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View Full Version : [dev1015] Still no Abyssea VNM adjustments still a major point of congestion



Zumi
06-01-2011, 07:13 AM
T2 VNMs have some of the worst competition in abyssea currently. The most congestion seems to occur on Heroes VNMs mainly T2s, Koios, Gamayun, and Chione.

There are types of people that farm these, players trying to get Colorless Souls for Ochain who need many many kills and there is the more common people trying to kill these for body seals. This creates a lot of competition to even claim one of these VNMs at times.

I made the following suggestions before but really have not seen anything come out of it

Suggestions
1. I would add 3 copies of the Tier 2 / 3 VNM to each abyssea Zone, in order to help with congestion.

2. I would change it so that if you get a Red !! on a VNM it will then 100% upgrade your abyssite to the next level.

Luvbunny
06-01-2011, 10:23 AM
That is a really nice suggestion, they should add 6 spawn areas that are spread out, so 6 of them can be spawned at the same time. It is an easy fix, which should help lessen the congestion and frustration from the players. Also they need to make this key item drops 80-100% at all times, some of the bosses at early abyssea zones need you to kill 3-6 NMS to spawn which is a big huge time sink... Heroes is the absolute best version of abyssea!

Juilan
06-01-2011, 08:26 PM
SE should add more spawns in general, every NM should have a minium of 3 pops... so we can get in and get out, I hate guku aery!

Cair
06-04-2011, 02:46 PM
Going to have to second this. VNM is one of the only major issues as far as congestion goes now. Only one copy of a mob per area (especially T2, one T3 is honestly not that bad) is no where near enough, especially since you can't guarantee an abyssite upgrade at all.

Zumi
06-04-2011, 02:50 PM
I would agree T3 isn't that bad because you have to kill so many T2 just to get a T3. T2 competition has been horrible this week. Especially being on one of the merger servers.

Before the merge it was bad, but now there is almost never a time where this stuff isn't camped.

Zetonegi
06-04-2011, 04:11 PM
This is all I have to say on this http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t160/ZetoTarken/ffxi_20110604_0257462.png

CrAZYVIC
06-04-2011, 04:32 PM
Oh i agree the VNM inside abbysea and some time spawn NM, are mega overcamped atm.

The ovni, the VNMS for pop lusca and the VNMS for ketea are overcamped. Not kidding yesterday i saw camping the Ovni like 10 peoples.

Another problem with this. When you win the claim in a legit way you got 10 tells raged people call you botter etc. I hope they add at least 3 diferent VNMS pop zone and 3 ovni, is imposible win a claim.

Zetonegi
06-04-2011, 04:37 PM
To put this into perspective, its like camping Gukumatz, during prime time, while blindfolded with someone over your shoulder telling you where/when its popped. Oh and you can't proc red either.

Leonlionheart
06-04-2011, 05:26 PM
There's already several thread about this, in which it already has quite a bit of backing.

Seriha
06-04-2011, 07:32 PM
+1 for fixiness.

zell_
06-05-2011, 09:29 AM
T2 VNMs have some of the worst competition in abyssea currently. The most congestion seems to occur on Heroes VNMs mainly T2s, Koios, Gamayun, and Chione.

There are types of people that farm these, players trying to get Colorless Souls for Ochain who need many many kills and there is the more common people trying to kill these for body seals. This creates a lot of competition to even claim one of these VNMs at times.

I made the following suggestions before but really have not seen anything come out of it

Suggestions
1. I would add 3 copies of the Tier 2 / 3 VNM to each abyssea Zone, in order to help with congestion.

2. I would change it so that if you get a Red !! on a VNM it will then 100% upgrade your abyssite to the next level.


i personally support this statement. these notorious monsters should be more accessible. it is quite aggravating to have to fight tooth and nail to spawn these nms and 1, not get the abyssite to change. 2, get outclaimed and be forced to wait 10-15 minutes to have a chance at it not getting it again. and 3, not getting desired drops from the higher tier monsters(looking at you colorless souls). over all we need the dev team to alleviate the congestion that is causing this great deal of frustration.

Zumi
06-06-2011, 01:09 PM
Bump for Monday, in case the dev team doesn't read this stuff on the weekend.

Speaking off weekend I found all 3 heroes zones to be camped all the time on VNM still. Quite funny to see like 20 people siting up and down trying to claim the VNM.

Minervia
06-07-2011, 12:52 AM
How many topics does it take to get a response from the dev team on this subject.....

there has been atleast 10+ on this already and not one has ever gotten a response its kinda lame

Sama
06-07-2011, 03:04 AM
T2 VNMs have some of the worst competition in abyssea currently. The most congestion seems to occur ...

That's the idea, you don't get what you want.

Korpg
06-07-2011, 03:15 AM
How many topics does it take to get a response from the dev team on this subject.....

there has been atleast 10+ on this already and not one has ever gotten a response its kinda lame

I know, even I made one, and it went unanswered...

Zumi
06-07-2011, 06:09 AM
That's the idea, you don't get what you want.

That's incorrect. SE has been making other empyreans easier to do by adding timed spawn KI's to chests adding more ??? so 3 NMs can be fought at once, making more chests spawn so you FC them easier. So infact they are improving some congested parts of abyssea to a point.

VNMs however have been ignored for the most part and it really only effects shield and harp upgraders.

Sama
06-07-2011, 07:58 AM
That's incorrect. SE has been making other empyreans easier to do by adding timed spawn KI's to chests adding more ??? so 3 NMs can be fought at once, making more chests spawn so you FC them easier. So infact they are improving some congested parts of abyssea to a point.

VNMs however have been ignored for the most part and it really only effects shield and harp upgraders.

Bottle neck tactic has been used throughout the aby how do you justify this is incorrect?

Sobek's Guku, Ulhuadshi's Amun, Cirein-croin's Heqet, NIN feet + 2 VNM... I can give you 20 more examples that SE is using this cheap trick which make you run in circles for days.

Also I'm not sure which server you on, the one i'm on Guku, Amun, and Heqet is being camped 24/7.

The chest pop KI is just plain stupid; if you run a aby LS no one is going to farm chest with you for the KI. I guess I don't know on this one may be your guys are willing to kill mobs for chest for 4 hours hoping there will be a KI chest pop every 15 mins after 4 hours of killing.

Rie
06-07-2011, 08:39 AM
@ Sama

You make it seem as if you have to do one or the other. Cap amber, kill stuff between Heqet/Gukumatz pops, sometimes you get lucky with the KI. Surely you need TE anyway, so I'd imagine you'd kill normal mobs. If you just stand around between pops doing nothing, you're doing it wrong.

Hoshi
06-07-2011, 08:47 AM
We've been going as a group of 3 people farming chests while the other 15 spots were for friends to leech xp in return for holding KI pop sets as they were farmed up. The system works pretty well. As far as the topic goes though, very much agree that VNMs in abyssea can be a pain. I'd also like to see red !! guaranteeing the abyssite for the next tier. T3s would be more congested that way but I think it would allow for more T3s to be fought than the current system.

Sama
06-07-2011, 08:56 AM
@ Sama

You make it seem as if you have to do one or the other. Cap amber, kill stuff between Heqet/Gukumatz pops, sometimes you get lucky with the KI. Surely you need TE anyway, so I'd imagine you'd kill normal mobs. If you just stand around between pops doing nothing, you're doing it wrong.

Everyone does that (killing mobs between pop) and so do we to keep time up... but the chest is definitely not a solution to the problem, it's just another distribution/cloudy thing SE created to make you feel they have fixed the congestion.

I will not simply to rely on chest for KI and VNM also needs more pop.

Camate
06-08-2011, 03:03 AM
Sorry for the late response on this topic! I know there have been quite a few threads about this, but we got a chance to speak to the development team and they provided some feedback.

Currently the development team is looking into making adjustments to the rate in which the demilune abyssite changes color (no plans to make these adjustments to VNMs outside of Abyssea). However, they currently have no plans of increasing the number of VNM spawns. Since the degree of difficulty between Empyrean Weapon related monsters and VNMs is so different, even if we simply increase the amount of VNM spawns like we increased the amount of “???,” the results of the adjustments will not be the same. To be a bit more concrete, for Empyrean +2 items and Empyrean weapons you need to spend time gathering multiple trigger or key items and likewise for VNMs you need to spend time changing the abyssite.

Alhanelem
06-08-2011, 03:11 AM
this problem was also partially relieved when the +2 drops from these NMs were added to other (non-VNM) monsters.

Capn
06-08-2011, 03:21 AM
There's already several thread about this, in which it already has quite a bit of backing.

True, but this one has a crown! (lol)

Rie
06-08-2011, 03:55 AM
Sorry for the late response on this topic! I know there have been quite a few threads about this, but we got a chance to speak to the development team and they provided some feedback.

Currently the development team is looking into making adjustments to the rate in which the demilune abyssite changes color (no plans to make these adjustments to VNMs outside of Abyssea). However, they currently have no plans of increasing the number of VNM spawns. Since the degree of difficulty between Empyrean Weapon related monsters and VNMs is so different, even if we simply increase the amount of VNM spawns like we increased the amount of “???,” the results of the adjustments will not be the same. To be a bit more concrete, for Empyrean +2 items and Empyrean weapons you need to spend time gathering multiple trigger or key items and likewise for VNMs you need to spend time changing the abyssite.

But for most of the non-VNM NMs you have multiple ways of obtaining the trigger/KI (drops off lesser NMs/KI in box/trigger in boxes/purchasable on AH), whereas for VNM you have to compete against the whole server for very few pops. It's nice that you're changing the upgrade rate for the Abyssite, but I don't think it's going to do anything for the congestion issue.

Capn
06-08-2011, 04:09 AM
Sorry for the late response on this topic! I know there have been quite a few threads about this, but we got a chance to speak to the development team and they provided some feedback.

Currently the development team is looking into making adjustments to the rate in which the demilune abyssite changes color (no plans to make these adjustments to VNMs outside of Abyssea). However, they currently have no plans of increasing the number of VNM spawns. Since the degree of difficulty between Empyrean Weapon related monsters and VNMs is so different, even if we simply increase the amount of VNM spawns like we increased the amount of “???,” the results of the adjustments will not be the same. To be a bit more concrete, for Empyrean +2 items and Empyrean weapons you need to spend time gathering multiple trigger or key items and likewise for VNMs you need to spend time changing the abyssite.


Thank you!!

This makes total sense. But my question to the developers would be, if you increased the end result monster pops (???)'s but left the key item farming in tact, why not for VNMs, increase the number of VNMs that can pop, but leave in tact, the method in which you farm the abyssite colors.

I suppose it gets complicated with the fact that VNM Teir 1 has a large number of pop locations already, and can in some rare circumstances, be farmed very quickly to higher teirs. VNM is more based on luck, while (???) pop monsters all require a visit and a red (!!) proc (Aside from the chestable ones). So many complexities to keep it all "Fair"! >.<!

If I were to have it in a vote, I would vote for more VNMs, color changes remain the same.

scaevola
06-08-2011, 04:37 AM
VNM is more based on luck, while (???) pop monsters all require a visit and a red (!!) proc (Aside from the chestable ones).

I am not at all sure a red !!-less T1 NM has a lower drop rate on its KI than a T1 or T2 VNM has on its chance to upgrade abyssite.

For my part I'd much rather see a higher base chance on abyssite upgrades (like how it appears the dev team's moving forward~) than red !! KIs for VNMs. It would be presumptuous of me to say VNM upgrading is supposed to be soloable, but I think the fact that it is offers some variety as it is now outweighs any potential benefits from encouraging groups to take it over.

Sama
06-08-2011, 04:38 AM
However, they currently have no plans of increasing the number of VNM spawns.

Haha see more running in circles and time-wasting game play.

I guess they will adjust the drop rate of the KI or VNM pops when half of the population have gotten what they need.

Drivont
06-08-2011, 04:40 AM
But for most of the non-VNM NMs you have multiple ways of obtaining the trigger/KI (drops off lesser NMs/KI in box/trigger in boxes/purchasable on AH), whereas for VNM you have to compete against the whole server for very few pops. It's nice that you're changing the upgrade rate for the Abyssite, but I don't think it's going to do anything for the congestion issue.

It'd be cool if they added at LEAST one more spot to have a t3, and gave t2-t3 abyssites in gold chests as well... seems logical

Habiki
06-08-2011, 04:46 AM
Sorry for the late response on this topic! I know there have been quite a few threads about this, but we got a chance to speak to the development team and they provided some feedback.

Currently the development team is looking into making adjustments to the rate in which the demilune abyssite changes color (no plans to make these adjustments to VNMs outside of Abyssea). However, they currently have no plans of increasing the number of VNM spawns. Since the degree of difficulty between Empyrean Weapon related monsters and VNMs is so different, even if we simply increase the amount of VNM spawns like we increased the amount of “???,” the results of the adjustments will not be the same. To be a bit more concrete, for Empyrean +2 items and Empyrean weapons you need to spend time gathering multiple trigger or key items and likewise for VNMs you need to spend time changing the abyssite.

While the changes to the upgrade rate on abyssites will help, it will probably make problems worse since more people will have the tier 3 abbysite at any given moment increasing competition for the 1 hr pop nm.

Zetonegi
06-08-2011, 05:11 AM
While the changes to the upgrade rate on abyssites will help, it will probably make problems worse since more people will have the tier 3 abbysite at any given moment increasing competition for the 1 hr pop nm.

