Why is it OK to have multiple bosses spawned but not normal force spawn NMs?

[Armauk]

I've been trying to get my emp. +1 gear for a few classes and I run into the same problem almost every time I try to a force spawn NM for seals. There's always multiple groups competing for the same ???. Most of the time people are nice and they will share and take turns but every now and then you get one group who will monopolize the ???. Either way there is always a lot of congestion and results in a lot of wasted abyssea time.

The monopolizer is usually someone with much lower latency than everyone else around the spawn point. They can see the ??? spawn before the other groups can and that means they get it every time. If you know you will always win the claim battle, why should you share? Most of the time, in this situation, they don't share. They just monopolize the spawn point for as long as they need to.

Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of making NMs force spawn? Or am I misunderstanding the point of making more NMs force spawn? I always thought that the hardest part of fighting a notorious monster should be the fight itself. Currently the hardest part of fighting these NMs is getting the claim.

With the current system, you have to sit around and "wait for your turn" while you may not even get that turn. The other group might decide not to share the ??? or another new group could come. There's a lot of congestion at most of the ???'s for seal NMs. On top of that, abyssea is timed. This causes people to waste a lot of their abyssea time and often without any reward to show for it. This is very frustrating to me and a lot of people I know. In my opinion, when you make something have a time limitation you should do everything you can to limit congestion on that activity.

So this is my suggestion. Before I explain let me say that I also think there should be a limit of one NM per party to avoid abuse. Basically, you just have one permanent ??? that never disappears and you would have zero wait time on spawning a new NM after a different group pops. Another way would be to have a new ??? that would immediately respawn after the NM is popped. Either way, after one group pops the NM, another group could always spawn the same NM and fight that NM at the same time. No matter how many groups are want to do the same NM.

Just making three ??? for one NM does not fix the problem. Not that I disagree with what SE did for empy NMs and bosses... I just see that as a temporary "band-aid" type fix. Currently, even with three ???, monopolization is still possible. There can still be more than three groups who want to do the same NM as well. It is a step in the right direction and it shows that SE acknowledges that the problem exists and that's a good thing. I just hope they don't think the problem is fixed because it's not.

[Kwate]

I guess you can't please everyone, I think making multiple bosses is a perfect balance, this is with me just finishing the Sobek portion of Almace (FU Guku), with the fustration I just endured, I still feel normal NM's should be singular, to keep some element of difficulty there.

[Armauk]

I'm going to have to disagree with you. That is not an element of difficulty. Not being able to target the ??? and trade and item before someone is based purely on how fast packets travel from my computer vs the other persons computer. That is given equal conditions other than geographic location. If two people are spamming trade macros and one lives very far from the server and the other lives close to the server, then the person close to server will get it every time. That is not difficulty. It's an imbalanced road block.

[Kraggy]

I still feel normal NM's should be singular, to keep some element of difficulty there.
Because fighting for claim is difficult in any meaningful sense of that word when it comes to playing an MMO?

/EL-OH-EL

If the mechanic was 100% fair to everyone involved and it required S-K-I-L-L to do then fine, if that's what you enjoy (I don't but let's skip that) then at least you'd have a point, but there's nothing 100% fair about this due to the latency issue alone, not to mention the claimbots that are used for ??? just like mobs.

There's nothing difficult about this at all, if your latency is low or you bot it's easy, if you don't and the other guy does it's hard .. something entirely different.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Why is it OK to have multiple bosses spawned but not normal force spawn NMs?I'd caulk it up to laziness and the same reason why they didn't add multilples for KI NMs. Whatever that it.

[Kristal]

I'd caulk it up to laziness and the same reason why they didn't add multilples for KI NMs. Whatever that it.

The criteria for multiple ??? seems to be:
* drops items for empyrean weapons
* zone bosses and their overlords

Adding multiple ???s for every KI NM would likely be too much for a zone. SE would have to reduce the number of mobs.

[Kwate]

I give SE credit for at least making bosses multiple spawn, its a fair compromise.

