AA Fight instances

[larrymc]

Greetings,

I’d like to give a follow-up on the congestion of La'Loff Ampitheater.

As previously mentioned, we will be continuing to release other attractive content in addition to these new battlefields, which will aid in the reduction of congestion. To give you an example, we will be adding new skirmishes and also making adjustments to Delve to make it easier to access with fewer members.

The development team is currently in the midst of looking into other improvement measures as there is still congestion as well as items that can only be obtained from the ark angel battles.

We’ve been receiving a lot of requests and feedback mentioning that the best way to deal with this congestion is to just add more instances. However, to actually do this it would be roughly the same amount of work and testing as adding a whole new type of content or could even require more time. Likewise, the same goes for having ark angels spawn in other battlefields. The reason being that if something is added to existing battlefields there is a possibility that bugs will arise in the existing elements, and it would take time to test for this.

Based on the above, we would like to see the conditions after the February version update and then make a decision about adding instances. I apologize that we are not able to fix this issue right away, and we appreciate your understanding.

One suggestion that could potentially reduce congestion for AA/DM II battlefields is to remove the requirement of completing all 5 AA battlefields before getting access to DM II. Getting an alliance worth of people with DM II access can be challenging, and forcing each person to get 5 wins in a smaller group just puts more pressure and congestion on the 3 instances. If the bar to access to DM II is lowered, then perhaps more larger groups will try this, and instead of 1-6 people using an instance, ~18 people will do so more often, potentially cutting congestion by one third. One of the good things about delve is that there are no artificial prerequisites other than the leader having the appropriate key item.

[MarkovChain]

Add pluton cases or even boxes to individual drop pool on D and VD SKC20 battles, simple fix. You'll get read of half of the people farming AA for gil because it's going to be easier to spam in those bcs than in La'loff. Either way, if you increase the number of instances, more people will farm for gil, and pluton/crafting-mats price will crash anyway. So adding pluton case at least to individual pool is going to fix all of your problems.

I have other solution that are going to make people mad though ; limit difficult/ VD battles to once a day OR limit easy/ very easy to once a day, both work, but you don't make the same people angry.

Finally you can increase the requirement for D or VD battles. Make it so that each Difficult AA requires a normal clear, and each VD requires a D clear just like accessing tough battles for the first time requires a previous kill on normal. This way you'll considerably limit the people that spam it for gil.

[Sfchakan]

Okay, Square, let me explain this to you: this is content you made that isn't broken, incredibly boring, and has been desired for longer than a month. This is content we like. You don't have to replace it, you just have to make it to where we can actually play in those battlefields.

We realize it's almost or about as much work as adding new content and, guess what, that's okay! Make AAs/DM accessible to more people at once. This is what your playerbase wants!

I know on my server, the NA player response to the two new BCs seems to be "meh." Many people are still enjoying the "old" AA fights. Please do something so that more people can do it at the same time. Making additional battlefields hasn't seemed to do much to help with the congestion on Odin.

Also, I would just like to note that JP players have an unfair advantage when it comes to entering these congested battlefields. More than a dozen times, my static has had to sit at the entrance spamming Enter for over 30 minutes while we watch JP soloers and groups waltz right up and enter before us. Most times, our group and those players are given indication that they're inside, only for us to be booted out while they get to walk right in. This really stinks for NA (and I'm sure EU) players.

[MarkovChain]

Jp more chance ? I don't think so ... usually 70 people in zone. All jps. Sucks to be NA I suppose but it's propbably not as bad as JP. The bcs are nearly empty during EU though except weekends since JP don't sleep.

[Demonjustin]

JP players could theoretically have a higher chance at getting in with faster load times couldn't they? Not more instances, but, this could be something... idk.

[tumz]

Technically, Since the serves are hosted in Japan, we NA players have 100-200 latency on a fast connection. The same fast connection in Japan can see latency times of 10-100 which is roughly a fraction of a second. May not sound like much, but when spamming enter it can make a difference.

[Sabishii]

Okay, Square, let me explain this to you: this is content you made that isn't broken, incredibly boring, and has been desired for longer than a month. This is content we like..