Dunno about the rest but T3s are 15minute repops in heroes zones last I checked.

Habiki
06-08-2011, 05:21 AM
Dunno about the rest but T3s are 15minute repops in heroes zones last I checked.

Maybe i was just thinking of scars and visions zones.

Airget
06-08-2011, 05:21 AM
Sorry for the late response on this topic! I know there have been quite a few threads about this, but we got a chance to speak to the development team and they provided some feedback.

Currently the development team is looking into making adjustments to the rate in which the demilune abyssite changes color (no plans to make these adjustments to VNMs outside of Abyssea). However, they currently have no plans of increasing the number of VNM spawns. Since the degree of difficulty between Empyrean Weapon related monsters and VNMs is so different, even if we simply increase the amount of VNM spawns like we increased the amount of “???,” the results of the adjustments will not be the same. To be a bit more concrete, for Empyrean +2 items and Empyrean weapons you need to spend time gathering multiple trigger or key items and likewise for VNMs you need to spend time changing the abyssite.

There's a little error in the comment being made, while you do say "multiple triggers" are needed for certain NMs, there is the case of heroes, where you only need 1 KI to pop the mob, Heck with the zone bosses it's only 1 timed NM or you can get it out of a chest, and with the ease of just farming gold chest for KI you can easily obtain 3-5 KI in the time it may take to receive 1 tier 3 VNM pop.

Truth be told the error lies in the balance with +2 obtained from the scars area, while you may believed it's balanced as it stands now the VNMs that drop the 1-3 of the +2 are a pain to obtain compared to other KI, in the time it takes to just farm other pops you could have 1-3 of a single NM in the time it takes to actually obtain the tier 3 pop trigger. Also in some zones unlike other timed NMs most of the tier 2 VNMs can be soloed which just bottlenecks the ability to obtain the tier 3 even more.

Also in heroes areas the "Empyrean weapon" NMs aren't to tough to obtain if you have gil, or again farm gold chest. To obtain Apademak it takes Snow God Core, Sisyphus Fragment, High-Quality Marid Hide. Snow God Core is a popped NM that is easy enough to kill and spam, the golem is a timed one next to the NM witha stingy drop rate however, you can obtain the item from gold chest. Then the HQ marid hide is an easy enough drop from the marid nead apademak spawn. After obtaining those you can easily pop the Dhorme Khimari, trigger red and obtain the KI, then you can easily rinse and repeat this process without having to wait 15 mins. After that you can just go to Apademak and spam him within having to wait for others or even then 15min respawn in between.

The problem with VNMs is this, you have tier 1 which is instant respawn and multiple, then you have tier 2 which there is only 1 of and a 15 min respawn, then the same is said for tier 3. So while you can easily stockpile and spam fight a majority of the NMs, VNMs are very restricted by the only way to obtain them is through the abyssite and spamming /heal and hoping you beat out the competition.

If you take a look at all the information relating to abyssea you would notice that the VNMs are very restricted and changing the % of tier 3 change isn't really going to help much for those who might need to fight the NM a few times.

Overall I find the argument about how it's balanced kind of weak, a real balance would be that you could either keep the tier 2 the same and make 3 ??? for the tier 3 or add the tier 3 KI to the gold chest KI list.

But ya, this just comes experience of spending 3hrs farming the tier 2 VNM with no competition and getting no color change when I know in that same time I could have easily obtained a set of 3-5 pops of another +2 NM.

The simple formula is 1-2 pop NM KI, and then 1 15 min KI, however you even made that moot in the last update when you allowed the 15min KI to be obtained in big gold chest, so had those 15min KI not been added in the KI list of gold chest your argument would hold. However since competition for those 15 mins NMs is alleviated how does it really make it much different from the VNMS?

Another suggestion perhaps have it so that only a person with a colored abyssite can obtain the tier 3 KI in the gold chest if they are willing to upgrade it. The chest could be something like "The chest is filled with an aura that resonates with the Colorful demilune abyssite". Then upon accepting it your orb would change color.

Just if you can get back to your dev team and perhaps inquire to them that while they have created additional ways to obtain KI and added ??? to a majority of other NMs they haven't done anything to do the same for VNMs.

Khajit
06-08-2011, 05:54 AM
VNM are hard to claim?

Zetonegi
06-08-2011, 06:16 AM
When there are 3 or 4 other parties trying to claim, it gets quite hard unless you're cheating.

Lukielucas
06-08-2011, 06:20 AM
VNM are hard to claim?

Yes and No

It's all depends on how quick you are with /heal and how many people are competing for the VNM

Personally this system had made me very unhappy and even with the proposed change that the developers are thinking of, makes me wanna decide about my future with FFXI cos i use to play religioniously every day and now i'm barely on more than 2 hours a day cos i'm sick with being in abyssea too much cos i'm trying to complete my trials but sick of having to compete with LS's...

And I'm halfway thru my empy upgrade and yet I just gone off the idea of doing it again cos i hate the fact that i have to farm 3x KI to get a measly 1-2 items and also fight the NM 25+ times... It gets very very VERY boring doing the same thing over and over again....

GlobalVariable
06-08-2011, 07:15 AM
This congestion just encourages people to cheat to get it done and over with.


I've been reporting it since it began and nothing was done. In another thread (http://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?act=url&hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=ja&tl=en&twu=1&u=http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/5979-%25E3%2582%25B8%25E3%2582%25A7%25E3%2582%25A4%25E3%2583%2589NM%25E3%2581%25AE%25E3%2583%2584%25E3%2583%25BC%25E3%2583%25AB%25E4%25BD%25BF%25E7%2594%25A8%25E8%2580%2585%25E3%2581%25AB%25E3%2581%25A4%25E3%2581%2584%25E3%2581%25A6&usg=ALkJrhgyNxDyCo2F8B04K9wt0XSfSypwIw)
someone links this youtube video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POEOWNDlg30) and now its fixed (until cheaters update their programs)...Why do we have the STF again?Last night I watched someone repeatedly claim a T2 the exact moment it was up on a single rest 7 times in a row. The repop timer would end, I'd rest to get a direction, the other person didn't rest just ran straight to the spot sat and popped. Every time. That seems pretty unlikely without the previously fixed cheat. In before people bunch of post pretending we all don't know what happened just like we didn't "know" all those people claim botted HNM for YEARS...

The entire invisible monster thing was a horrible horrible idea.

Khajit
06-08-2011, 07:19 AM
When there are 3 or 4 other parties trying to claim, it gets quite hard unless you're cheating.

The last major update broke all of the ways to cheat for VNM (probably permanently) so cheating isn't an issue and while I cant remember dealing with 4 parties 3 parties isn't so bad. Unless it's a t3 it's really not that tough and t3 is only hard due to the respawn time.
PS this entire make more spawns in heroes zone tack people are going on is stupid. It would be easier/better to just make the other abyssea zone vnm drop souls. I'd honestly expected them to do that during the last major patch.

Alhanelem
06-08-2011, 10:21 AM
This congestion just encourages people to cheat to get it done and over with.

Last night I watched someone repeatedly claim a T2 the exact moment it was up on a single rest 7 times in a row. The repop timer would end, I'd rest to get a direction, the other person didn't rest just ran straight to the spot sat and popped. Every time. That seems pretty unlikely without the previously fixed cheat. In before people bunch of post pretending we all don't know what happened just like we didn't "know" all those people claim botted HNM for YEARS...

The entire invisible monster thing was a horrible horrible idea.
There are radar programs out there that show you exactly where the VNMs are, even without having the appropriate abyssite. The server sends you information on this and this is how it was learned that VNMs are literally just invisible unaggressive mobs that attack you when certain conditions (kneeling with abyssite in hand) are met.

This is also how some people can fight only the tier2 VNM they want in the original areas where there are two in each zone.

I appriciate how this gave us insight into the system, and it wasn't much of a problem when VNMs came out, but now that there's actually heavy competition for them, it has become a serious problem and I wish those programs would go away.

Rie
06-08-2011, 10:33 AM
From what I heard, they don't show up on those radar programs anymore due to the changes in the last update.

Alhanelem
06-08-2011, 10:43 AM
The only way they can break it permanently is to not have the relevant information sent to the client. But then you can't get the distance and direction if you kneel (well, it would be lagged as it would have to ask the server).

So it won't remain broken forever, unless they can fix the underlying reason of why it worked in the first place.

Alhanelem
06-08-2011, 10:52 AM
Unnecessary rude behavior reported.

Juilan
06-08-2011, 11:58 AM
Sorry for the late response on this topic! I know there have been quite a few threads about this, but we got a chance to speak to the development team and they provided some feedback.

Currently the development team is looking into making adjustments to the rate in which the demilune abyssite changes color (no plans to make these adjustments to VNMs outside of Abyssea). However, they currently have no plans of increasing the number of VNM spawns. Since the degree of difficulty between Empyrean Weapon related monsters and VNMs is so different, even if we simply increase the amount of VNM spawns like we increased the amount of “???,” the results of the adjustments will not be the same. To be a bit more concrete, for Empyrean +2 items and Empyrean weapons you need to spend time gathering multiple trigger or key items and likewise for VNMs you need to spend time changing the abyssite.
does your time equation include waiting for a bunch of people spamming pops in a JP alliance to get the empyrean weapon triggers for the boss? i think if they're 3 spawns for one thing, every pop under it should have three pops....

blowfin
06-08-2011, 12:00 PM
The last major update broke all of the ways to cheat for VNM (probably permanently) so cheating isn't an issue and while I cant remember dealing with 4 parties 3 parties isn't so bad. Unless it's a t3 it's really not that tough and t3 is only hard due to the respawn time.
PS this entire make more spawns in heroes zone tack people are going on is stupid. It would be easier/better to just make the other abyssea zone vnm drop souls. I'd honestly expected them to do that during the last major patch.

It's not just souls people want from the VNM's though. Ketea is still the best way to get Voyage Cards, as an example. I've put this off for a few weeks now (at least) because I have better things to do than compete with several different groups for a mob that I've already put a lot of work into. In short: I'm ignoring the content at the moment because it sucks royally and is a major time sink for little to no reward.

Increasing the upgrade rate isn't going to make a huge difference, really it's just going to delay the bottlenecking further. More T3 spawns or letting us pop the T3 unconditionally (i.e. from a ???) seem like the best solutions IMHO.

It does seem to me that someone considers the VNM system quite sacred at the SE offices. They've never addressed the multitude of issues that made the outside system terrible (and encouraged cheating) and appear to be taking the same sort of stance with Abyssea VNM.

Camate: this part of the game really does stick out as a very bad bottleneck at the moment. I'm sorry for being harsh, but It's terrible game design, and not very fun to play. Empryean weapons and +2 items became much easier to get with the recent updates. Why won't they give VNM the same treatment for the +2 items and Empyrean shield/harp that they are involved with? The battles might be easier (all Abyssea is very easy really) but as it stands the problem is actually doing these battles, you either have to be masochistic or have far too much time to waste. A little bit of both helps though.

As someone has stated, maybe the Dev team don't understand. You can waste several hours and make no progress at all with the current system.

Francisco
06-08-2011, 03:40 PM
If we have to choose between one or the other to keep balance, then don't adjust the upgrade rate of the key item, but make more spawns.

Adjusting the upgrade rate of the key items will just create more congestion on T2 and T3 NMs... I'd bet a week's pay not a single T2 or T3 is up in any of Abyssea-Grauberg, Altepa or Uleguerand. And if any of them ARE up, there's probably 2-3 groups minimum frantically trying to pop them this instant.

People who complain about the upgrade rate of abyssites are probably more complaining about the lack of NMs available to pop... If I kill a T2 VNM and it doesn't upgrade - I'm more upset because it could be another hour... or two... or twelve... or a week... before I manage to pop another VNM with all the competition for limited spawns. This is multiplied immensely by the sheer amount of items needed per upgrade.

While we're on the topic of things needing to be fixed, Fistule. There is, at any given time... one-three groups holding all three amorph NMs... all standing by at Fistule waiting for it to spawn, so they can rush to it with their held NMs and race to claim it. Meanwhile, there are others waiting by the ???'s spot for the Leech and Slug NMs - so they can pop them again as soon as Fistule absorbs it or the NM dies. Terrible bottleneck.

My suggestions are:

VNM System / Colorless Souls
1: Add additional Tier 2 and Tier 3 NMs. Do not adjust upgrade rate of the abyssites. I would suggest 6-8 per zone, each roaming a certain region.
2: Lower repop of NMs to 10 minutes.
3: Keep in mind, Tier 3 Abyssites **BREAK** upon popping the NM, in which case you need to start all over.

Fistule
1: My BEST suggestion is to remove Fistule as an Empyrean NM, and change the requirement to Kukulkan Fangs... which is currently only used for ONE Empyrean... Staff - which is probably the most unpopular Empyrean anyway...
2: Either way - the idea of using NMs to pop a NM has to go - at least in this case. Increasing the number of Fistules won't mean much if you still need to use limited NMs to claim them.
3: Make Fistule a ??? NM, spawned by key items from the Empyrean NMs. I'm a little reluctant on this one since there are already so many Key Items in Gold Boxes in this zone. You could leave these NMs out of gold boxes entirely **IF** you make the Pudding NM a ??? spawn.