[Kwate]

Again it's never going to end. SE makes multiple force pop NM's, then people start asking, what about multiple spawn NM's (ie Heqet, Guku), SE has to draw the line somewhere, and I think this is it.

[Armauk]

It's not like I'm saying "Free AF+1 for all!". I just think at least seal dropping NMs should be added to that list of multiple spawns. They already have plenty of limitations in that you need a pop item every time you spawn it and you need to get yellow procs to get plenty of seals to drop. The most I've seen is 4 or 5 groups competing for the same spawn and an extra 3 or 4 mobs in the zone is not going to break the servers.

I would be totally fine with them adding some other form of difficulty. For example, make it so they usually will not drop seals without a yellow proc. Give them more HP/attack/etc to make them harder fights. I don't care. Just as long as it's some form of difficulty that requires skill. Not some form of "difficulty" that requires you to have lower latency that everyone else because that is geographically biased.

[Cream_Soda]

I demand multiple bubbly bernies

[Zyla420]

if they did multiple force spawn NMs you'd have the same problem either way. one pt with more ppl than yours popping all 3 at once and monopolizing them till their pt is done. granted it'd help them finish quicker as well, but if it's a highly sought after NM you're lookin at 2 or more pt's trying to monopolize all three ???'s. won't really solve much all said and done

[Armauk]

if they did multiple force spawn NMs you'd have the same problem either way. one pt with more ppl than yours popping all 3 at once and monopolizing them till their pt is done. granted it'd help them finish quicker as well, but if it's a highly sought after NM you're lookin at 2 or more pt's trying to monopolize all three ???'s. won't really solve much all said and done

That's why I said limit it to one per group/alliance. Also I did not say to make multiple ??? or even use the number 3. I said leave the one ??? that already exists. Then have it not disappear when the NM is popped.

[Malamasala]

I guess you can't please everyone, I think making multiple bosses is a perfect balance, this is with me just finishing the Sobek portion of Almace (FU Guku), with the fustration I just endured, I still feel normal NM's should be singular, to keep some element of difficulty there.

Difficulty? Oh boy I love people like you that think time consuming is difficulty. I'd suggest you go whine about how Dynamis is too easy now that it isn't a 72 hour cool-down.

[Oakrest]

Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of making NMs force spawn? Or am I misunderstanding the point of making more NMs force spawn? I always thought that the hardest part of fighting a notorious monster should be the fight itself. Currently the hardest part of fighting these NMs is getting the claim.

Wow, well said - it's so refreshing to know there are other players out there who don't try to justify these types of gameplay inadequacies.

I just ran into this same thing this morning, with the two ??? for Sobek, and I thought as you did - a permanent ???. I made a somewhat related post about the Gukumatz wait timer (http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/10411-dev-Need-improved-NM-spawn-timers) as well.. just like you say, the hardest part of fighting a notorious monster should be the fight itself.

Like!

[Kwate]

Difficulty? Oh boy I love people like you that think time consuming is difficulty. I'd suggest you go whine about how Dynamis is too easy now that it isn't a 72 hour cool-down.

It's a MMORPG congestion is bound to happen. You adapt and adjust to it.

[Armauk]

It's a MMORPG congestion is bound to happen. You adapt and adjust to it.

Yes, problems like congestion will always exist but that does not mean that you shouldn't take steps to avoid and alleviate them when you can.

Abyssea has time limitations. People shouldn't be forced to stand around and wait for the thing they want to do when they may or may not even get a turn to do it. Congestion in abyssea should be kept at a minimum especially because of the time limitation.

[annewandering]

It is a real bottleneck. We run into it a lot with soloers or even very small groups taking a long time to kill while we stand there waiting. I admire the people who do that but I dont really think its right for us to have to wait forever for them to kill. The three ??? for the main NMs has helped a lot. I see no reason that it wouldnt help the game move along to do the same for the KI NMs.

[Zatias]

Coming from a Sobek KI farm and not being able to pop the Minax Bugard ONE TIME over a period of 1hr 30min to finish the set, I think the zone monopoly is utter bullpoop. It was A SINGLE LS claiming Guku and hogging both Minax and Sirrush while using 2 of the 3 available ???s for Sobek.

