"Extend time" in la theine abyssea...

[Raxiaz]

So I did this today, allowed me to use only one stone (+30 mins), applied my increased boost from abyssites, but when i hit ok, it said total time: 120 min, and then i was given only 21 mins because when i entered 99 mins is what i had originally. This in essence wasted a stone for me.

I had 17 mins left before.

I consider this a bug and no matter how quirky it is I'd like it fixed.

Edit:

I'm going to restate that the "fix" here needs to be that the NPC accurately tells you how much time you're going to get from your traverser stone by using the "extend time" feature, if you're coming back to them after a while in abyssea. Also, if you're not going to get at least 50% of the traverser stone's base worth (15 min), then the "Extend time" feature should not even show. That's all I'd ask.
Post #47
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...l=1#post128511

[RAIST]

That is how it is supposed to work. You can only add time with stones during your initial 120 minutes of time. Once you hit 120 minutes of requested/earned time, you can't add any more time with stones. The only way to get more than 120 minutes in one session is to use time extensions from blue chests.

From the SE guide posted when Abyssea was added:
http://www.playonline.com/pcd/verup/...23/detail.html

Visitant Status
The "visitant" status is essential for those wishing to journey within Abyssea. You will be permitted to remain there only while this status is active. Upon arrival in Abyssea, speak with a "Conflux Surveyor" NPC posted nearby to be granted visitant status in exchange for traverser stones. One stone will allow you a 30-minute stay (Earth time), with 120 minutes being the maximum permitted duration. Methods exist that allow players to extend their visitant duration

(the method for going beyond 120 minutes is the TE's from chests)

The system gets explained in further detail on the main Abyssea wiki page in the section on Traverser stones and Visitant time:
http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Ab..._Visitant_Time

■If you leave an Abyssea area with more than 120 minutes of Visitant time accrued, the excess time over 120 minutes is essentially lost, as it is not possible to reobtain Visitant status with a starting value of more than 120 minutes.
■The game makes a record of the total of how much Visitant time you have started an Abyssea run with, plus how much time you have received from time extension chests on your current visit. If this total is less than 120 minutes, you will be able to return to the Conflux Surveyor and extend your current Visitant status by exchanging more Traverser Stones.
■Warning: Any time granted by additional stones is added to the above total, which still may not exceed the initial starting value of 120 minutes. If adding a stone exceeds the 120 minute limit, any "overflow" time is lost. (Example: You start an Abyssea run with 80 minutes of Visitant time, get three 10-minute time extension chests which increases the total to 110 minutes, and decide to exchange another stone -- this stone will only grant you 10 minutes of Visitant time, regardless of how much time you had remaining.)

There was a bit of a debate over whether this is a bug or not in another thread. This is how it is designed to work, people just don't understand how it works. Basically, you can only add time with stones so long as you have not requested saved time, used stones, or gotten time from chests that when combined do not total 120 minutes. If when you go to add time with a stone and the time added would exceed that first 120 minute limit, the excess time is simply discarded because you cannot use stones to go past that first 120 minutes. You can only go past that 120 minute limit by getting time from chests.

So, in your case, you went in and requested your saved time of 99 minutes. The system told you you had 99 minutes of time applied. This left you 21 more minutes until you hit that 21 minute cap. Not sure what your note about 17 minutes means exactly...I am guessing you ran your time down to 17 minutes left and did not get any TE chests to add more time and went back to add more time with a stone. You still had only requested/earned 99 of your first 120 minutes (because you had not gotten any TE from chests). The system would only allow you to use one stone to extend your time, since after using one you would meet/exceed your 120 minute initial cap. You used that stone to extend time, but it would have put you at 129 minutes, exceeding the cap. The extra 9 minutes over the 120 minute cap was discarded, giving you only 21 extra minutes. What you needed to do was to exit the maw, saving your 17 minutes and then come back in. This would have reset your per session cap to 120 minutes, and you could have requested your saved 17 minutes, leaving you with 103 minutes to request/earn with stones or TE. The system would have then let you use up to 4 stones (if you had 4 on you), since you would not have exceeded the 120 minute cap for this new session until you spent your 4th stone at that point. Of course, you would only want to spend 3 for 90 minutes (if you don't have any abyssites granting bonus minutes, in which case you may not want to use 3).
Edit:
The key points to remember: you cannot use stones to go past your first 120 minutes. So, if you have all abyssites of sojourn that add 18 minutes per stone--you never, under any circumstances, want to spend more than 2 stones in one session , as that totals 96 minutes. The system will tell you how much bonus time you are adding per stone with these abyssites, and you will have a chance to confirm you want to spend the stones. Means you will need to do a little math real quick when adding time so you can make sure you don't overspend stones and go past your initial 120 minutes. It's best to do this up front when you first enter. That way if your time is running out, you always know to exit and come back in and add time with a fresh slate.