Alaik
06-08-2011, 07:54 PM
Instant respawns. You can take an hour just to get the T2 abyssite upgrade. There's no reason you can't have 3 NMs with an instant repop. Yeah, I'll see the guy next to me go 1/1 and pop his NM within 5 minutes, but at least it won't take 2 days to pop it once.

Babekeke
06-09-2011, 04:47 AM
Sorry for the late response on this topic! I know there have been quite a few threads about this, but we got a chance to speak to the development team and they provided some feedback.

Currently the development team is looking into making adjustments to the rate in which the demilune abyssite changes color (no plans to make these adjustments to VNMs outside of Abyssea). However, they currently have no plans of increasing the number of VNM spawns. Since the degree of difficulty between Empyrean Weapon related monsters and VNMs is so different, even if we simply increase the amount of VNM spawns like we increased the amount of “???,” the results of the adjustments will not be the same. To be a bit more concrete, for Empyrean +2 items and Empyrean weapons you need to spend time gathering multiple trigger or key items and likewise for VNMs you need to spend time changing the abyssite.

No more seal farming on Gamayun if chance to upgrade to tier 3 is higher ><

Although, anyone know what happens if you pop a tier 2 when you already have the tier 3 KI?

Sparthos
06-09-2011, 04:56 AM
No more seal farming on Gamayun if chance to upgrade to tier 3 is higher ><

Although, anyone know what happens if you pop a tier 2 when you already have the tier 3 KI?

You'll never lose the colorful but you will get readouts for T3 though.

softly = tracking t2
solidly = tracking t3

Korpg
06-09-2011, 04:58 AM
No more seal farming on Gamayun if chance to upgrade to tier 3 is higher ><

Although, anyone know what happens if you pop a tier 2 when you already have the tier 3 KI?

Game divides by zero and everything implodes.

Seriously, you can pop infinite number of T2s if you have the T3 of that zone.

Zumi
06-09-2011, 05:13 AM
After thinking about it T2 should be 1 min respawns like T1. T2 are similar to the key item nms of other paths. The ??? for those monsters respawns every 1 min so there isn't as much congestion on them as there is with T2 VNM.

detlef
06-09-2011, 06:47 AM
T1 are not 1 minute respawns. There are a set number of them and it varies depending on zone. For example, my experience with Visions T1's is 6 spawns with a 5 minute respawn. Whereas Scars zones appear to have something like a 10 minute respawn. I have no idea with T1's in Heroes zones because they're annoying to kill.

Having completed a Daurdabla myself, I can certainly relate to the frustration. I would say the best solution would be to keep respawn rate the same but to increase the upgrade rate. I've observed approximately 1/10 rate for T1 > T2 and maybe 1/3 for T2 > T3. To compare to something like Gukumatz, you're looking at essentially one Sobek pop every 20 minutes or so. At the very least, T2s should convert to T3 at a 50% rate or higher.

Also, since we're talking about Colorless Souls, Brulo and Maere have a terrible drop rate, leaving Ogopogo as the only T3 Heroes VNM that has a decent chance of double dropping. For all the work it takes to obtain a T3 pop, it a slap in the face when Brulo and Maere drop a single soul 80-90% of the time even with TH.

Mindi
06-09-2011, 07:57 PM
[...]Also, since we're talking about Colorless Souls, Brulo and Maere have a terrible drop rate, leaving Ogopogo as the only T3 Heroes VNM that has a decent chance of double dropping. For all the work it takes to obtain a T3 pop, it a slap in the face when Brulo and Maere drop a single soul 80-90% of the time even with TH.

this is so true :( My bf and i mainly camp Maere for his Shield cause this is not that camped, we are often alone there for the T2 VNM or we teamup with others who just want body seals and we pop, they lot seals. The 1 soul drops is the most depressing part of the Colourlesssoul Trials... every other Emph weapon NM drops 2 items like 90% of the time with TH7-9ish. T3VNM drop 2 Items like 15% of the time with TH7-9. The Levi is a bit better droprate, but while this is better, Ifrit and Diabolos drop like never 2 souls. I didnt saw a single 2 souls Ifrit in around 8 kills(Ifrit is just so annoying...), and i think 1 double drop on Diabolos in 25ish kills. Levi is better there we were hmm maybe 5/20 with a double drop. I didnt note all the droprates but we are 60/75 souls now and we had 6-7 Double drops so far and all kills were with TH 7-9 (depending on upgrates^^; )

I dont think adding more VNM's to the zones would be good, it just wouldnt fit into the VNM System. Increased upgrate rate is a nice step in the right direction. (or just make it 100% upgrate with red !! like its on all the other KI-NM's and keep upgrate rate like it is currently without red!!) We sometimes needed 2-3 Hours to upgrate 2 pops from T2->T3 just cause we unlucky with upgrates. And this while beeing the only popers in the zone.

Vold
06-13-2011, 02:43 AM
From what I heard, they don't show up on those radar programs anymore due to the changes in the last update.

Apparently people are finding a way around it. Two days in a row now have I watched as others pop VNM tier 2s as soon as they were up in one try. All I can do is leave until they go away.

Last night it was a Ninja/dnc who had the ability to pop it exactly where he was at and before I could even get a hit by spamming /heal when window was up. Today it's the same but I get "the vnm is 48 palms east" I ran no more than 30 palms, if that, before I see "no monsters in the area" and a WHM 30 palms behind me from where we both were spamming /heal takes a sit and pops it no problem. Twice in a row.

Right.

I don't get why there isn't a few more Tier 2s. 1 tier 3 is more than enough to get the point across. A bunch of tier 1 > 2-3ish tier 2s > 1 tier 3. It just makes sense. ANYTHING is better than 1 bloody tier 2 in the zone. I don't see a problem with abyssite change rates. What I see is that we need more tier 2 VNMs in zones.

Leonlionheart
06-13-2011, 06:22 AM
Seriously though, if SE is just trying to make the body seals hard to get from T2's then why don't they make Dhorme Khimaira, Amarok, etc have a 10min repop too?

Neisan_Quetz
06-13-2011, 08:20 AM
They were probbbaly did intend for those NMs to have that long a repop at first but the change to ??? repop times was blanket across all Abyssea zones.

kaizen7
06-13-2011, 06:55 PM
Sorry for the late response on this topic! I know there have been quite a few threads about this, but we got a chance to speak to the development team and they provided some feedback.

Currently the development team is looking into making adjustments to the rate in which the demilune abyssite changes color (no plans to make these adjustments to VNMs outside of Abyssea). However, they currently have no plans of increasing the number of VNM spawns. Since the degree of difficulty between Empyrean Weapon related monsters and VNMs is so different, even if we simply increase the amount of VNM spawns like we increased the amount of “???,” the results of the adjustments will not be the same. To be a bit more concrete, for Empyrean +2 items and Empyrean weapons you need to spend time gathering multiple trigger or key items and likewise for VNMs you need to spend time changing the abyssite.

It's nice to hear that SE development team do hear players feedback,

I believe not only T2 Abyssea VNM experience severe congestion at this time.
The trigger NM that spawned bt ??? is also experience congestion.
For example, 3 Gigas NM at Abyssea - La Theine, currently player can spawn 3 Briareus at one time, yet only 1 of the NM that drop Briareus trigger can be spawned at one time. Judging that force spawn NM is originally introduced to remove NM monopolisation, would it be much better if SE can make multiple copies of the NM can be spawned at one time ?
The current system is basically put people with higher latencies at very disadvantaged position, and as such puts back the condition like the one that SE try to avoid in the first place.

Khajit
06-13-2011, 07:48 PM
Apparently people are finding a way around it. Two days in a row now have I watched as others pop VNM tier 2s as soon as they were up in one try. All I can do is leave until they go away.

Last night it was a Ninja/dnc who had the ability to pop it exactly where he was at and before I could even get a hit by spamming /heal when window was up. Today it's the same but I get "the vnm is 48 palms east" I ran no more than 30 palms, if that, before I see "no monsters in the area" and a WHM 30 palms behind me from where we both were spamming /heal takes a sit and pops it no problem. Twice in a row.

Right.

Considering the fact that the position is completely server side now it would presumably take actually hacking into the servers to find the vnm or something just as obvious happens I kinda doubt that it wasn't anything more than dumb luck.

Artoriusrex
06-14-2011, 02:42 AM
I strongly believe that something needs to be addressed with at least the Hero's area T3 VNMs. Realistically 90% of people camping these are for the colorless souls. I myself am doing OChain and have completed stage 1 and have the items for stage3. I have killed 25 T3s and have a total of 29 souls, i mean seriously this is ridiculous, and the worst thing is sometimes you go 1/1 or 1/2 on upgrading T1>T2>T3 etc but last week i spent 7 hours trying to upgrade my T2 to T3 to no avail and no i didnt already have the T3 for that zone. I then accidently pop a T2 in La Theine which i kill and it upgrades to T3 straight away, its terrible how this system works.

I think that adding the souls to all T3 VNMs inside Abyssea is a quick fix that i for one would welcome greatly and would certainly ease the congestion for a lot of people and it wouldnt matter then in which zone you upgraded your abyssite for. It could also mean that you could get more help with the middle areas which drop +2 upgrade items also.

Lets hope we hear back from the DEVs soon with some better ideas than the ones we have been given so far!

Dart
06-14-2011, 02:46 AM
fairly sure there's something out there that can scan for them, but I'm sure that it isn't free like the old system was. I don't see the point of paying additional money for this game soooooo we're SoL.

Aeonk
06-14-2011, 05:09 AM
Not only should there be an increase in upgrade rate, but multipe VNM's available for killing as well. As it stands these NM's are some of the hardest mobs to actually get to fight. Both because of the horrible upgrade rate and the competition after it for a variety of reasons.
I've just started the colorless souls portion of my Shield, and I could safely say we could probably complete 3 or 4 empyreans to their 85 stage in the time it would take to finish this 1 stage of the shield/harp trial. Seems a bit unfair to say the least.

Yarly
06-14-2011, 11:06 AM
Apparently people are finding a way around it. Two days in a row now have I watched as others pop VNM tier 2s as soon as they were up in one try. All I can do is leave until they go away.

Last night it was a Ninja/dnc who had the ability to pop it exactly where he was at and before I could even get a hit by spamming /heal when window was up. Today it's the same but I get "the vnm is 48 palms east" I ran no more than 30 palms, if that, before I see "no monsters in the area" and a WHM 30 palms behind me from where we both were spamming /heal takes a sit and pops it no problem. Twice in a row.


You're just terrible at popping them.

Kyte
06-16-2011, 06:07 AM
I don't know, a friend of mine was competing for VNM pops and he too said it seemed as though the other guy was able to track them through some new method. I would't completely rule it out.

Zumi
06-16-2011, 06:14 AM
I don't know, a friend of mine was competing for VNM pops and he too said it seemed as though the other guy was able to track them through some new method. I would't completely rule it out.

If you outclaim someone couple times in a row they usually start to complain and say they will call a GM on you for botting ect when in fact you are not botting they just suck at claiming the VNM. It's the "sore loser my competition must obviously bot syndrome". Had this happen last night me and my friend were duoing VNM T2s for upgrade and some guy with a party there that obviously wanted seals cause he kept spamming us with tells about how he wanted seals then said he was calling a GM on us for botting which we were not doing at all.

Tinuviel
07-28-2011, 03:03 AM
Currently the development team is looking into making adjustments to the rate in which the demilune abyssite changes color (no plans to make these adjustments to VNMs outside of Abyssea). However, they currently have no plans of increasing the number of VNM spawns. Since the degree of difficulty between Empyrean Weapon related monsters and VNMs is so different, even if we simply increase the amount of VNM spawns like we increased the amount of “???,” the results of the adjustments will not be the same. To be a bit more concrete, for Empyrean +2 items and Empyrean weapons you need to spend time gathering multiple trigger or key items and likewise for VNMs you need to spend time changing the abyssite.

There are two completely separate issues here: success rate of demilune upgrades and number of VNM spawns. Camate (or the dev team) are completely lumping them together it appears. Looking at both of these issues merely as a "spend time gathering" is completely incorrect, and SE should seriously reconsider this perspective. Overall time spent for the player base is completely content driven. Competing against other groups over a single VNM spawn results in degraded playtime content. This is the issue I believe SE should address.

What SE could do, for example, is increase VNM spawns, and then either reduce colorful demilune upgrade success rate or (preferably) introduce a VNM fatigue mechanism, that doesnt allow any particular person to spawn a T2 or T3 too frequently.

Leonlionheart
07-28-2011, 04:58 AM
If you outclaim someone couple times in a row they usually start to complain and say they will call a GM on you for botting ect when in fact you are not botting they just suck at claiming the VNM. It's the "sore loser my competition must obviously bot syndrome". Had this happen last night me and my friend were duoing VNM T2s for upgrade and some guy with a party there that obviously wanted seals cause he kept spamming us with tells about how he wanted seals then said he was calling a GM on us for botting which we were not doing at all.

Except more often than not players are using third party programs.

Zumi
07-28-2011, 07:24 AM
Except more often than not players are using third party programs.

SE fixed any kind of radar/tracking 3rd party programs a few months ago by making VNM locations server side so you can't find it unless you rest just like everyone else. There is no way you can cheat on this as much as some people like to believe there is.

