Get rid of 8 hour windows for Notorious Monsters

[svengalis]

OKAY I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS SO FUN ABOUT CAMPING A NOTORIOUS MONSTER THAT HAS AN 8 HOUR WINDOW WTF!?????!?! SERIOUSLY THERE IS NOTHING I REPEAT NOTHING FUN ABOUT CAMPING A LOTTERY SPAWN NOTORIOUS MONSTER FOR 8 HOURS WITH NO POP. SO THE NM POPS AND AS SOON AS IT POPS I LOOSE CONNECTION. LUCKY ME MY PARTY MEMBERS KILLED IT BEFORE I GET BACK. 4 HOURS WASTED!!!... WASTED. ON A NM THAT ONLY SPAWNS AT NIGHT WHAT THE F?!??! SERIOUSLY SE?

[Meyi]

Caps locks is cruise control for cool.

I agree that the lottery spawn NMs for Magian weapons do indeed suck. I wouldn't mind seeing something altered. That said, there are so many people with empyrean weapons who obviously went through these trials first, that they can't be that difficult.

[Soranika]

You must be new to the game~

[Mirage]

No need to all caps your shit, but apart from that, you're right. Retardedly long spawn timers are retarded.

[DrStrangelove]

I've done 5 weapons and they were easy. That's 5 x 21=105 kills. 90% were in about 1-1.5 hours and only a few (about 10) went over 3 hours. None were over 5 hours. And that was likely because I wasn't killing the correct placeholder.

Kill the correct PH and don't blame SE. It work's fine.

[Leonlionheart]

It's obviously different for everyone. I've had the spider(for GS and later bow) spawn after 8 hours twice in a row, and I've had KoH spawn EXACTLY on the first PH kill 4 times in a row.

At most, you could probably spend several times longer than getting emp items just camping NMs. At least it can take what, 12 hours? Personally took me 3x as long camping the NMs as it did getting 50gems and 50lanterns.

[DrStrangelove]

It's obviously different for everyone. I've had the spider(for GS and later bow) spawn after 8 hours twice in a row, and I've had KoH spawn EXACTLY on the first PH kill 4 times in a row.

At most, you could probably spend several times longer than getting emp items just camping NMs. At least it can take what, 12 hours? Personally took me 3x as long camping the NMs as it did getting 50gems and 50lanterns.

I didn't do those particular NMs, (I did 30 different ones), so the point maybe is that there could be a NM that needs to be reviewed, not all magian NMs? Then it's a better idea to post exactly which ones are taking excessively long.

However, having said that, the game wasn't designed for every job, every weapon, every piece of gear and every NM to be identical in difficulty. E.g., Bravura is completed in Jeuno, Spharai is completed near NM that agro. (This was more of an issue when we are level 75!) Gems and lanterns are some of the easiest ones to collect, no? Dozens of examples can be posted.

Most of them don't have the issue the OP stated. And none of this looks at whether ALL of the trials for that weapon are as difficult, or whether some parts are unusually easy.

[Soranika]

You know if you're in the process of getting kicked or been kicked, your character stays logged on for one or two minutes. I had an issue going against hovering hotpot where it took a good 8 hours before it spawned and as we were fighting it, I disconnected. I was upset but when I checked the magian spectacles, I got credit for it.

Always check your magian spectacles if you d/c while fighting a mark to see if you got credit or not. Also, little tip, if there's a jp or any group doing the same trials, they have no qualms with you sleeping while they finish it. Well... at least on Bismarck I know cause we're friendly like that.

[Alhanelem]

None of those monsters have set respawn times. It could be 4 hours, it could be 10 minutes. The only asbolute rule is it can't spawn back to back.

I've never had to wait 8 hours for any of those NM trials. More time than I would like, but the OP is taking things to a bit of an extreme level- especially with the bit about how his "allies" killed the monster while he was D/Ced. Things like that are freak occurrences and aren't SE's fault...

[Soranika]

None of those monsters have set respawn times. It could be 4 hours, it could be 10 minutes. The only asbolute rule is it can't spawn back to back.

I've never had to wait 8 hours for any of those NM trials. More time than I would like, but the OP is taking things to a bit of an extreme level- especially with the bit about how his "allies" killed the monster while he was D/Ced. Things like that are freak occurrences and aren't SE's fault...Oh trust me, it happens. It happens frequently. Mention Triple Black Star and/or Hovering Hotpot to people that have a the emp dagger or gun.

I had to wait 8 hours on the cactuar NM in Altepa on the staff trials. I actually left to take care for a few hours after that and waited two more hours for it to spawn when I got back. Did not sleep at all. 5-6 hours (can't remember) on the Opo-Opo NM that came before.

Some NMs have a painstakingly long open window time to spawn. But it feels great when you finally finish it. All those lost hours meant nothing once you finish it. At least for me anyway.

[Alhanelem]

I had to wait 8 hours on the cactuar NM in Altepa on the staff trials.I had this one personally, my longest wait was 4 hours, but the other two were much hsorter.


