Suggestions: Quality of Life Stuff and other suggestions

[Raydeus]

Generally all set ups have a tank and a healer. For tank RUN and PLD are great jobs, however for healer nothing comes close to the power of a good WHM. That being said to me it seems like there are a lot less WHMs in the game than PLDs, so I imagine being WHM would give the better shot at making it into a party, or being the nucleus of starting your own.

WHM sounds good, and by the time I finish with JP and gear I should have enough merits for Arise as well. (Edit : Or I can just buy Arise off the AH and save those merits. I'm so out of date about spells I didn't even know about Inundation. XD )

[OmnysValefor]

Hello Eradius and fellow adventurers!

We definitely understand the demand for Cipher: August as well as the other ciphers obtainable through Sinister Reign. All of these ciphers have had their stats set to be a fitting reward that matched the difficulty of this content. If we were to ever make adjustments to the content itself making it easier to obtain these ciphers, adjustments to their stats would need to be made to more appropriately match the difficulty. Since this would affect many many adventurers, we do not have any plans to make changes.

As someone who has all of these trusts, I feel like their usefulness is overstated. Amchuchu is usually the better tank unless you're fighting something purely physical. August does a lot of DPS, for a trust, but he's usually just interrupting what I'm trying to do.

Ingrid II has her uses though I find selh'teus usually preferable.

In regard to Rosulatia, I'm not sure what makes her special--Shantotto is more useful than any nuking trust (aside from stunning). She interrupts skillchains, sure, but nukes properly off of them.

[Eradius]

Hello Eradius and fellow adventurers!
All of these ciphers have had their stats set to be a fitting reward that matched the difficulty of this content. If we were to ever make adjustments to the content itself making it easier to obtain these ciphers, adjustments to their stats would need to be made to more appropriately match the difficulty.

I completely understand, but will point out the difficulty of the fight isn't what keeps people from obtaining it. I've cited that it can take hours to even get a portion of a party to run SR, let alone a full one. The Trusts, possibly August specifically, seem to be the draw of the event, and when he is obtained it becomes difficult to ever convince a player into returning to the content. Perhaps he can be added to a challenging event in the future that has more "relevance" to the community? Sinister Reign is an event that is suffering a death of interest. As stated by others in this thread, there's not even something like an SR campaign to try and re-encourage players into tackling the content. As it stands, I've already decided I'll just need to pay gil to hire mercenaries to run the content with me, as I have just too much trouble finding fellow players who can both tackle the content and are interested in it.

The pattern seems to be that the very moment a player receives August, they simply wont be returning to the event or answering any type of shout for it, they no longer have enough other incentives to participate in the event. Is that the type of situation players should normally be placed in to achieve this reward? Players can spend a minimal amount of time in other events of easier difficulty and obtain gear that can be slotted instead of the SR counterparts.

Please at least consider a type of SR campaign, as almost all other Adoulin content recieves a regular campaign to re-garner interest. Or perhaps additional or brand new rewards could be added to Sinister Reign to make people more interested in it again?

I am not seeking a hand-out nor a difficulty drop for up and coming players. Just a means to improve the access and availability of the event in question, including the participation of other players. SR is and event designed to be taken by a party of 6 players, which means it needs to have a way to draw lots of people.

Recently, even Ambuscade, the premier "most popular" event had to be modified to encourage partying, what does this example tell us about an older event like Sinister Reign?

[Jin_Uzuki]

I completely understand, but will point out the difficulty of the fight isn't what keeps people from obtaining it. I've cited that it can take hours to even get a portion of a party to run SR, let alone a full one. The Trusts, possibly August specifically, seem to be the draw of the event, and when he is obtained it becomes difficult to ever convince a player into returning to the content. Perhaps he can be added to a challenging event in the future that has more "relevance" to the community? Sinister Reign is an event that is suffering a death of interest. As stated by others in this thread, there's not even something like an SR campaign to try and re-encourage players into tackling the content. As it stands, I've already decided I'll just need to pay gil to hire mercenaries to run the content with me, as I have just too much trouble finding fellow players who can both tackle the content and are interested in it.

The pattern seems to be that the very moment a player receives August, they simply wont be returning to the event or answering any type of shout for it, they no longer have enough other incentives to participate in the event. Is that the type of situation players should normally be placed in to achieve this reward? Players can spend a minimal amount of time in other events of easier difficulty and obtain gear that can be slotted instead of the SR counterparts.

Please at least consider a type of SR campaign, as almost all other Adoulin content recieves a regular campaign to re-garner interest. Or perhaps additional or brand new rewards could be added to Sinister Reign to make people more interested in it again?

Why are you speaking like August is the only reward from SR lol.

[Eradius]

Why are you speaking like August is the only reward from SR lol.

Because every team I've formed, every last person is after August. In that regard, Trust:August is both the attraction of the event, and the cause of its inherent problems of "attraction".

I've formed over ten teams in the past two weeks and I made sure to ask what people were after. I even had to cancel a team after our tank got his August and bolted. While veteran players may find some use in creating macro-slots for especially high augmented versions of the gear, the reality is that almost anyone attempting SR in our current time is after August. Because of that, I also know I'm not alone in the woes of trying to run the content. Most black mages I bring are so fresh they don't have Death. Many admit they leveled the class simply to have a chance at SR and August. This is due to many teams simply not wanting to run the event without 2-3 BLM's.

It just seems to be the situation, everyone running it is after August, and they seem to stop showing up forever once they get the Trust Cipher. That is why a lot of what I try to convince is to make the other rewards equal in desirability to this Trust.

Look at it this way, if people I invited were telling me they were there for Floral hands, then we'd have people who want those also showing up. If people were telling me they were there for Samnuha, we'd have a pool of people wanting Samnuha stuff showing up.

Instead everyone just says they're there for August and "thats it". Once they get August, the event is dead to them. This means out of all the possible ways to attract a player to the event, there's only one (those who have not yet obtained August), and thats why its very difficult to get a full team. This pool of people also continues to shrink with time.

[OmnysValefor]

I never did SR for trusts. I did it for the reason I still do it: certain gear I want like a perfect Jumalik mail.

[Eradius]

I never did SR for trusts. I did it for the reason I still do it: certain gear I want like a perfect Jumalik mail.

That is great and I wish there were five of you on Shiva.

If there was a campaign that increased the Augmentation results of SR, do you feel you would run it more than you already do?

[OmnysValefor]

Sure, but you have to admit that it only hurts those that miss out. Just puts other people later in the situation you bemoan now.

Same with any campaign.

[Pixela]

If anyone wants August trust and can't get a group together just shout for a merc to sell it to you, they don't even charge that much.

[Eradius]

Sure, but you have to admit that it only hurts those that miss out. Just puts other people later in the situation you bemoan now.

Same with any campaign.

How do "more" miss out? It just increases the frequency for a short duration of the event. You'll still end up with interest decreasing slowly, as it already is. But if a regular SR campaign was sliding by every what, 4-6 months, there'd be times people would descend upon the event. This would be the signal for up-and-coming players to prepare for and attend the event at a time that would best attract the interest of others.

At best, you end up with times where its far better to make full parties for it.
At worst, you end up with the exact same situation, just that the speed of interest/disinterest throttles back and forth.

Pointing out that an old FFXI event is ran less than new ones isn't bemoaning. I've had to reply to people jabbing at me for explaining everyone seems to run it for August. When I find a poster like yourself who admits they go for gear, my next thought is "how can we attract more of /this/ type of player" as it seems to be the rare one: a "repeating" Sinister Reign attendee. This is also possible without making the event "easier" as the devs fear, if there were SR campaigns to attract individuals such as yourself to run more often.