Leonlionheart
07-28-2011, 07:58 AM
SE fixed any kind of radar/tracking 3rd party programs a few months ago by making VNM locations server side so you can't find it unless you rest just like everyone else. There is no way you can cheat on this as much as some people like to believe there is.

I didn't know that, as I haven't had such a problem for like, 3 months now.

I don't remember that being in the update notes though.

Malacite
07-28-2011, 08:02 AM
Except more often than not players are using third party programs.

Yup, gotta love it when people snipe pops before the ??? is even visible.

Zinato
08-10-2011, 06:09 AM
A few thoughts on the VNM issue.

First of all, Adding colorless souls to other zone T3 is not realistic, the gap in monster strength is to great. For example, a relatively poorly geared NIN or THF can often solo Tahrongi Canyon's Usurper. On the other hand even a well geared, moderately skilled WHM and MNK duo can run into issues with the Heroes T3. I know everyone who browses the forums are the best geared, most skilled players on their server but, SE does need to think of the other players as well.

Second, In terms of creating additional T2 pops. (I'm assuming T3/Change rate is left alone) While this would help create less congestion in terms of competition for T3, excluding Visions/Scars T2, this would greatly increase the ability to obtain the +1 body pieces of select jobs. Additionally, Considering the state of the other Empyrean mobs such as Sobek, Briareus, Bukhis and so on, adding more pops only served to increase the number of people attempting to complete weapons. On top of which more pops just means more pops to monopolize by large linkshells helping the larger groups finish even faster but, doing nothing for low-man or soloers. As a final note on additional T2, this would likely not affect Scars or Visions as much as the dev. team may think. Since even with 3 pops the change rate is still poor, and with new places to find +2 items (not to mention the ease of poping the KI NMs thanks to chest updates) the T3 in those zones now hold less value.

The last of the potential fixes I would like to address is change to upgrade rate. Now, like with more pops faster means more people will become interested. With this solution the many seal parties will find themselves with T3 faster, meaning the players content with purchasing souls/pops will see a larger supply. Adversely, this will also make equipment like Ocelot trousers, and Honchomasamune easier to obtain since the creation of a T3 will be much faster. This fix however, would retain the Many:1:1 ratio of the VNM tiers, meaning there will still be a lot of competition either for seals or upgrade.

I am not saying there is no fix, I simply wish to show that the decision must be made carefully and that the dev. team can't just hit the add enemy button and fix the problem. Each of the methods has a draw back and implementing multiple would only compound the issue.

TL;DR Each method of "fix" has drawbacks simply changing an aspect of VNM without consideration wont work as a final solution.

Ashael
08-12-2011, 04:03 AM
And of course, this "fix" does nothing for people who get a T3 in say Grauberg, then reupgrade a new Colorful so they can continue to pop Gamuyan over and over and over again without the upgrade affecting them.
More spawns, or instant respawn, make crystals upgrade or shatter. I'm tired of all 3 Heroes zones being None in Area every single hour of the day. Seriously, last two days, I've checked on them every couple hours trying to get an uncontested time... nope.
Or change shield to some Megalugbard and outside VNM just kills. I'll take that over this colorless crap. Or here's an idea to increase cooperation. Make it 58 Maere or Ogopogo or Brulo kills. That way I can team up and enjoy Trials like I did doing them with random pickups (when people didn't /join and sleep...).

Ashael
08-13-2011, 02:43 AM
Tuesday 9:15 am CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area." X3
Tuesday 11:55 AM CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Tuesday 11:45 PM CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Wednesday 12:50 AM CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Wednesday 2:20 AM CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Wednesday 9:55 am CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Wednesday 12:05 pm CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Wednesday 2:15 pm CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Wednesday 3:30 pm CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Wednesday 4:05 pm CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Wednesday 5:25 pm CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Wednesday 6:55 pm CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Wednesday 8:45 pm CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Wednesday 10:05 pm CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Wednesday 11:45 pm CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Thursday 1:05 am CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Thursday 3:25 am CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Thursday 9:35 am CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Thursday 11:05 am CST. "There seem to be no monsters in area."
Today 12:14 pm CST. JP alliances camping all three T2 VNMs.
I am very tired of "There seem to be no monsters in area." And when I arrive at the monsters origin point, horde of inconsiderate jacknapes.

Thank you SE for merging servers and creating this clustercuss.
Thank you SE for creating 1 monster that respawns every 15 minutes, in a timed zone. I so missed doing nothing truly productive for 15 minutes just to not claim the monster I need, and wait another 15 minutes again.
Thank you SE for making sure there's no alternate method to gain a spawn for the actual monster that I need to complete my trial.
Thank you SE for making my decision so utterly easy.

For your kindness SE, let me offer you a nice Either/Or tree.
Either SE corrects VNMs in August, or I will not bother mucking around with Crysta.
Either SE corrects their stupidity with Click and Buy and returns a more sensible auto pay arrangement, or I will use this opportunity to quit this game and move on to more rewarding titles.
Thank you SE, I'm an addict and y'all might have performed the necessary intervention.

Lushipur
08-13-2011, 03:09 AM
even 150 vnm3 kill will be better than this.
at least you can do group kill.

Zhronne
08-13-2011, 03:18 AM
Suggestions
1. I would add 3 copies of the Tier 2 / 3 VNM to each abyssea Zone, in order to help with congestion.

2. I would change it so that if you get a Red !! on a VNM it will then 100% upgrade your abyssite to the next level.
It has been asked several times and if I recall someone (Bayohne? Camate?) replied that they don't want any of those, but that in an upcoming patch they would have increased the upgrade rate of T1>T2 and T2>T3 changes, but only inside of Abyssea.
This was said in june.
Yet nothing happened unless they ninja did it, but it's unlikely.

Wonder what happened, did SE change their mind again? Would be awesome if someone like Bay/Cam/Gild could ask and come back to us to hear what's their current official stance on the issue :)

(reducing the repop time would also be awesome as well, I don't remember if this was asked? Currently it's 15ish minutes if I recall, make it something like 5 or 7?)

Jeffil
08-15-2011, 02:29 PM
After going 2/2 on T3 upgrades two nights ago I thought perhaps they did ninja add this.

But then I went 0 for 9 today across a total of 4 hours.

Nope - rate still what it was.

Rearden
08-15-2011, 02:43 PM
The items obtained through the VNM system are near gamebreaking items and are unlike other Empyrean weapons in that with them you can increase your groups abilities tenfold.

The system sucks, but it is the "hard" stage of getting an Ochain or Dardaubla. The other two stages are piss easy and moaning about them is silly. (Yes, I see that SE has stated they are going to change the upgrade rate, which I myself raged about plenty of times. I still finished mine in 8 days...6 of those being souls)

Adding more VNMs will not fix anything, more people will be out camping the NMs because it will seem more obtainable. Changing the upgrade rate will make it easier, but it will not relieve any congestion because you still have to be the one to pop it for it to upgrade (which is the issue many people bring up in the first place)

The only issue that should be addressed is the drop rate on Brulo and Maere. This alone would alleviate most of the issues with obtaining Colorless Souls.

My vote is to keep the rest the same. They are awesome items and should require some work to obtain.

Leonlionheart
08-15-2011, 03:56 PM
They made the empyrean weapons about 75% easier with the "Additional KI in chests" update, did Itz today and got like 10 Tunga KI in the time it used to take to get 4. Not only does it relieve a lot of competition, but you can both camp and cleave at the same time. Why shouldn't the VNM variant have a similar update? It's really the only real grind left in the game, and even though it is possible with Ochain becoming more and more popular it's becoming more competitive and cut-throat than a 7th day Nidhogg pop.

Empyreans were quick in the first place, now it's like Hagun. If you don't have it you suck.

Zhronne
08-16-2011, 05:23 PM
First of all, Adding colorless souls to other zone T3 is not realistic, the gap in monster strength is to great.
[cut]
I agree it's unlikely, but the reason you put there is not particularly strong. Atm it's very true, but think about the future, and level 95 or 99. Will "the gap in monster strenght" really matter then? I don't think so, at least much less than now.


Second, In terms of creating additional T2 pops. (I'm assuming T3/Change rate is left alone) While this would help create less congestion in terms of competition for T3, excluding Visions/Scars T2, this would greatly increase the ability to obtain the +1 body pieces of select jobs.
The congestion issue is true, and it's probably the reason why they didn't implement that "increased upgrade rate" they talked about in early june.
Because, just like you said, increasing the speed at which you gain T3 pops would do almost nothing, if not creating more congestion with people competing to pop a T3.
I don't concur with your +1 statement though. Sure, adding 2-3 pops would make it slightly easier to get +1 body seals.
And? What? Would it really matter? With the amount of people who already have+1, with how easy it is to obtain +1 body seals anyway? I don't really think it would make much of a difference if you ask me.
If anything, they could make so only 2x T2 can pop, or reduce the pop time (currently it's like 10-15 mins, make it 5?).

I also don't agree on your following note concerning the increase of lv 80/85 nms doing nothing for low-end/soloers. I agree it surely increased the number of people attempting to go for empyreal, but it also overall made the experience less frustrating and easier to invite your friends to help you (since you could also offer them a nice present from the drops).
I think it's been an useful and aprecieated improvement for all of us, not just the high-end LSs.


The last of the potential fixes I would like to address is change to upgrade rate.
What sucks in the upgrade rate, more than its speed, is its randomness. You can't control it. Sometimes you want to keep fighting a T2 and you get an upgrade, sometimes you need an uprade and you go 1/27 kills on a T2.
Luckily you can use the "already have T3" trick, but it's still bad.
In all honesty though I don't think the upgrade rate needs an increase, I'd leave it as it is but instead reduce the pop time of both T2 and T3. Having to wait up to 15 mins in-between pops is a bit anachronistic nowadays, with the way the game works in all aspects. It would probably have been fine 3 years ago, but not today.

Zaknafein
08-17-2011, 01:05 AM
I hear all this "there's no way to use third party programs on VNM's anymore" crap. Or "you suck suck at claiming them" nonsense. If when these things pop they are claimed in the span of time it takes to rest twice (which they are 98% of the time) there is a problem.

Increasing the upgrade rate of abyssites will do nothing to help this already obnoxious problem. It will only increase the frequency with which the "monopolizers" can upgrade so they can continue to make their 3rd or 4th harp or shield. Or more likely continue to monopolize so they can charge people 500k an upgrade item. Either of those situations is idiotic.

I thought abysssea was supposed to fix this sort of issue where people monopolize targets to the detriment of other players? Especially in the case where it is being done simply to profit. There's no difference with this VNM crap, and Dragon's aery.

Either make multiple T2/T3 pops or sufficiently randomize their spawn points. IE: 5 different "new spawn" points. If new random spawn points are introduced, and people are still claiming them in 5 secs within the 1st week of the switch it will be pretty easy to see if they are violating the terms of service.

Rearden
08-17-2011, 01:08 AM
There is no way to 3rd party VNMs lol, claim better.

The only way to 3rd party VNMs at the moment is to request data from the server, which will get you banned shortly after. It's the same reason you can't autolocate any mob/??? (eg Kupo spawns) in a zone. The server only loads what's within 50' of you, after that you have to request it from the server and doing so will get you banned.

Zaknafein
08-17-2011, 01:26 AM
There is no way to 3rd party VNMs lol, claim better.

The only way to 3rd party VNMs at the moment is to request data from the server, which will get you banned shortly after. It's the same reason you can't autolocate any mob/??? (eg Kupo spawns) in a zone. The server only loads what's within 50' of you, after that you have to request it from the server and doing so will get you banned.

So for all of you cheater's out there who know exactly where the spawn points are for the T2/T3's because you used apradar b4 they "supposedly" nerfed it....knowing exactly where to stand when their timer up is somehow not benefiting from knowledge gained through previous use of third party programs?

Rearden
08-17-2011, 01:58 AM
You can figure that kind of thing out on your own, every spawn point has a specific path that mob will take. Knowing where that path will go is hardly cheating and takes some dedication, skill, and experience - all things that should be a requirement to getting anything as awesome as an Ochain or Dardaubla anyway.

Ramyrez
08-25-2011, 10:57 AM
This is something that seriously needs addressed. People who are talking about breezing through these in a matter of days apparently don't have to worry about work, family or any other responsibilities or they have their linkshells out converting for them. Even assuming you have 38 people with T3 pops ready to go (and insanely supposing you get 2 drops every mob!) you're looking at approximately 19 hours JUST to do the T3s. Forget the clear > colorful > T3 upgrade time and the fact upgrades aren't even close to 100%.

19 hours is about my available playtime in a given work week working a 40 hour job and taking care of your "standard" adult responsibilities. With another 12 or so hours on the weekends if I spend the majority of my free time on the weekends playing. And I don't even have kids and I don't have family that lives in the area to whom I have any responsibilities..

The bottom line is that this game is well past seven years old. Even if you assume people were 13 when they started playing this game they're getting to the age where they should be responsible adults playing in their free time. And if you expect people who are responsible adults to play your game, you've got to allow them the chance to access items without massive time sinks.

The advisory SE gives at the login screen about "be sure not to ingore your friends, family, work, etc." has become a giant joke. Dedicating nearly as much time to this game as you do to your job in a week should be MORE than enough to complete these things in a reasonable timeframe.

As it is, tonight alone between competition and poor convert rates my group has spent three and a half hours without a single T2 > T3 convert. And for the past hour that's been with zero competition and killing the mob mad fast.