Not even kidding. A single Linkshell was farming all three of the KI NMs while burning those KI on 2 of the same Boss. It was a huge waste of time and though I know it was my fault for not leaving the area sooner, this is damn ridiculous.

This is the only HARD (if you call time sink "hard") thing about getting things done; people swarm the NMs and waste most of your day.

[Vitus]

I think SE's philosophy is to create congestion and control to prolong the game's life (i.e Guku controls how fast a server produces a Kanagi). They don't want everyone gets what they want then move on to another game. It might be true in the short term, but in the long term this will come back and bite them. I've been playing this game since NA release and a loyal SE fan but there is no denying this game full of unnecessary roadblock and timesink. Look at FFXIV, the game is based around this concept and it is an utter failure. The model is outdated. SE needs to abolish this thinking if it wants to compete in this date and age. This is definitely my last SE's MMORPG. I'm sure i'm not alone on this.

It is very late... and i don't know what i'm writing about...

[Vitus]

If two people are spamming trade macros and one lives very far from the server and the other lives close to the server, then the person close to server will get it every time. That is not difficulty. It's an imbalanced road block.

This is true. no matter how fast your machine is you can't out pop an average JP popper. The other night, I wasted almost an hour just trying to pop a Kharon against 4 JPs. I could only pop it after they left. This frustrated me to no end.

[Armauk]

This is true. no matter how fast your machine is you can't out pop an average JP popper. The other night, I wasted almost an hour just trying to pop a Kharon against 4 JPs. I could only pop it after they left. This frustrated me to no end.

I feel your pain. It's especially bad when a seal NM drops a KI to spawn a bigger NM.

[Vagrua]

I agree with how it would have been much easier doing seal farming if there weren't other groups at ???s. Luckily some were sincere enough to take turns on NMs or team up to help one another, but still it prolonged the time it took for everyone just because there was only one ??? and not multiple like the bosses. I wonder if the zones/ps2 could handle the added ???s to the Abyssea areas or if it's just work for the development team to do that is not seen as a major issue. I'm sure they had many more complaints for multiple ???s on Empyrean NMs than regular seal farming NMs. I've had the luxury of being at a seal ??? with 4-5 groups at a time and know the pain/stress it can be especially with those greedy groups that just want to hog the ??? all for themselves.

[Nynja]

I allready made a post on this, but it hit a whooping 7 replies
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/threads/9777-May-19th-Version-Update-Abyssea

Atleast the way I worded it made sense: why are there three Orthrus ???'s, but only one Amarok ??? when the only way to get to those 3 Orthrus is through Amarok? You cant get the Amarok KI though Pyxis...

[Khary]

I have to agree, FORCED SPAWN NMs should have multiple pops like the big boss mobs, but time spawned NMs should only have one pop location. All the spawned NMs pop every 10-15mins from what I've seen, which is pretty good imo.

[Ladycandygem]

Personally, my biggest frustration recently is the timed pop NMs. There are several I need so I'll go check on one, and it will be camped. I'll go check on another and it will be camped. Check another... same story. Most days I just give up and afk in Port Jeuno.

If they were force pop people would be done much sooner and leave, but as they have to wait 20 mins or so between fights they are there much longer. It gets so annoying that would would be done in a few hours with no competition will take weeks or longer.

It should not be this hard just to get the opportunity to fight a mob. This is not what makes a game fun.

But I also agree that more ??? for forced pop NMs would be great. There are several I can think of where every single time I have gone to fight them there is a party there.

[Swords]

Personally I think if they had moved the NM's that dropped the KI, away from the higher tier NM's spawn point to begin with you would have avoided alot of the same congestion you have with them now. At the very least, parties would leave for a moment persuing different NM's allowing others to spawn said NM's.

