ways to get people to Campaign but the system could really use a slight increase in EXP/hr given the fact that SMNburns and purist meripos exist.

[Hyan]

So the obvious answer is to break it even more? nice thinking there.

[Damane]

So the obvious answer is to break it even more? nice thinking there.

whats wrong with getting more exp in campaign? I allready cap my exp allways in campaign because meripo pts are boreing like hell.

[Gergall]

So the obvious answer is to break it even more? nice thinking there.

Yes. They are probably not planning to do a complete overhaul of the battle/xp system to fix all the problems, although I'd love to be proven wrong just for the sheer chaos it would cause.

Next best answer is to say screw it and level the playing field a bit with better campaign XP for everyone.

Well, almost everyone. Bard bots ruined it for anyone who wanted to play bard like a bard. But they can join merit pts.

[Hyan]

60-74 partying doesn't seem that broken to me, meripos maybe. If they had to break it should only make the boost apply to limit points imo.

[TummieGaruda]

If they want people doing more Campaign, all they need to do is boost exp rewards.

More exp always gets people's attention. More exp, and more/better loot.

Highest Medal atm gives 90 exp/min.
Each medal increases the exp/min by 2. The next two medals are coming out in the next update up to the Moonlight Medal which will give 94 exp/min. The thing is that campaign wasn't designed to be a replacement for exp/merits, but more of a casual event that players can partake in. I personally get 4k+ exp on DNC in campaigns with multiple waves and it's good to do when I don't have much time to seek out a party or want to deal with idiots.

One of my friends leveled NIN from 55-75 in campaign and doing Slaughterhouse Campaign ops every week for 14k exp, stopping every so often to skill up. If you want to avoid exp parties, yes it can be done, but it's not going to give you the same amount of exp as a party.

[arus2001]

Doubling potential Campaign EXP would definitely be a good start in drawing people to it, but after the one dev said he thinks Campaign gives too much, it's probably safe to assume he was the cause of the Fort nerf and that we'll never see an improvement beyond medal progression's measly 2 per minute. And unless SE goes hog wild on good Augmented gear as random rewards, a steady supply of currency or craft goods will eventually dampen the profit aspect.

[BRP]

Campaign doesn't need more people. What it needs is some control. So that as a player leading a group of other players I can manipulate what is happening outside the Campaign battles, the bigger picture. Right now San d'Oria(with most servers) is destined to win at any sort of competition(like say, the Northlands) because it just has more people. On my server atm, Sandy has all but 1 area while the other two only have their towns. In the end making Campaign more popular will just make San d'Oria just as good or better.

In the Conquest system, a single LS could manipulate Conquest for their nation with only an alliance of 12-18 every week. So if each nation had 1-2 LS competing it would never come down to having the biggest population, but the most dedication or even best strategy. Unfortunately, there was nothing tempting about this. And again nothing tempting about "winning" at Campaign(though Unions could change that.)

As it stands even if you added incentive to doing Campaign as a patriot the only strategy that comes to mind is "Do more Campaign battle! More people = victory!" We know so little about how to best manipulate Campaign Ops. Who knows if they are even worth doing at all.

EDIT: Creating that incentive and doubling exp should be done in a manner that forces player to win Campaign. Exp bonus(in Campaign Battles) from doing necessary Campaign Ops? Killing the NMs in battle? etc.

[Kaslo]

Well hopefully people getting Campaign Bodies will let people leave sandy for other nations if they are like me and have been at Sandy for a year waiting to leave and not wanting to lose 2 medals.

[arus2001]

Problem with forcing NM kills or demanding certain Ops is they also lack some aspect of control. Offensive Campaigns suck now because you don't know if you're warping in to a mob of defenders, or said defenders running away the moment you get close enough to engage. Same applies to conditions of NM kills where, most of the time, people like to kill all the minions before going for the boss unless NPCs are around to help. Ops fail largely due to their limited nature and to a lesser extent effort not matching up to the reward. Everyone can click a point and plant a bomb. Not everyone has craft recipes memorized, let alone choose all the proper materials in a limited time. They both give the same EXP, though, so why really bother? SE's done a poor job in explaining the behind the scenes workings of Campaign. Instead, the best players can surmise is that killing everything is the best we can do. Probably is.

Otherwise, I don't think the builds of national units are balanced too well. Windurst has a nice chunk of casters, and with that, a common enemy with AoE stun moves. A lot of the Sandy generals have the ability to cure themselves, even if minimally. The Aegis NPC is certainly a defensive beast. I'm torn on Bastok's effectiveness. Maximilian is a fucking monster, for sure, but Adelheid doesn't strike me as terribly impressive and Ludwig always seems to die when I see him. Then there's the enemy side of unit builds where mobs like Rockchopper can mean a strong chance of loss with Breakga spam.

I do wish Campaign was more diverse, but they killed a lot of that potential just by going on a weekly conquest system. Zone control could've been more dynamic with multiple points of focus player and mobs could keep going for in a generic capture the flag sense. On-site objectives could vary from escorting supplies to killing X amount of Y unit, and so on. I don't think of Campaign so much as a war as I do an attempt at recapturing old aspects of FF games with many against many instead of the 6/12/18v1 the rest of the game is. Its other blessing is it being solo content that can at least benefit everyone else.

[Stubwub]

Don't even try to hope they increase the experience for Campaign. One of the devs have stated they're not happy with the increase in experience Campaign already gives. They also nerfed the experience from fortifications. That alone should show you they're not going to increase exp gain anytime soon.

[Sunrider]

Don't even try to hope they increase the experience for Campaign. One of the devs have stated they're not happy with the increase in experience Campaign already gives. They also nerfed the experience from fortifications. That alone should show you they're not going to increase exp gain anytime soon.

Keep in mind, no one dev stays on any aspect of the game forever, they seem to average about five years before moving on to other projects. If the game is still around in a few years(FFXI is DIEING! after all), I figure we can pose the question to a new programmer with a different perspective.

EDIT: Creating that incentive and doubling exp should be done in a manner that forces player to win Campaign. Exp bonus(in Campaign Battles) from doing necessary Campaign Ops? Killing the NMs in battle? etc.

Players do get awarded for kill shots, though I realize that isn't exactly the point.

Perhaps a multiplier applied for number of enemies killed? More enemies taken out(overall), in a battle leading to beefier exp totals for all? That way, everyone would have incentive not to drag out a fight as opposed to wrapping it up and moving onto the next target.