In the same time frame we could have done 6+ of ANY other 85 Empyrean mob. Minimum. Probably like 15 Cirein-Croins or Ulhuadshis. And those are conservative estimates. The mobs themselves are a joke to kill with 2-3 decent players, short of random mishaps.

Bottlenecking people based on ability to claim vs. ability to actually defeat the mobs and do the true work is rubbish. You're not a better or more dedicated player for being finished in a very short time frame. You're lucky, have more time or more people willing to do things for you.

Edit: appologies, I finished this without a conclusion. That conclusion being thus:

Increase VNM spawn rate, increase the number of mobs that drop colorless souls or, if you think these are too "easy", add some other, more challenging way to obtain them that focuses on a group's ability to obtain pop items and defeat the mob.

Do not leave it up to competition and dumb luck. The developers saw the error of their ways (finally) getting rid of all the old 24 hour king-pop HNMs. Now they need to get rid of this step backward they've made with these VNM claiming nonsense.

Ramyrez
08-25-2011, 11:30 AM
Also, unrelated, but why is it showing beastmaster as my main job? I haven't been on beastmaster in like three months.

Rearden
08-25-2011, 12:26 PM
Maybe Ochain isn't your thing?

blowfin
08-25-2011, 12:35 PM
Maybe Ochain isn't your thing?

It's beside the point what your interest in the VNM's is. I've only needed +2 items from them and I know exactly where they spawn without ever using a 3rd party App. Some effort is required, that's all. It's never *exactly* the same spot, but it's always in the same general area. Then they tend to roam to a fixed area too. What's really going to help you once you figure it out is having some movement speed gear and a good feel for distance.

Oh, and that's not all addressed at you.

Ramyrez
08-25-2011, 12:49 PM
Some effort is required, that's all. It's never *exactly* the same spot, but it's always in the same general area. Then they tend to roam to a fixed area too. What's really going to help you once you figure it out is having some movement speed gear and a good feel for distance.

The problem coming when you've got 5-20 more people putting forth just as much effort with all the same knowledge and movement speed.

blowfin
08-25-2011, 01:00 PM
The problem coming when you've got 5-20 more people putting forth just as much effort with all the same knowledge and movement speed.

I don't disagree that it's a major point of congestion, I put off T2 VNM hunting for a long time because it was such a pain. I'm actually still missing an item of BST +2, not that I've been playing much recently mind you. I've posted in several threads suggesting we need more T2 and/or T3 pops.

Just trying to offer some pointers. Widescan can help a lot too if you don't get claim, you can work back towards the spawn area eventually.

Oh and the profile thing with the jobs is backwards. Job on the far right in your preferences will show up I think.

Zaknafein
08-25-2011, 01:14 PM
Yeah you know what else helps too? Speed hacks.

For everyone of you super cool "I found where they spawn on my own w/o 3rd party programs" types there are 15 who found the location b4 this supposed fix thru the use of cheats. That is the problem here.

The spawn points need to be randomized again (if they have truly fixed the ability to track them). Then everyone will start on a level playing field. Aside from the speedhacking crap.

I thought the days of providing a sweet place for cheaters to cheat it up ended when they nerfed HNM with abyssea. However this is every bit as annoying as DA ever was imo.

Camate
09-09-2011, 09:35 AM
Howdy!

Though we won't be able to make it in time for the upcoming version update, we have decided to increase the rate in which the Clear Demilune Abyssite changes into a Colored Demilune Abyssite. This will be reflected on the test server a little after the version update takes place.

Vagrua
09-09-2011, 10:19 AM
Howdy!

Though we won't be able to make it in time for the upcoming version update, we have decided to increase the rate in which the Clear Demilune Abyssite changes into a Colored Demilune Abyssite. This will be reflected on the test server a little after the version update takes place.

The real trouble is Tier II > Tier III change. Making Tier IIs easier to get will only cause more people to be camping the Tier II NMs making emp harp/shield trials MUCH harder with even more competition.

Airget
09-09-2011, 10:22 AM
That's still not enough to help with the situation. You keep forgetting that with the last abyssea updated you turned one mob into three yet the VNM still remain 1 mob with at least a 15-30 min waiting in between killing each one.

So while in that same time frame you can kill a boss NM 3-5 times you'll be lucky if you can kill a top tier VNM 2 times. Even though you say "well it's easier cause you only need one item" you forget that in another update you allowed the KI needed for nearly every empyrean base mob to be dropped in gold chest cutting down the time to get those pops. Plus it made it even easier for groups of people to store the KI.

Meanwhile with the VNM you basically have to wait 15 mins between each one to get a pop item if it drops so while let's say you get a KI for one person every 30-hr for the other ??? NMs you can prolly get their whole set for 3 people in that same 30-hr time frame.

xbobx
09-09-2011, 10:24 AM
I don't think you guys get it. You do realize vnms drop seals right? You do realize that poeple farm those seals and don't want it to change colour right? You do realize the simple solution is to force a way to change colour right? Like a trigger?

How about adding more possible vnm pops, one pop every 15 mins is unacceptable just like one ??? on the emp. weapon nms unacceptable. how about you fix those issues, the right way, not in the easiest laziest way.

and what you mean not in time, I bet all you have to do is change a value in the string, take you a minute to do, is that too hard?

Vagrua
09-09-2011, 10:46 AM
I don't think you guys get it. You do realize vnms drop seals right? You do realize that poeple farm those seals and don't want it to change colour right? You do realize the simple solution is to force a way to change colour right? Like a trigger?

How about adding more possible vnm pops, one pop every 15 mins is unacceptable just like one ??? on the emp. weapon nms unacceptable. how about you fix those issues, the right way, not in the easiest laziest way.


I get that VNMIIs drop seals, but imagine 4-5 emp soloers along with 1-3 seal parties camping one VNMII. That's how bad it will be once they make this change. The t1>t2 was to make it to where t2s wouldn't be overcamped imo.

I do agree that the simple solution is adding multiple T2s/T3s in the zones as they did with Glavoid and such.

Elexia
09-09-2011, 10:56 AM
I get that VNMIIs drop seals, but imagine 4-5 emp soloers along with 1-3 seal parties camping one VNMII. That's how bad it will be once they make this change. The t1>t2 was to make it to where t2s wouldn't be overcamped imo.

I do agree that the simple solution is adding multiple T2s/T3s in the zones as they did with Glavoid and such.

Honestly, it's the soloer's who are making matters worse. The "overcrowding" comes from soloers trying to compete with groups, not the other way around.

Vold
09-09-2011, 11:31 AM
Meh, T1 change rates are acceptable I guess, and T2 for that matter. The problem I see is there only being one VNM T2 and 3... that's supposed to feed a server of 50,000ish characters. And sure, these things aren't camped 24/7. But what matters here is prime time hours and a VNM3 is probably lucky to run around for a hour or so before it's murdered by cold blooded adventurers. A VNM3 in heroes areas probably doesn't have longer than 5 min and is often nabbed the moment it spawns. VNM2s in scars and heroes areas, all day long, might as well be on the endangered species list.

The deal here is that while there may be pop items you need to do other NMs and there's tiers of that and all, fighting those things are often as simple as buying items from the AH and hitting red proc. I mean I get what SE's stance on this is and I'm sure the maths add up, but reality is reality. I can go buy pop items for Amarok at any given time to get KI for Orthrus pop. I cannot say the same thing for VNMs. Competition possibilities aside, I'm forced to wait for color changes and 15m-1h respawns of T2/3. I wait how long between Amarok/Orthrus? Like 1 minute? So to kill 1 Orthrus and 1 whateverVNM3, it's like 15 minutes vs 3 hours. That's where I stand when I suggest VNMs need improving. Math and balance be damned.


Honestly, it's the soloer's who are making matters worse. The "overcrowding" comes from soloers trying to compete with groups, not the other way around.Are you trying to say soloers are in the wrong here or something? Does it have to matter? Do you feel a group has a right over 1 person to camp something? Come on, now. I thought we got past that mentality once ToAU came around and people stopped fighting BSTs over CP camps. I guess maybe Abyssea hasn't done much to kill the idea and soloers aren't helping either by refusing offered help by groups so they don't have to wait around but still. Let's not turn our cause into finger pointing at each other about who's fault congestion is.

AldielQuetz
09-09-2011, 11:35 AM
We need a real solution, not just another bottleneck. Adding more cars to the freeway never helps traffic, you gotta build more lanes!

Help us out Camate!

Jeffil
09-09-2011, 11:50 AM
My huge issues are the rate which T2 changes to T3 and the respawn time of the T2. Currently I sit 0 for 7 on my current T2 abyssite on Chione. Ok fine I have dumb luck, but remember i'm waiting 10-15 minutes to try again to convert to T3. That means I have spent minimum 1 hour 10 minutes (of course longer since she doesn't always pop 10 min after and of course it actually takes a little time to kill her) on this. In that time I could've easily gotten another emp item x10 or more.

Either reduce the repop time of the T2 VNM or increase the rate which T2 changes to T3. To answer the previous poster's question about seal farming on vnm - if you don't want it to change, just hold onto the T3 for that zone and get another T2. Then it won't change!

Ophannus
09-09-2011, 11:53 AM
SHould have been Colored>Tier 3 not Clear>Colored. Clear is a 5min repop Tier2 is a 15min repop. This also makes hunting Tier1s for Pearl more annoying.

Alhanelem
09-09-2011, 12:07 PM
We need a real solution, not just another bottleneck. Adding more cars to the freeway never helps traffic, you gotta build more lanes!

Help us out Camate!
They're not adding cars to the freeway. They're making the cars go faster.

Xellith
09-09-2011, 12:25 PM
Add the colorless soul drops so that every Mega Boss in abyssea can drop 1 and only one. And ONLY if you get red yellow or blue... knowing SE they will make it so its red yellow AND blue.. but I digress..

There you go. Congestion relieved - more accessible - still a pain in the ass.

Leonlionheart
09-09-2011, 12:36 PM
Why is it so hard to understand the problem?

Colorless souls go for 300~500k a piece. Not the T3 pop. Each Colorless Soul. 22,500,000~37,500,000 gil per Ochain. You're looking at ANOTHER 18,750,000 for Daurdabla simply in Dhorme Khimaira pop items. Not to mention Ironclad pops go from 50k total to 200k total. In gil, these are worth up to 80mil.

Why are Colorless souls going for such high prices? Because its near impossible to farm them because of "congestion."

Empyrean weapons are supposed to be the cheap route, and they are still much cheaper even if you completely buy it at top price, but it's next to impossible to camp these without third party programs because there are dozens of Daurdablas in production, even more Ochains, and even more still people that simply want seals.

It's highly impractical to go out and farm these as a LS in peak times because of this congestion.

This new update is nice- but it's DEFINITELY not what VNM needs.

Leonlionheart
09-09-2011, 12:38 PM
They're not adding cars to the freeway. They're making the cars go faster.

They are effectively doing both. More T2's in circulation means more people farming T3 pops.

Sure you can get up and go faster, but you're gonna run out of fuel fast.

Mightyg
09-09-2011, 12:43 PM
Speeding up the process will help everyone. The people that are complaining are upset that they may see more people actually going for the items these drops are needed for. The sooner you can get your Tier II the more often you can fight the nm and get what you need and get done so others can do the same. There should be more nms in the heroes area though. Frankly there should be multiple nms for every empryean weapon/shield required item.

zagam
09-09-2011, 12:44 PM
Still a lot cheaper then aegis. If people don't like competition or actually having to work for something then do the numerous other easy mode things in this game. Good job SE for not bowing to the QQ on these forums and lets hope heavy plates separates the wheat even further.

Leonlionheart
09-09-2011, 12:49 PM
As if making an Aegis is "hard mode." it's just redundant mindless borefest mode. And at least you can COMPLETELY solo it up until trials. Hell, you can even make it in 10 minutes if you have the gil.

I'd say it's twice as hard to make an Ochain than it is Aegis. Time spent =/= difficulty, never has, never will.

Edit: Does it mean dedication? Hell yes. Congrats on getting a relic/mythic.

zagam
09-09-2011, 12:59 PM
As if making an Aegis is "hard mode." it's just redundant mindless borefest mode. And at least you can COMPLETELY solo it up until trials. Hell, you can even make it in 10 minutes if you have the gil.

I'd say it's twice as hard to make an Ochain than it is Aegis. Time spent =/= difficulty, never has, never will.

Edit: Does it mean dedication? Hell yes. Congrats on getting a relic/mythic.
Actually ive done both and aegis is miles apart from ochain in terms of difficulty. If anyone actually thinks killing a few vnms is difficult then just stop now and ease the congestion. the only issue is so many wannabe ex purple plds feel owed an ochain and give up after a few weeks cause its to hard.

Sparthos
09-09-2011, 01:31 PM
What needed to be addressed was the droprates on double souls.

As it stands, Ogopogo drops doubles more than Maere or Brulo. The rates are not even. Why is this?

Rearden
09-09-2011, 01:40 PM
What needed to be addressed was the droprates on double souls.

As it stands, Ogopogo drops doubles more than Maere or Brulo. The rates are not even. Why is this?

This. Adding more VNMs, upgrade rate being higher, whatever is all irrelevant because they don't actually fix any problems. (Not that I think there are any, aside from this)

The congestion would be a lot less if it were more feasible to farm in a zone aside from Ulegerand Range.