Can I make an argument that the AA battles are in fact incredibly broken, because the only classes people want for DD are ranged classes that don't end in the word mage. For a setup, people only want PLD RNG RNG WHM BRD COR, or something to that effect. That's the STANDARD battlefield set up for AA battles, and I never see shouts for the other 2 fights that aren't ark angels, the two zilart brother fights. These NMs each have highly damaging AoEs that the only way to safely get near them for melees is to sub /NIN because all the aoes are absorbable by shadows. For one thing, I thought modern content had moved away from requiring a /NIN sub. And second thing, melee cannot survive against the ark angels for very long. PLD cannot keep hate off melee damage dealers, and the second a melee grabs hate, he's going down unless he can juggle shadows long enough for the tank to reacquire hate. I've done the AA HM, MR, EV, and GK with various levels of success (I did EV when it came out unsuccessfully, getting totally destroyed with a shout group not knowing what we were getting into, ran out of time on GK, while MR and HM I've been able to down as a melee). These fights make me feel like a BAD PLAYER, because the strength of their aoes can kill me despite having decent gear, 119 weapons, ninja shadows, etc. Most groups will NOT invite a melee, leaving 90% of the jobs in the game out. Sometimes a THF gets invited, depending on who is setting up the group, because treasure hunter does affect AA drops to my knowledge. All of this AA fighting I've done was done on NORMAL difficulty. I cannot imagine doing this content as a melee on difficult or very difficult. Maybe someone who actually was able to complete this content and upgrade AF1/AF2 gear for all their jobs would confirm or refute my claims. I'm just surprised I don't see anyone complaining about this kind of thing in this thread. Everyone's complaining about not being able to get in.

TL;DR version: rangers, corsairs are the only favored DD jobs for AA fights. Consider changing these fights so other jobs can actually complete this content. Not even BLM are wanted because of the AA's magic resistance, or just because no one wants BLMs for anything any more (and this is coming from someone who plays BLU and SAM mostly).

[Sapphires]

TL;DR version: rangers, corsairs are the only favored DD jobs for AA fights. Consider changing these fights so other jobs can actually complete this content. Not even BLM are wanted because of the AA's magic resistance, or just because no one wants BLMs for anything any more (and this is coming from someone who plays BLU and SAM mostly).

SE isn't responsible for the narrowminded metagame mentality of the playerbase.

lots of different setups work well for harder modes, NIN NIN THF + support works for AA's, and the JP playerbase is far more open minded and receptive to unorthodox setups.
I exclusively do AA/DM as dancer, I have done these fights alongside jobs like drk and drg because they were top notch skillful players with good gearsets.
If you arent a favored job you just have to try harder and make your own groups, find an ls and a group of friends to do these with that does something other than cookie cutter setups.

The main problem is that party builders are taking the easy way out because they don't want to do the hard work of finding out who competently plays jobs and they fall back on 'idiot proof' setups.
SE really can't do anything to address to address the metagame or 'image issues' without creating a nerf on a job or potentially overpowering a job in the hands of a more skillful player.

If groups have to bring a melee they do stuff like go for 'oat monks only' even though most of these i've played alongside are absolutely terrible and die, dont have hybrid sets, etc, but they got a free pass due to high base hp and mantra to buffer less skillful play.

[Zarchery]

Sapphires I've been meaning to post something much like what you said for days now. Just never got around to it.

I've done the various AA fights on every difficulty level, from Very Easy to Very Difficult. The fights vary in difficulty (I find that HM and EV are harder than TT and MR, and GK is right in the middle). I've done them with all sorts of setups. I've done stuff with cookie cutter setups that failed and unconventional setups that succeeded. I think that the VE - VD tiered difficulty level is a great thing. Lower difficulties allow more leeway in party setups and more room for error. So you're probably right, most jobs aren't going to make the cut in a Difficult or Very Difficult Ark Angel fight. So do a lower difficulty.

Here's the thing about organizing an event: it's stressful. Some people might disagree with me on that, but I think we can all agree, at least, that being the leader is more stressful than being a passive member. When someone takes on the responsibility of being leader, it's his right to decide which party setup he wants. If you don't like it, start your own and bring whatever job you want to the table. Or level one of these popular jobs and be a member. But you want to have your cake and eat it too; the stress free role of not leading the party along with the capacity to play it however you want. Sorry buddy, it just doesn't work that way.

[Camate]

Greetings,

We understand that congestion is still an issue for certain battlefields, and the development team is planning to implement countermeasures to disperse the congestion.

First, the team is currently looking into making adjustments so that certain Rem’s Tales (not random) can be obtained via high-tier missions battlefields other than La'Loff Amphitheater, and they are looking to do this in the June version update.

Additionally, we’re looking into reducing the merit point cost to obtain Phantom gems for battlefields other than La’Loff Amphitheater.

With these adjustments, we feel that there will be a greater variety of choices for battlefields when you wish to obtain Rem’s Tales. There are also other countermeasures being looked into, and we’ll be sure to post follow-up information once there is more progress.