However, it's not perfect but SE introduced different ways of obtaining both seals and KI's. Every seal will drop from at least 3 different NM's, each +2 item will drop from at least 5 or 6 different NM's now, and PI and KI's for most of the more heavily camped NM's and the megabosses can all be obtained from gold chests. After a point, you don't really don't have an excuse other than you were unwilling to persue a different method for getting your seals, +2 items, or KI's.

[Lokithor]

Competition in Abyssea is starting to regress this game back to the bad old days of HNM camping. Here's a scoop. For most players, the old HNM camping was not FUN and neither is this.

This applies to ANY mob that is involved in the KI chain that leads to an NM that drops upgrade items for empyrean weapons. SE actually did a great thing to add 3 ??? spawn points for the final boss but the net effect of this is to increase competition for the prerequisite NMs. The forced pop NMs all need 3 ??? and something also needs to be done about the timed spawn NMs (this one in particular IMO).

The timed spawn NMs are a double whammy when it comes to competition. First, you must compete to get the pull. That's bad enough. BUT, because the KI will only go to the person that got initial hate, you usually need to move initial hate to the right person. That can only be done by having the claimer die and then the person that needs it, claim the mob when it goes yellow. The problem is, we're back to the bad old days of NM stealing. Everyone knows that most claims must get the hate transferred so crowd around the claim ready to voke / flash and steal the claim as soon as the puller dies.

This is not fun.

This could be improved by doing any number of things. Reduce the spawn timer down to 3 minutes. Keep the timed NM but also introduce force pop versions (remember the 3 ???). Make the KI drop not to the person with initial hate but to the party leader (or alliance leader for an alliance).

Just changing how the KI drops will at least reduce it to a compete for claim scenario without the steal claims.

[Armauk]

It's not just KI NMs that also drop seals. At least on my server, there's lots of congestion at the majority of seal NMs including the ones that dont drop KI.

[Geebee]

I can appreciate the need for including more spawn points for the zone bosses, but in practice this needs to be done for all the pop NM's in all abyssea zones, because all you have done is move the congestion from one NM to another that has a single trigger point, My LS has been witness to this 1st hand way to many times to mention over the past 2 weeks and im sure our case is not an isolated one.

for instance yesterday 9th July 2011, a Linkshell friend wanted WAR head papers (luckily only 4) from NM in attowa chasm, we all bought trigger items went to camp and a party were there spamming the NM, we told them we only need WAR seals and asked if we could team pu the COR,WHM,DNC would be free lot, they refused to team up, we asked if we could help them or team up to see if they wanted other Items Proc's (Blue or red)they refused, we asked if we could buy any WAR seals they did not need they refused.................so we were stuck with another trading race to pop the NM they were a Jap party so they were able to pop the NM 75% more then us and we were stuck watching them, THIS IS FAIR AND BALANCED GAMEPLAY!? I DONT THNK SO!
I have played this game for almost 8 years now years and I have never experianced this kind of unfair gameplay, the skill is in the fight not the trading of an item to a ???



There seems to be no reason why this cannot be implemented, Im sure you can help us SE

[Lokithor]

Geebee, while you needed the War head seals from Granite Borer, you were still caught by the congestion on a mob that is part of a KI sequence for a mob that drops Empy weapon upgrades, in this case, Itzpapalotl. Of course it doesn't matter whether you need the seals or the KI, the effect is the same.

So many people now are doing empy weapon trials that the competition is getting unmanageable. We desperately need SE to find a better way or it's back to the bad old days of HNM camp dynamics all over again.

Until SE does something to fix this, if you only need the seals, you might have less frustration by choosing a mob that isn't part of a chain that leads to an Empy weapon item dropping NM. In your case Geebee, you could have considered Kampe instead.

This is not always possible though. In fact, if you have an Abyssea static, you should be looking not only at your armor needs but also your empy weapon needs (even if only for the future) in planning your battles. For example, if your war was going to eventually do the GAxe empy weapon, you'd want to get Granite Borer's KI and do Itzpapalotl yourself. That's the most efficient way to go.

[Oakrest]

We can't forget what the OP said:


... I always thought that the hardest part of fighting a notorious monster should be the fight itself....