Here is some data we compiled from a few posters at BG.

The numbers are as follows: left side (x/??) identifies double drops, right side (?/yy) identifies number of kills.
Brulo
7/38

Ogopogo
104/134

Maere
3/23

Original topic here: http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/90728-Final-Form-Magian-Weapons?p=4764822&viewfull=1#post4764822

This drop rate for Brulo/Maere is similar to Dragua and Ironclads prior to the "fix" that occurred months ago. As it stands, Ogopogo is the only T3 with a normal drop rate.


Edit: For the record I don't think you deserve shit as far as Ochain/Dardaubla goes unless you want to put work in within this system that exists - they are awesome items. I just think the drop rate needs to change because one mob worth farming is silly.

Alhanelem
09-09-2011, 01:57 PM
22,500,000~37,500,000 gil per Ochain.So? doesn't a Aegis cost like 4 times more despite inference by the community that said aegis is inferior?

Leonlionheart
09-09-2011, 02:29 PM
So? doesn't a Aegis cost like 4 times more despite inference by the community that said aegis is inferior?

Yeah, but the issue is it's not a relic.

Either make emps harder, or make colorless souls easier.

Juilan
09-09-2011, 02:32 PM
Howdy!

Though we won't be able to make it in time for the upcoming version update, we have decided to increase the rate in which the Clear Demilune Abyssite changes into a Colored Demilune Abyssite. This will be reflected on the test server a little after the version update takes place.

didn't see anyone ask this but, could this be a small patch? and also lower the repop rate on the T2s? As for the drop rate, I think it'd only go to lower frustration if the rate was higher since its a 75 colorless soul trial. From experience unless you have a team of alts its just very time consuming to do these/kill the T3s to begin with. and for the three posters that say "shut up and don't ask for the game to be easy", i'm not the first and third trial is relative painless, the souls on the other hand the challenge to obtain them is much higher... if you say buy it front me the gil

Darkvalkyr
09-09-2011, 02:35 PM
People seem to not understand that getting T1->T2 isn't the hard part, it's T2->T3. Most people are stuck on this step.

Rearden
09-09-2011, 02:37 PM
Every other trial has a hard stage as well, by comparison aside from VNMs Ochain is the easiest trials of all. Dardaubla sucks because it has Apadamak after, but that's just costly, not really difficult.

Well, except for Carabosse path.

It would take you longer to 2-3box an Ukon/Twashtar/Farsha/Gandiva than it would an Ochain.

Leonlionheart
09-09-2011, 02:41 PM
Every other trial has a hard stage as well, by comparison aside from VNMs Ochain is the easiest trials of all. Dardaubla sucks because it has Apadamak after, but that's just costly, not really difficult.

Well, except for Carabosse path.

It would take you longer to 2-3box an Ukon/Twashtar/Farsha/Gandiva than it would an Ochain.

Maybe Lakshmi doesn't have competition issues, but here on Asura, it's basically a warzone everywhere. I don't mind, except when it comes to VNMs. 3~5 shells camping them at primetime makes it near impossible to get a T3 in 2~5 hours.

Crocker
09-09-2011, 02:57 PM
Same problem 24/7 the T2 is never up and when it is its for like 5 secs someone runs straight to it and pops 1st /heal.

As it stands right now we can put a T2 pop on 18 people before we can make a T3, we need more ways to get the souls plain and simple.

How about adding them to T3 & T4 VNMs outside of abyssea those are still rough even at level 90.
By adding them to outside abyssea areas the T2-T3 VNMs respawn needs to be set to 10-15 mins.

Leonlionheart
09-09-2011, 02:59 PM
This isn't even a Ochain/Daurdabla problem on Asura. Ketea (NIN AF3+2, BLM AF3+2 feet VNM) is also never up for more than 20 seconds. It's next to impossible to get Cards of Voyage without farming them in La Theine or spending a very large portion of your time soloing Ketea.

Xellith
09-09-2011, 03:04 PM
Add T3 pop key items to gold boxes? :O

Nynja
09-09-2011, 03:08 PM
wow....just wow...

Vortex
09-09-2011, 03:25 PM
So really just add more tiers 2s to a zone and separate them, because it is pretty annoying also to have 15 people camping it's spawn point.

Alpheus
09-09-2011, 03:45 PM
I can also attest that it is a war-zone as Leon said. Oddly enough when i helped an lsmate with Ketea or when i helped a random person with their last soul for their Ochain (popped Brulo) naturally there was no comp whatsoever but that probably has more to do with my bad luck when its my endeavor lol.

Kari
09-09-2011, 03:47 PM
Howdy!

Though we won't be able to make it in time for the upcoming version update, we have decided to increase the rate in which the Clear Demilune Abyssite changes into a Colored Demilune Abyssite. This will be reflected on the test server a little after the version update takes place.

This is bad.
It's not going to help people farming VNMs for Colorless souls or what-have-you.
If anything, it'll hurt those that farm VNMs for easy Pearlescent Lights.

IMO, make 5 T2s, 3 T3s, and increase the rate of T2 > T3 upgrades. [Maybe make Red proc affect upgrades?]
You made 3 ???s for most of the popular NMs, this isn't even close to as helpful but still better than current.

Having T1s upgrade to T2s easier will only make that person who's farming a T2 pop get to the competition zone easier. >_>

Rearden
09-09-2011, 04:49 PM
It's not up very often on Lakshmi during primetime either.

Do you think adding more T2 will solve the problem? That will make it more accessible yes, so more people will do it, and those (4-5 linkshells) that are camping it will each camp their own, so it's not like you're going to get a better chance at the upgrade. But wait, now it's easier to upgrade and there's more spawns, you've just attracted the DNC/NINs and PLD/DNCs to come out and solo theirs.

If Brulo/Maere weren't a waste of time, you'd see a more even split among the zones and while yes, there would still be competition, it wouldn't be as bad. Not to mention, while I think Maere is easier than Ogo, Gamayun most definitely is not. Brulo is harder than all of them so if they dropped a 'normal' amount of souls, then you wouldn't have as many issues because garbage players won't be out at the other two due to the difficulty leaving them to do lolChione and the other zones open to people who don't suck.

Kari
09-09-2011, 05:21 PM
Do you think adding more T2 will solve the problem? That will make it more accessible yes, so more people will do it, and those (4-5 linkshells) that are camping it will each camp their own, so it's not like you're going to get a better chance at the upgrade. But wait, now it's easier to upgrade and there's more spawns, you've just attracted the DNC/NINs and PLD/DNCs to come out and solo theirs.

It may not SOLVE the problem -- but it'd make it better than current, and is a hell of a lot better than upping the T1 upgrade rate.

Monchat
09-09-2011, 05:23 PM
I started farming relic and daurdabla together with a party of 6. 4 month later 1 have one Gjallarhorn, 2 stage 4 spharai. But, 50 Iron clad plates and ...5 colorless souls [ yah IR can be overcamped too... but it might be just my luck]. Fix that. Why is Gjallarhorn twice easier to get than daurdabla lol. I think they should increase the Tier II strength to begin with, make it on par with other body seal NMs strength. This way less seal hunter would be tempted to farm T2s instead of regular pop NM. I mean the difference in strength between a body seal Nm and T2 is night and day. T2 are jokes.

Zhronne
09-09-2011, 05:33 PM
I still don't get why they can't either increase the number of T2 and T3 pops (two of each?) or reduce the repop time (5 minutes?).
Both of those would help a long way toward addressing the congestion issues.


Also there's another thing I've never seen SE people comment on, and that they could make in time for next patch.
Currently the congestion issue is particularly present in Abyssea Uleguerrand because the T3 VNM there has a much higher drop rate on double Colorless Souls compared to the T3 VNMs of the other two zones.
That's why the majority of people just camp VNM in Uleg instead of Grau and Altep.

Suirieko
09-09-2011, 06:04 PM
Honestly, it's the soloer's who are making matters worse. The "overcrowding" comes from soloers trying to compete with groups, not the other way around.

This. You already have an idea how much I get pissed off when a random joe Ninja soloer or Bob the Beastmen soloer comes out of nowhere and ninja pops an NM while working on empyrean NM, or just for the sake of seals. Sure, it's all fair and all blah blah blah, but it's incredibly rude and annoying. It's like this. "Hey, I see 10 people getting ready to pop Grandgosier, I'll just go ahead and pop it anyway lol."

This is even worst when it comes to VNM given that even tier 2 VNM have 10 minutes repops and SOME can solo some tier 3 VNMs. It's really, really annoying.

When it comes to making tier II VNM easier to get, while it's a nice change and all, the only thing I think about, in that case is. "Uh, not sure if want" because many people said it perfectly, it is only going to make matters worse.

No, I'm not saying make it so people CAN't solo, but I am saying, get rid of the bottlenecking issue that comes with VNM, especially in the case of Empyrean harp and shield.

Monchat
09-09-2011, 06:06 PM
really? Ullegerand and ALtepa T2 are just legends for me. Ive never succeded poping them.They are literally popthe second the srver loads them.

Suirieko
09-09-2011, 06:08 PM
I still don't get why they can't either increase the number of T2 and T3 pops (two of each?) or reduce the repop time (5 minutes?).
Both of those would help a long way toward addressing the congestion issues.


Also there's another thing I've never seen SE people comment on, and that they could make in time for next patch.
Currently the congestion issue is particularly present in Abyssea Uleguerrand because the T3 VNM there has a much higher drop rate on double Colorless Souls compared to the T3 VNMs of the other two zones.
That's why the majority of people just camp VNM in Uleg instead of Grau and Altep.

Not to mention that Tier 3 VNM is also MUCH easier to do as well. Hell, Level 95, may just make it soloable.

Arcon
09-09-2011, 06:36 PM
Though we won't be able to make it in time for the upcoming version update [..]

Aside from this update being useless, this excuse strikes me as pretty odd. It's adjusting the "drop" rate. It's adjusting a number, isn't it? I can't imagine that taking too long. I don't believe that it requires extensive testing and complex calculations before you can update it. Or is that why things take so unnecessarily long to adjust?

Juilan
09-09-2011, 06:57 PM
This is bad.
It's not going to help people farming VNMs for Colorless souls or what-have-you.
If anything, it'll hurt those that farm VNMs for easy Pearlescent Lights.

IMO, make 5 T2s, 3 T3s, and increase the rate of T2 > T3 upgrades. [Maybe make Red proc affect upgrades?]
You made 3 ???s for most of the popular NMs, this isn't even close to as helpful but still better than current.

Having T1s upgrade to T2s easier will only make that person who's farming a T2 pop get to the competition zone easier. >_>

Red = upgrade or higher upgrade would be a god send. As for the multiple pops, how long have we been asking for them to increase the spawns for the monsters that you need KIs from to pop the empyrean trial dropping NMs? I can't count how many times I've had to wait 40min because a JP shell or a large NM shell had to pop 18~ NMs in latheine, that doesn't add challenge, it adds rage. The sheer cut throat nature of the empyrean NMs is mind boggling especially during prime times for time spawn NMs... I think they should come up with an alternitive way of going about getting the empyrean upgrade items in general... maybe high kidred crest BCs? lol

Zhronne
09-09-2011, 07:05 PM
Aside from this update being useless, this excuse strikes me as pretty odd. It's adjusting the "drop" rate. It's adjusting a number, isn't it? I can't imagine that taking too long. I don't believe that it requires extensive testing and complex calculations before you can update it. Or is that why things take so unnecessarily long to adjust?
That's obviously not the reason. The reason is that they're probably not 100% sure yet, they want to "monitor" several things and probably do other adjustements as well, which haven't been mentioned by Camate.
One thing they want to "monitor" for sure is our reaction to Camate's announcement :)

That's why they "won't be able to make it in time for next update", not because it requires time to change that variable.

noodles355
09-09-2011, 08:00 PM
Howdy!

Though we won't be able to make it in time for the upcoming version update, we have decided to increase the rate in which the Clear Demilune Abyssite changes into a Colored Demilune Abyssite. This will be reflected on the test server a little after the version update takes place.The bottle neck is with T2, not T1. T1 are easier to upgrade because there are many instances of the NM in each area and any NM from any area can be used to upgrade. The problem is T2 where there is only ONE NM to upgrade to a perticular T3 abyssite, and that ONE NM only has ONE instance and a 15 minute repop time.

Edit: What about OUTSIDE Abyssea VNMs? The clear>colour change on them is equally terrible.

Zhronne
09-09-2011, 08:03 PM
Edit: What about OUTSIDE Abyssea VNMs? The clear>colour change on them is equally terrible.
They already said in the past that they're fine with the upgrade rate of outside VNMs. They were only concerned about the inside upgrade rate because inside of Abyssea you are under time restraints, which is not the case when you're outside.

noodles355
09-09-2011, 08:12 PM
Oh, the same reason they didn't give keys or let you peek inside treasure hunts, because there's no time limit. They're fine with people getting unlucky and spending hours upon hours to upgrade to a T2 abyssite just for it to change to T3 on the first pop of their Empyrean VNM trial upgrade and have to go and spend another god-knows-how long farming another. Good to know they think that's ok, especially concidering the notice when you start FFXI that basically says "dont overplay".