[Raxiaz]

Well then I think they should not allow us to "Extend time" in the first place. I tend to get my time as close as possible to 120 as soon as I walk into Abyssea. For this kind of system to be in place makes no sense, from my perspective. And if I can extend time, it should count towards my current time remaining. Not what I had when I entered the area.

That just makes the most logical sense to me. I can't conjure any situations right now where this would be beneficial...

[RAIST]

It is not meant to be beneficial, it is meant to be restrictive. Just like Limbus and Dynamis. We are not meant to simply live in Abyssea for the sake of doing it--you have to earn the ability to stay longer by getting TE chests to drop.

Edit: I was adding this while you were puting up your second post, not sure if you caught it, so pasting it here as well:

The key points to remember: you cannot use stones to go past your first 120 minutes. So, if you have all abyssites of sojourn that add 18 minutes per stone--you never, under any circumstances, want to spend more than 2 stones in one session , as that totals 96 minutes. The system will tell you how much bonus time you are adding per stone with these abyssites, and you will have a chance to confirm you want to spend the stones. Means you will need to do a little math real quick when adding time so you can make sure you don't overspend stones and go past your initial 120 minutes. It's best to do this up front when you first enter. That way if your time is running out, you always know to exit and come back in and add time with a fresh slate.

[Raxiaz]

It is restrictive, you can only have so many stones on you at once.

I understand the reasoning behind it, but that just makes me wish it didn't exist at all. Those unknowing of how the "Extend time" function work could suffer. I myself only got 17 minutes out of a stone that would've been 42 minutes. That's less than half of the stone's worth.

I just don't think it's right to allow that option when it's not really doing anything in the first place. If someone wanted to extend time, they'd want or need to do it at the start of abyssea. In other words, their lights aren't built yet, and they can exit and re-enter to turn in stones.

No point in turning in stones if it's going to return less than 50% of its value, IMO.

[Raksha]

It is restrictive, you can only have so many stones on you at once.

I understand the reasoning behind it, but that just makes me wish it didn't exist at all. Those unknowing of how the "Extend time" function work could suffer. I myself only got 17 minutes out of a stone that would've been 42 minutes. That's less than half of the stone's worth.

I just don't think it's right to allow that option when it's not really doing anything in the first place. If someone wanted to extend time, they'd want or need to do it at the start of abyssea. In other words, their lights aren't built yet, and they can exit and re-enter to turn in stones.

No point in turning in stones if it's going to return less than 50% of its value, IMO.

I agree with this post 100%.

[RAIST]

No point in turning in stones if it's going to return less than 50% of its value, IMO.

unless you have fallen below the 5 minutes required to save time on exit, wohich would also prevent you from re-entering for an hour. You could trash that stone for the partial time to get above that 5 minutes to save your time, exit, and come back in to use stones and keep going.

The catch is, if you plan to bbe in there that long--you SHOULD be getting TE's, or be prepared to exit and re-enter eventually.

Not trying to be an @$$ about it, but it boils down to RTFM. It has been explained in detail in various places already. The information is out there, and it is common knowledge to those who have been doing it for a while. If you would have asked the "veterans", they could have explained it. But, you unfortunately didn't do the research beforehand or ask someone to walk you through it all (or they didn't do a good enough job explaining it). So, you had to learn the hard way. At least it only cost you one stone, which will be replaced in short order--especially if you have the abyssites reducing regeneration time (or have some banked up when you get the abyssites--it gets recalculated and you get free stones when you get the abyssites).

[Raksha]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...ed-stay-bugged (locked thread)

Just in case anyone cares enough about this.

[RAIST]

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...ed-stay-bugged (locked thread)

Just in case anyone cares enough about this.

Even after all the explanation in that thread, at the end...you still didn't seem to be getting the point that after adding the first 120 minutes, (or within less than one stones worth of time of 120 minutes added) you shoud not be adding time with stones as you will be wasting the time on those stones. From your last post in that thread:

Also, if you go in and add 4 stones (120 minutes) then spend 110 minutes without getting TEs (you will have 10 minutes left) then try to add another stone it will give you +0 minutes

[Raksha]

Even after all the explanation in that thread, at the end...you still didn't seem to be getting the point that after adding the first 120 minutes, (or within less than one stones worth of time of 120 minutes added) you shoud not be adding time with stones as you will be wasting the time on those stones. From your last post in that thread:

You don't seem to be getting that I don't give a *** how the system currently works, I was arguing for the way it SHOULD work.

Grrrr I'm not gonna start all this *** again, I've said everthing I needed to say in that other thread.