Issues with Tier II battlefields

[Kaeviathan]

Tier II contents after those from Divine Might (especially Avatar primes) aren't attracting people's attention. I tried forming parties for it several times, but I have always ended up soloing them myself, because no players wants to join in the fun. It seems people are not interested in papers neither, probably because they got all their papers they need.

There a couple of ways I could see to bring fruitions to these battlefields:
1. Make equipment RARE only, so they can be sold at AH (I don't understand why all these gears got to be RARE/EX).
2. Increase the drop rate on difficulties (Very Easy & Easy) when soloing it (very far-fetched idea, I know. But I really want some of these items very badly!)
3. Let the Trust NPC be able to participate on the battlefields.

If something isn't done, I would be left with my last alternative. /yelling to buy these equipment at a unreasonable price.

[Comeatmebro]

4. make a couple like-minded friends to cover key jobs

some of the bc are unpopular because they lack good drops(shadow lord comes to mind), but most are just not easy to win reliably in a pickup setting at higher difficulties..

normal mode bc drop gear <50% in my experience(.5 gear * .2 piece you want / 6 players = 62.5 runs on average to get a piece like ptica headgear on normal mode.. when other drops suck people tend to group seacom).. if only option is normal mode people start to see these items as unattainable and don't even bother

however, if you make a static group and can win difficult(doesn't even have to be vd for good drop result), you're looking at like (1.25 gear * .2 piece you want / 6 players = ~24 runs to get everyone their stuff).. key difference also being that in a set group once someone gets a drop they're no longer after it

these bcs favor linkshells, set groups, etc.. this is good design, mmorpg are meant to encourage grouping and if you have a good group it lowers time shouting and you can enjoy watching your group improve over time

[Jeanna]

I personally always thought Normal should be guaranteed 1 drop, D 2 drops, VD 3 drops. Getting what you're after on normal difficulty is a pain in the butt. Not even really sure what the point of VE-E is. Go solo and get a free paper I guess?

Taking the ex tag off bc drops is kind of a double edged sword, cause while you could buy what you wanted, at the same time during bc's everyone would just wanna be lotting the rarer/good items that would sell for more.

[Kaeviathan]

these bcs favor linkshells, set groups, etc.. this is good design, mmorpg are meant to encourage grouping and if you have a good group it lowers time shouting and you can enjoy watching your group improve over time

Linkshell members aren't interested in them as well.

[Draylo]

I do them with LS members all the time

[Crevox]

If you make the equipment non-ex then a lot of people will have no reason to do it at all. At the moment, they can go and sell the synthesis drops (depending on what it is, it can be decent) if they wanted money. If you make the equipment non-ex, then people won't even have to run the battlefield to get the loot; they will simply buy it or wait to buy it. The same people already capable of running it will keep running it, and those that aren't doing it (you) aren't given any more incentive to do so. In fact, you've lost incentive because now you can just buy the drops.

The equipment is item level 119, so making the equipment drop on E and VE would defeat the purpose altogether. It's group content, against a boss. The idea is to group up and fight it if you want the equipment drops. E and VE exist for you to learn the mechanics if necessary and practice, while also getting chapters/etc.

As for trusts, again, it reduces the number of people that are going to even bother trying to group if it's doable solo (though I don't think many of them would be doable with trusts).

I personally always thought Normal should be guaranteed 1 drop, D 2 drops, VD 3 drops. Getting what you're after on normal difficulty is a pain in the butt. Not even really sure what the point of VE-E is. Go solo and get a free paper I guess?

Practice, learning the fight. D has guaranteed drops as far as I know (1 guaranteed, chance at multiple). If you're geared up to 119, doing it on D to get that next 119 item much easier shouldn't be difficult. If you're trying to get your first 119 item by doing a fight on N, then yeah, you're gonna have a rough time probably due to the drop rate and competing against others, but there's also a bajillion other ways to get geared up to handle D. If you are worried you don't know the fight mechanics well enough (and strategy) then hey look, there's lower difficulties for you to try out.

Merits aren't hard to get. Spending the 5-30 minutes once to learn the battlefield on a lower difficulty will make higher difficulties that much easier to handle, and everyone will be much more comfortable.

no players wants to join in the fun

Some battlefields just drop really niche gear not many people desire. Some people are lucky that things like Domesticator's Earring (niche) drop out of a battlefield that drops other great gear (macc body) so they can get it easily, but yeah, other times, it's rough.

If you want to do the battlefield, talk to your friends and linkshell. It shouldn't be too difficult to at least get 2-3 other people that will do it, even if it just means helping you out. If you can't fill it up with just friends and linkshell members, once your group is 3~5 out of 6, it shouldn't be difficult to fill the remaining by shouting most of the time, and people are much more likely to jump at the occasion when they see the group is almost full.

You're right that this is a problem; but there exists solutions outside of SE doing something. SE could (and potentially, should) do something that would help out I imagine, but your suggestions are not it.

[Jeanna]

My LS does all bcs (including DM) on D-VD with no difficulties. None of them are hard if you just zerg them with a couple good dds, a buffer, and a smn. (Obviously this strat doesn't apply to them all, but it does to most). The whole having 5 difficulties still seems silly to me. With a thf it's pretty rare that we don't get 2 drops on D. There's almost no incentive to jump up to VD (which is quite a bit harder), and with the crappy drops on Normal or lower, I can see how a lot of people find it not worth their time.

[Olor]

Normal should have better drops. Period. People don't do these because normal has sucky drop rates and D is a crap shoot with Pick up groups. Sorry, some of us don't have very strong/populated linkshells. The game is losing people all the time, and not being able to do content with reasonable chance of reward with strangers is only making it worse.

I have never in my time in the game seen so many linkshells evaporate so quickly... people are dropping like flies. Making content that is unrewarding for pick up groups is the last thing this game needs right now.

I also agree with dropping the ex tag. Because right now if people get the drop they wanted there is zero incentive to keep doing the battle, making it harder to form groups. I almost never see shouts for these - I assume because people who do them do them with their LSes/friends, get their drops and never do them again.

If these were worth money people who had the gear still would have an incentive to participate.

And frankly if my choice is not do the content and not get the item or not do the content and have a way to get the item, I'll choose the latter. Then, at least, if no one else wants to do the battlefield with me, I can still work on my character.

[Ulth]

I've said it once and I will say it again. They should make it so only one person uses a KI for each fight. Then you could do 6 fights on normal and get everyone a piece of gear; problem solved.

[Olor]

I've said it once and I will say it again. They should make it so only one person uses a KI for each fight. Then you could do 6 fights on normal and get everyone a piece of gear; problem solved.

This would help. Needing to get more merits to redo the fight really makes it hard to enjoy the content. So even if you do get a good pickup - you can't do more content with them.

Like so many voidwatches I've done for example you end up doing lots of runs cause the group is rolling good. Can't do that with this content.