Zhronne
09-09-2011, 08:23 PM
Yes it's the same reason. Which honestly doesn't really make much sense to me. I have like... 400+ Aby stones nowadays? But maybe I'm in the minority and the majority still have issues with Aby stones?

Aver
09-09-2011, 08:38 PM
SE should add more spawns in general, every NM should have a minium of 3 pops... so we can get in and get out, I hate guku aery!

This. So glad I'm past that crap now.

Just add more spawns, the new content smell is gone.

Nyanoh
09-09-2011, 08:39 PM
This. You already have an idea how much I get pissed off when a random joe Ninja soloer or Bob the Beastmen soloer comes out of nowhere and ninja pops an NM while working on empyrean NM, or just for the sake of seals. Sure, it's all fair and all blah blah blah, but it's incredibly rude and annoying. It's like this. "Hey, I see 10 people getting ready to pop Grandgosier, I'll just go ahead and pop it anyway lol."

This is even worst when it comes to VNM given that even tier 2 VNM have 10 minutes repops and SOME can solo some tier 3 VNMs. It's really, really annoying.

When it comes to making tier II VNM easier to get, while it's a nice change and all, the only thing I think about, in that case is. "Uh, not sure if want" because many people said it perfectly, it is only going to make matters worse.

No, I'm not saying make it so people CAN't solo, but I am saying, get rid of the bottlenecking issue that comes with VNM, especially in the case of Empyrean harp and shield.

Would help if soloers were more considerate also. When I'm out on DNC soloing for seals or KIs, if I grab a mob and then see a group or even another soloer watching me, I'll go ahead and ask them what they need. As long as they are ok that I get what I popped/claimed the mob for, I don't mind sharing with them. Especially since it can help get more procs a lot of times. And then most times gets them to help me in return by offering that seal/jewel/etc they didn't need on things they pop.

Arcon
09-09-2011, 08:59 PM
Edit: What about OUTSIDE Abyssea VNMs? The clear>colour change on them is equally terrible.

While technically that's true, there's 2 pops per zone, and 4 zones to pop them in. Not to mention, not nearly as many people are chasing them for upgrades as Abyssea VNMs. I've never had trouble upgrading outside of Abyssea, even if the upgrade rate per abyssite was equally horrible as inside.

Rearden
09-09-2011, 09:21 PM
When VNMs were fresh it was just the same if not worse due to a myriad of reason essentially coming down to absolutely horrid game design. I think I went 0/17 once on T3 without shadows - back then, that was a large amount of time. 2-3 hours for a T2, 2-3 hours for a T3 -> hope a T3 is up. And...that's with no one else camping, which was rare back then.

Now, if that content was in any way relevant you'd actually see complaints about it still as there were back in the day (on other forums). As it is, it's another failed event and sadly, it's actually something I look forward to when compared against doing NM trials :/

Zagen
09-10-2011, 12:54 AM
Heh crazy idea make the T3 Pop item Gold Box farmable >.> makes it easier for those who are after seals and gives those who want T3 for drops easier way to get color change per se.

Honestly I'd be happy with instant respawns or multiple NMs for T2/T3 as that would be enough of a fix to keep me wanting to farm them for seals/color change but hey the first idea gets rid of the "I want color change" competition for the most part.

Zhronne
09-10-2011, 01:00 AM
Currently the congestion issue is particularly present in Abyssea Uleguerrand because the T3 VNM there has a much higher drop rate on double Colorless Souls compared to the T3 VNMs of the other two zones.
That's why the majority of people just camp VNM in Uleg instead of Grau and Altep.
Sorry to bump my post but I find it strange nobody is commenting this.

For those of you who still do not know, the 2 T3 VNMs of Grauberg (Maere) and Altep (Brulo) have a MUCH LOWER drop rate of TWO Colorless Souls Compared to the Uleg one (Oogopogo). We're not talking about a 2% difference, we're talking about less than half of the times.
There's lot of data/proof around on Allakhazam, FFXIAH and BG if you wanna dig.
It's not just a coincidence that the majority of people are farming souls in Uleg...
SE should at least comment if this is working as intended or if it's a mistake they didn't notice.

Zagen
09-10-2011, 01:36 AM
Sorry to bump my post but I find it strange nobody is commenting this.

For those of you who still do not know, the 2 T3 VNMs of Grauberg (Maere) and Altep (Brulo) have a MUCH LOWER drop rate of TWO Colorless Souls Compared to the Uleg one (Oogopogo). We're not talking about a 2% difference, we're talking about less than half of the times.
There's lot of data/proof around on Allakhazam, FFXIAH and BG if you wanna dig.
It's not just a coincidence that the majority of people are farming souls in Uleg...
SE should at least comment if this is working as intended or if it's a mistake they didn't notice.
Probably because it has been discussed before and it this isn't a region exclusive issue its just worse in Ule. On my server during peek times and sometimes even in between peek times Ule is so over capped for color changing you're competing with a lot of people, so much so even altep gets crowded as well, Grau only seems to be crowded by seal farmers, so color changing with them is easier but sometimes even that gets crowded. In the end all zones get crowded by people going after 1 NM just like how Guku and the other KI NMs for Emps were before the gold box change the only difference is you can't bot VNMs anymore

Easykiller
09-10-2011, 01:46 AM
I'd be happy if they added 3 pops to all seal NMs, It really blows when you have to wait 15 minutes for a thf to solo a mob that the 6 people in your party can stagger and kill in 1.

Elexia
09-10-2011, 02:06 AM
I personally say just drop the VNM system or add an alternate way. This isn't a 'challenge' in any sort of the term other than a challenge to pop it.

"Yeah we finally get to pop it..!

2 minutes later

Okay it's dead, now to rebuild our pop and try to pop it again with 7 soloers and 4 groups here!"

VNM system is another way to pop things sure, but what was wrong with ??? spawning? I honestly think there's a disconnect somewhere in SE when it comes to these kind of weapons, like how Mythics were supposed to be the casual approach compared to Relics yet it takes 100x more work, and I'm pretty sure the 95 weapon path will require VWNM Round 2 items enmass that comes to randomly in a chest...it's a mess of a system in the end.

Hell even the VNM outside of abyssea is still pretty badly setup, especially given it seems like Tier I > II can be horrendous or very easy, yet Tier II > III can be almost instant when you're progressing trials and most people these days only care for TII pops. Hell you could even make colorless souls bastion buyable, or trophy items or something that we have almost no use for.

Kazaki
09-10-2011, 03:11 AM
Multiple of each VNM no matter what the tier would cause less frustration and more fun gameplay. T1 > T2 changing easier is a good addition too.

I also agree with everything the OP said.

Creelo
09-10-2011, 04:00 AM
Honestly, I skipped over much of the thread, but really want to post about it. @_@

The VNM system for Daurdabla/Ochain is HORRIBLE. I never want to have to look at another colorless soul again in my life! >.<

I'm sure it's been said before, but to reiterate SE should add...
-More T2 spawns in the Heroes zones.
-Make Red Proc guarantee a change to T3 pop, or at least greatly increase the chance of it. This would help seal farmers out too since they probably don't want to give up their T2 pop for a T3 they have no use for.
-Fix Brulo/Maere's drops. They HAVE to be borked atm because the chance for them to drop 2 Souls is just so low compared to Ogopogo, especially when there tends to be a decent chance at getting 2 Emp. Weapon drops off of other NMs like Apademak/Dragua/etc.

I'm just happy I finished Souls long ago before competition truly started to ramp up. To those who are just starting to work on them... Good Luck. <.<

As a side note, I HATE the VNM system in general. -_- Random as hell pathing on T1 VNMs can kiss my ass.

Ashael
09-10-2011, 04:30 AM
T2 should be instant respawn, T3 should be instant respawn. T2 should break if you have a T3. 100% upgrade T2 to T3. Increase X2 drop rate to be equivalent to other NMs when affected by TH. Seriously. My friends' average 29-31 kills per 50 count items. For Plates I killed Giants 45 times. I had five total double drop. So far I've seen 2 double drops on Colorless Souls. Let's remove these clustercuss lame excuse bottlenecks and allow people to get thru with these trials. The fights are a joke, this is just pure tedium and stupidity.
I work a lot, so for the month of August. I got 10 souls. Woohoo.
Shiva = all 3 Heroes zone T3s are camped. That means that there's rarely times I can pop my colorfuls and try to upgrade them.
This isn't about not wanting to work for an item, or wanting to log in and be granted the item magically. This is, I want to make progress towards my goals daily. Going 1/32 to upgrade from T1 > T2 sucks, but it is no where near as mind numbingly depressing as going 1/14 to upgrade T2 > T3. Especially when I have to fight 20 other people to get a bloody pop.
Alternate methods for attainment would be nice. I hate stupid, idiotic (insert curse words here), luck based bull pucky that forces you to redo content over and over and over and over again for a low percentage chance at your goal. That's not working towards an item, that's being a lemming minded simpleton. Some of this crap needs points system. What's wrong with Ichor, or Assault point style systems for this crap?
At this rate I'll finish Ochain in another 4 months. Woohoo. FUSE.

Camate
09-10-2011, 04:36 AM
The development team is in fact aware there is a difference in drop rates between the Abyssea zones for Colorless Souls. They will be making fixes in the upcoming version update to make the drop rates in each zone equal.

xbobx
09-10-2011, 05:00 AM
Equally bad lol

Airget
09-10-2011, 05:44 AM
if you have 3 linkshells going after Amhuluk you have the following options to arrive at that NM.

Jagged Apkallu Beak:
-Funereal Apkallu pop NM
-Gold chest
Clipped Bird Wing:
-Manohra pop NM
-Gold chest
Bloodied Bat Fur:
-Asanbosam 15 min respawn
-Gold Chest

VNMS in any area:
-tier 1 with instant respawn
-tier 2 with 15+ min respawn
-tier 3 with 15+ min respawn

---

Difference between the two
Amhuluk's KI requirements can be red proced for 100% drop rate allowing for possibly 30 minutes to obtain 1 pop set for a person

VNM's on the otherhand are an intense time sink not to mention competition between others. While 3 linkshells may go up against one another with the 3 NMs for Amhuluk, you are at least guaranteed the drop since a ls most likely has the red proc, so even though you may end up waitign 30 minutes to get the Bloodied Bat Fur you can still fall back on farming gold chest in hopes that it drops. Heck if a ls is buys fighting the 15 min respawn NM you can move to a pop NM and take care of that part of the pop requirements while waiting for the NM to reappear or farm gold chest.

Meanwhile if you have 3 ls going after a VNM it's pretty much, race to see who gets it first, have no guarantee that you'll get the KI, then have all 3 LS compete again cause the KI didn't upgrade. Now please explain how this is balanced you keep failing to realize that there is a complete bottleneck when it comes down to VNMs where it would be less congested just like everything else if you were to just add 2 more to the system. I don't understand how you can say it's balanced when you can clearly tell it isn't.

Basically how can you call the following balanced:
3 ??? to obtain the following.
Amhuluk=Coin of Balance (3)
Cirein-croin=Jewel of Balance (3)
Sobek=Stone of Balance (3)

Only 1 NM of:
Tristitia=Card of Balance (3)

So basically in the process of an hour you have the chance to obtain 3-9 coin/stone/jewels meanwhile with the VNM you'll be lucky to obtain 1-3 in an hr-2 based on the competition of the NM.

While sure you have said this change was to ease the process for upgrading empyrean weapons that concept falls flat when you made Pantokrator a 3 ??? available pop and as far as I can see it has no item drops used for empyrean weapons. So exactly why is it so hard to just add more pops to the VNMs, it's imbalanced, people are saying it's imbalanced and no matter how much you try and cover it up and say it isn't imbalanced it doesn't hide the fact that it is imbalanced.

I seriously don't know how else this can be explained to the devs and honestly there's an easy way to make the concept work, just have it so you have a clear abyssite, a beta clear abyssite and an alpha clear abyssite. Then just make it so you can only hold one type of those at a time so you can't have a clear, beta and alpha. Since LS are always trying to find this NM they can have 3 members grab one each and figure out which one isn't being hunted down atm. From there they can focus on either the regular one, the beta one or the alpha one but overall a simple change of adding 3 would create a similar balance between the acquisition of the empyrean gear. No matter how you look at it even though you claim because it's one KI so it's balanced the means of obtaining that pop item is so obscene and random that it increases the difficulty in terms of time required to even obtain one pop item. I"m sure people would much rather see VNMs wiped out of abyssea and replaced with 3 NM pops along with 3 ??? to pop the last tier NM rather then having to /heal every 5 seconds in hope they get a read of where it's at.

Zagen
09-10-2011, 05:48 AM
if you have 3 linkshells going after Amhuluk you have the following options to arrive at that NM.

Jagged Apkallu Beak:
-Funereal Apkallu pop NM
-Gold chest
Clipped Bird Wing:
-Manohra pop NM
-Gold chest
Bloodied Bat Fur:
-Asanbosam 15 min respawn
-Gold Chest

Just pointing out you can't gold box the bat KI.

Karbuncle
09-10-2011, 05:51 AM
Just pointing out you can't gold box the bat KI.

?

They added all Key items in those zones to Gold Chests. Was that one exempt or something o.o?

Zagen
09-10-2011, 05:56 AM
?

They added all Key items in those zones to Gold Chests. Was that one exempt or something o.o?

Actually no they didn't they only added Timed Pop KIs for Emp NMs to Gold boxes.