Is that not at least one of the greatest things we all loved about playing Final Fantasy games? Right now it's not. Right now the hardest part of the game can be contending with any number of unfair restrictions such as latency and geographic advantages, restrictions on player over-population causing delays between quest progression [non-instance environments], platform restrictions (i.e. PS2), and so on. It sounds deflating I know... but there's hope I'm sure!

I realize SE isn't ready to make FFXI-2 yet (an entire overhaul) but I do still believe much of our frustration (waiting on NM timers for example) can be fixed, all while keeping within the walls FFXI can structurally support (i.e. PS2). It just might take some logical thinking and small steps.

It would be great to have some Community Rep involvement on this thread :) Is it intentional for players to pay a penalty of earth time (by waiting) if we don't get the claim on either the "???" spawn point or spawned NM?

If the FFXI-Dev team answered yes (because say, it would be otherwise too easy), then i'd ask why not make access to the monster easier (as the OP suggested), and fighting the monster itself harder. On the other hand, if they answered yes because the game simply can't support it; say, 15 "???" spawn points at once, I'd be curious to know why, or challenge what could be removed to make room for it :) This gameplay mechanic really needs some careful discussion and could greatly improve a lot of content in Abyssea, it would be great to at least understand what is or isn't possible and some of the options of how it could work differently.

[Zanoza]

However, it's not perfect but SE introduced different ways of obtaining both seals and KI's. Every seal will drop from at least 3 different NM's, each +2 item will drop from at least 5 or 6 different NM's now, and PI and KI's for most of the more heavily camped NM's and the megabosses can all be obtained from gold chests. After a point, you don't really don't have an excuse other than you were unwilling to persue a different method for getting your seals, +2 items, or KI's.

its not a matter of unwilling to get the pop items or KI's for NM's cause it may take longer to get said items from gold chest then it is to get from the mobs in general. My friend and i duo la thiene mega boss on a regular basis for our helms. the other day we ran into a jp pt that came in and took the ??? when we informed them we only had 1 pop left. both I and the other pt spammed our macro. I lost horribly every time since i live in MI. and wasted my time waiting to get pop because they bascilly said FU we own this zone. Having a permenat ??? that a pt can pop only once untill its dead or the multiple pops would easy the congestion alot time spawned NM should be the only NM that we have to "Fight" to claim not a force pop. we took our time to get the pops to fight the NM not other PPL. this kind of MMO has very little to do with pvp. we should work together to get stuff done not be dicks just to get our stuff.

[Glamdring]

the multiple bosses is nice. Unfortunately, all it did is shift the bottleneck down 1 tier to the pop NMs. Honestly, there's usually like 3 groups fighting over Minax now, Guk has his own freaking fan club, etc. It's the same in many of the zones. the VNM gained ones are just as bad with their pop rate being so slow and only a single instance up. Honestly, Think I might just toss my Pyf harp that I hoped to upgrade, colorless souls is gonna suck. Personally, I don't like making obtaining some end-game piece-and for only 1 of my jobs (and the one I only play because someone needs to)-the defining point of my life. Would it be nice to have? Sure. That said, given the choice I'm going to take my girlfriend over camping a VNM every time.

[SubDragon]

Or you can use "All seeing eye" and all the other annoying third party programs that are needed to keep up with the issue.
I've seen NA/EU out claim a ??? from JP's when I asked he said they had no choice but to use a 3rd party program. Mostly JPONRY issues tossing seals in front of them or us being typical JPONRY Rude but same with timed NM's Bots never died they just moved into gukumatz territory
Will the issue be addressed? I doubt it. I'm not trying to sound like a negative nancy but SE likes their roadblocks.
Those of us that play on the xbox or ps2/3 simply must suffer and wait and craft...
I also doubt we'll get a response from a community rep as they erroneously believe they have addressed this issue and well they believe no matter what they do its right and good for the community <Sarcasm>
Still a bit unnerved that crafting is all about synergy now and there is no plans to make any use of those of us in the 90-100 range of our crafts.