Edit: Sobek and Amhuluk still require killing a NM for the last KI.

Edit2: Here's the list for reference from the update post (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/7825-May-19th-Version-Update-Details):
Tunga / Amun / Gukumatz / Heqet / Lord Varney / Hrosshvalur

Helel
09-10-2011, 06:02 AM
?

They added all Key items in those zones to Gold Chests. Was that one exempt or something o.o?

No they didn't. They only added the KI's needed to pop NMs that drop empyrean items. There are still roaming NMs, such as the bat, the dog in attohwa, and the imp in vunkerl, that you will need to kill in order to get the KI.

A better example for the devs would be the orobon. If you charged whisker burn, it takes about 10-60m to get 3 pops for the fish (depending on luck etc.). It never takes more than 60m for 3 pops. For the VNM, not only do you have to wait 10-15m for them to pop, but you might not claim it, and even if you do claim it, your abyssite might not upgrade. I would like the devs to personally log onto a real server and try this out for themselves so they can see how much fun this system is.

Nobody has mentioned it (I don't think), but you could always make the t3 abyssite a rare drop from gold chests. Every other empyrean can be completed solely through gold chest farming, so why not shield/harp?

Arcon
09-10-2011, 06:02 AM
The development team is in fact aware there is a difference in drop rates between the Abyssea zones for Colorless Souls. They will be making fixes in the upcoming version update to make the drop rates in each zone equal.

Watch them reduce all drop rates to Brulo level.

Zagen
09-10-2011, 06:07 AM
Nobody has mentioned it (I don't think), but you could always make the t3 abyssite a rare drop from gold chests. Every other empyrean can be completed solely through gold chest farming, so why not shield/harp?

I mentioned that idea a bit back as a joke because SE believes the Harp/Shield need to be harder to get than the weapons.

A correction Katana and Sword cannot be completed via gold box farming not even to 85 stage as the Bugard KI isn't in the Gold Boxes.

Seriha
09-10-2011, 06:09 AM
Same applies for the Corse in Chasm. Still need to kill the hound for the collar KI. Don't think Vunk has that issue, oddly.

I actually wouldn't be against T4 VNMs being added to the prior 6 zones that would also drop souls, but since T3 shatters on pop, maybe make it a 100% on red if not at least a modest rate. Compared to the Heroes ones, though, they should be harder. Would be kinda interesting if they revamped the Ark Angels, but not sure what they'd do for the sixth mob.

detlef
09-10-2011, 06:21 AM
Imp KI in Vunkerl is not in gold box. Ditto with hound in Attohwa and Bat in Misareaux.

Leonlionheart
09-10-2011, 07:13 AM
The hell? I've gotten all of these in boxes except for Titlacauan KI's.

Edit: Maybe not the imp, but I seem to remember that being in a box. My memory just doesn't care atm.

detlef
09-10-2011, 07:24 AM
Your memory is wrong even if it doesn't care.

They added time spawn NM ki in addition to the other 4 ki they provided already for a total of 6 ki per zone. In Vunkerl, only Durinn requires you to actually kill NM (imp and dvergr). In Misareaux, you'll need to kill bugard for Sobek and bat for Amhuluk. And in Attohwa you have to kill the hound, doomed, and ghost. There is a weird lack of symmetry between zones when it comes to ki for whatever reason.

detlef
09-10-2011, 07:26 AM
I think adjusting Brulo and Maere colorless soul drop rates is a good first step. SE will probably continue to monitor the situation, but I think pushing people out of Ule will actually help a lot.

Leonlionheart
09-10-2011, 07:53 AM
Your memory is wrong even if it doesn't care.

They added time spawn NM ki in addition to the other 4 ki they provided already for a total of 6 ki per zone. In Vunkerl, only Durinn requires you to actually kill NM (imp and dvergr). In Misareaux, you'll need to kill bugard for Sobek and bat for Amhuluk. And in Attohwa you have to kill the hound, doomed, and ghost. There is a weird lack of symmetry between zones when it comes to ki for whatever reason.

oh the bugard, lol who cares.

Zhronne
09-10-2011, 08:25 AM
The development team is in fact aware there is a difference in drop rates between the Abyssea zones for Colorless Souls. They will be making fixes in the upcoming version update to make the drop rates in each zone equal.
I love you.
Seriously I mean it.
Not only you manage to read my comment but you managed in a single day to get a reply from the developement team.
Sometimes I wonder if you have a Central Processor Unit in place of a brain for being able to process so many posts every day.
You (and your colleagues) are just made of pure awesomeness. A bliss for all of us.
I'm so glad you guys got employed :)

Zhronne
09-10-2011, 08:28 AM
I think adjusting Brulo and Maere colorless soul drop rates is a good first step. SE will probably continue to monitor the situation, but I think pushing people out of Ule will actually help a lot.
Let's just hope Brulo and Maere will be the ones adjusted and not Oogopogo ;_;
I panic at the idea :P

Zumi
09-10-2011, 08:33 AM
I just killed Brulo on the test server he did drop 2 colorless souls. Sure is nice when I am the only one in the zone, my abyssite went 1/1 and 1/1 on changes too luckily enough.

Zagen
09-10-2011, 08:36 AM
I just killed Brulo on the test server he did drop 2 colorless souls. Sure is nice when I am the only one in the zone, my abyssite went 1/1 and 1/1 on changes too luckily enough.
They don't just give them to you?

Leonlionheart
09-10-2011, 08:46 AM
They don't just give them to you?

They don't give any Empyrean, Relic, or Mythic weapons.

Kinda stupid, someone needs to test if Oa2-3 is OP or not

Zagen
09-10-2011, 08:53 AM
They don't give any Empyrean, Relic, or Mythic weapons.

Kinda stupid, someone needs to test if Oa2-3 is OP or not

I meant the KI to pop the VNMs, I swear I read about Voidwatch KIs just being given out I figured it would be the same for all NM KIs.

Leonlionheart
09-10-2011, 08:56 AM
Yeah VW ones are, because they need testing

Abyssea is done.

Zagen
09-10-2011, 09:00 AM
Figured with T3 drop ratess getting changed they'd be giving them out to test rates easily.

Zumi
09-10-2011, 09:08 AM
They don't just give them to you?

There are no npcs that give abyssea key items cause abyssea isn't the focus of the current test.

Economizer
09-10-2011, 10:10 AM
if you have 3 linkshells going after Amhuluk you have the following options to arrive at that NM.

Jagged Apkallu Beak:
-Funereal Apkallu pop NM
-Gold chest
Clipped Bird Wing:
-Manohra pop NM
-Gold chest
Bloodied Bat Fur:
-Asanbosam 15 min respawn
-Gold Chest

VNMS in any area:
-tier 1 with instant respawn
-tier 2 with 15+ min respawn
-tier 3 with 15+ min respawn


Not only is this a problem with VNMs, this is also a problem with the NM Fistule, although the requirements to get that are slightly easier. If there is competition for these, sometimes, it is better to just decide to go do something else though. At least with hour repop VNM outside Abyssea, people will gladly team up with you...



Basically how can you call the following balanced:
3 ??? to obtain the following.
Amhuluk=Coin of Balance (3)
Cirein-croin=Jewel of Balance (3)
Sobek=Stone of Balance (3)

Only 1 NM of:
Tristitia=Card of Balance (3)

This is a big reason I've had issues getting the Card of Balance. Granted, they added this pop to three NMs (that aren't easy to defeat) in Tahrongi, but it still is a pain in the butt, especially when everyone who fights any of these mobs generally has the Card of Balance already promised to someone.

Insaniac
09-10-2011, 12:43 PM
I love you.
Seriously I mean it.
Not only you manage to read my comment but you managed in a single day to get a reply from the developement team.
Sometimes I wonder if you have a Central Processor Unit in place of a brain for being able to process so many posts every day.
You (and your colleagues) are just made of pure awesomeness. A bliss for all of us.
I'm so glad you guys got employed :)Not to burst your bubble but the JP forums had this conversation weeks ago and that's where that reply comes from =P

Pyrobunny
09-10-2011, 01:00 PM
i want whatever it is the dev team are smoking

Crocker
09-10-2011, 05:29 PM
Don't forget 10-15 min respawns on the T2 and even with all staggers you don't get the abyssite to change, you can go hours claiming all of them and never see a T3 pop, while every other empy time spawn is 100% KI with red stagger.

Ive gotten 50 Briarius Helms and 50 Sobek Skins in the last few days but the shield .... 4 souls total and Ive been working on it a long while now.

Pyrobunny
09-10-2011, 08:51 PM
1/23 for a t2>>t3 today in altepa

Jeffil
09-11-2011, 02:37 AM
1/23 for a t2>>t3 today in altepa

Me = witness to this.

Juilan
09-11-2011, 07:43 PM
so the only way to get the devs to do something is to post on the JP board and call them gijins?
開発者は、悪名高いモンスターのスポーンのいくつかに、よりポップな条件を追加する必要があります。すなわちVNMs。

Monchat
09-11-2011, 08:22 PM
at least they post in here. You should look at the french or german forums lol. They just dont care. Those forums are some ghost town forum to prove that they care about Fr/Ge when they clearly do not.

Annalise
09-12-2011, 10:41 PM
Actually no they didn't they only added Timed Pop KIs for Emp NMs to Gold boxes.

Edit: Sobek and Amhuluk still require killing a NM for the last KI.

Edit2: Here's the list for reference from the update post (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/7825-May-19th-Version-Update-Details):
Tunga / Amun / Gukumatz / Heqet / Lord Varney / Hrosshvalur

Sobek does not require the pop NM (Gukumatz), you can now get it from a gold box. So Sobek can be straight out of the box. You even quoted the update notes which now shows Sobek's time spawn KI is gold box now

Arcon
09-13-2011, 12:19 AM
Sobek does not require the pop NM (Gukumatz), you can now get it from a gold box. So Sobek can be straight out of the box. You even quoted the update notes which now shows Sobek's time spawn KI is gold box now

To my knowledge you can't get the Bugard KI from a box.

Zagen
09-13-2011, 12:21 AM
Sobek does not require the pop NM (Gukumatz), you can now get it from a gold box. So Sobek can be straight out of the box. You even quoted the update notes which now shows Sobek's time spawn KI is gold box now
After 120+ Skins that were gold box farmed I'm certain Minax Bugard KI isn't in there, which means Sobek can't be purely gold box farmed, if you have a screen shot showing you getting Bloodstained Bugard Fang from a gold box I'd gladly stand corrected.

Neisan_Quetz
09-13-2011, 12:35 AM
Minax Bugard's KI can't be found in a gold chest to my knowledge.

Juilan
09-13-2011, 10:39 AM
at least they post in here. You should look at the french or german forums lol. They just dont care. Those forums are some ghost town forum to prove that they care about Fr/Ge when they clearly do not.

I noticed most euros go to this one anyway. I was like woo french then i go there and its nearly devoid of people lol

Annalise
09-13-2011, 12:01 PM
To my knowledge you can't get the Bugard KI from a box.

I forgot that one isn't, though wiki says it is. That one is really easy to get though, it doesn't really limit Sobek popping at least.

Glamdring
09-16-2011, 03:50 AM
let's put it simply, whoever designed the VNM system and made it the exclusive means of obtaining certain gear needs to have their reproductive organs removed slowly with a dull, rusty saw without benefit of anesthesia. 15 months of effort with no return, generally not even a claim is too long to spend in anything. Honestly, I'm thinking it would be more beneficial to spend my monthly fee on therapy, except that the reason I started playing in the 1st place is the cathartic release of killing bad guys in make-believe instead of RL is healthier, and MUCH cheaper than psychiatric bills.

Either the gear needs to be added to other drop systems or the claim systems need to be made an instanced forced pop based solely on the possession of the appropriate abyssite. Fine, make us chase the damn pop if you think this is actually entertaining (the term you are looking for to describe the type who does is "sadist"), but don't make it dependent on the last time anyone on an entire server claimed it.

Trisscar
09-16-2011, 01:01 PM
Howdy!

Though we won't be able to make it in time for the upcoming version update, we have decided to increase the rate in which the Clear Demilune Abyssite changes into a Colored Demilune Abyssite. This will be reflected on the test server a little after the version update takes place.This isn't the issue SEshill. There needs to be more than one monster up per area that can drop the items needed, there needs to be shorter respawn rates than one hour each, and the drops need to be from more than just three areas or soul camping will always be less fun than getting your arm gnawed off by a rabbit.

Kimble
09-16-2011, 05:33 PM
Respawn isnt one hour.

Souls arent as bad as people make it out to be. Seems a lot of people dont account for it being balanced in this way since there are no outside VNMs or NMs needed.

noodles355
09-16-2011, 08:47 PM
All other empyrean NMs may have a Timed Spawn NM that has to be killed (Or gold boxed).
However, with the right means it is garanteed you will get the KI from that kill to pop the NM fro your empyrean materials.

The Shield and Harp's Timed T2 VNM arguably is to provide a time sink similar to that of the otehr Empyrean material NMs.
However, there is never a garantee that you will get the KI from that kill to pop.

If you had every resource available and no competion, you could Claim the timed NM, get it's KI, pop and kill the popped NMs, get their KI and have a full popset ready very quickly. For VNMs, if you had every resource available to you and no competition, it could theoretically be possible to NEVER get the KI needed for the final NM.

That's not balanced.