Some NMs have a painstakingly long open window time to spawn.They don't have a set window time to spawn. Lottery spawns can appear in place of the placeholder anytime it would respawn after being killed. The only time a lotto NM can't appear is the next spawn after the NM was killed. People keep saying "spawn time is approximately X but can be as long as Y" on the wiki, and it's a load of crap. The NM simply has a set, low percent chance to appear instead of the placeholder on each spawn. There is no minimum, nor is there a maximum (sadly) time for the NM to appear.

I spent time hunting Centurio XI for his BLM scrolls years ago, and someone said it took at least an hour to spawn and can take much more than that. The latter part is true, but I debunked the minimum spawn time when I was camping it- I went to the quicksand caves and the NM was up already (guess someone gave up just before it spawned). I killed it. Placeholder appears and I kill it, then Centurio XI pops again. There is NO minimum time. Virtually all lotto NMs follow the same rules.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

They could easily fix this by add ???s that you trade your trial too and it pops the NM. To be fair, say make it once per game day use. This of course wouldn't stop someone else from popping it too and killing with you.

[Xellith]

Only 8 hours? Try 18. I would prefer a cap on the max spawn time personally however -

Its called TRIALS of the magian. You know EXACTLY what you are getting into when you accept the trials since you can research them before hand using the resources available in game and on the net.

I would personally welcome an easing of all spawn conditions across the board. However I'm not holding my breath.

[Gennadi]

Give the OP a tissue and a box of chocolates

[Leonlionheart]

8 hours is EXTREMELY common for some NMs. As I said earlier, KoH spawned 4 times in a row right after PH kills. A friend of mine, without exaggeration, camped the same NM for 9 hours. I've camped rampareau(sp?) for 4 hours, then 3 hours, then 6 hours, then 106 minutes (90min base respawn). The second time I did said NM, it was consecutively 3 hours per kill.

Another attribute is perfect PH killing. You usually AFK between kills, so you may come back 1~15 minutes later than PH spawn. Particularly if you're alone.

It's just a 10 year old system. Was crap then, but we didn't know any better. Now there are 38498274028540 MMOs and reasons to play this one are thinning; this system doesn't help.

[Hayward]

This is exactly why I don't do Physical weapon trials. I never had the patience for many of these NMs when there was no reason to camp them and nothing about these trials changes that fact. Say what you will about Elemental trial weapons, but there aren't nearly the unneccesary barriers and hurdles present that impair timely progress other than the imbalanced frequency of weather patterns and the lack of weather bonuses for avatar trials.

[Juri_Licious]

25+ hours of Black Triple Stars of hunting and I still need one more.

[Arcon]

They don't have a set window time to spawn. Lottery spawns can appear in place of the placeholder anytime it would respawn after being killed. The only time a lotto NM can't appear is the next spawn after the NM was killed.

All three of those statements are wrong. Some NMs do have an actual window and won't spawn before then, and it doesn't even have to appear when the PH would repop, sometimes it can spawn any given time after the PH is killed. And weren't there also NMs that can spawn off themselves? I'm actually not sure about that, but SE added something that can make NMs spawn back-to-back, simply by adding NMs twice. This works for Leaping Lizzy and Black Triple Stars for example, they both have two DAT entries and the second NM can spawn literally within seconds after the first one has been killed.

You don't seem to do much actual NM hunting, I'm guessing you've killed that one NM and it went against what wiki said and now you're playing the rebel who knows it all better. The fact is, some people just don't get the time right. They kill an NM three times, and it never repopped faster than an hour and they set that as minimum repop time and others believe it and don't try it out for themselves. Much on wiki is wrong, there's no doubt about that, but plenty is also right. I always kill PHs all the time and I've killed pretty much every NM in the game, and I found that most lottery NMs have actually a reasonable spawn rate, which can be used to confirm the repop window theory. Keep killing a PH after the NM has died, see how many tries it takes you to get it to repop. Do that a few times then do it again, but start killing two hours after the NM has died. You'll see a vast difference in spawn rates, which is very easily explained by pop windows.


There is no minimum, nor is there a maximum (sadly) time for the NM to appear.

I'm pretty sure maximum time doesn't exist, although some people are absolutely convinced of it. I've had long arguments with them on the topic of Charby, but it was hard to test since it was heavily camped. Maybe it's better now and I can go and finally shut them up.


I spent time hunting Centurio XI for his BLM scrolls years ago, and someone said it took at least an hour to spawn and can take much more than that. The latter part is true, but I debunked the minimum spawn time when I was camping it- I went to the quicksand caves and the NM was up already (guess someone gave up just before it spawned). I killed it. Placeholder appears and I kill it, then Centurio XI pops again. There is NO minimum time. Virtually all lotto NMs follow the same rules.

As I said, just your opinion after you've seen it happen once or twice. I'm very sure most NMs have a minimum wait time before their window opens, which would make sense too.

[Soranika]

25+ hours of Black Triple Stars of hunting and I still need one more.
That nm is HORRIBLE if you're doing it alone. It's one that you most definitely want some one with. I lucked out and was able to get two in one night, but I wouldn't have gotten that second one without the other person the far opposite end of the spawn area, other wise it would have taken me three days to take that thing out. Easily the most frustrating NM of the the dagger and staff trials.

I'm not against doing something about the spawn times, but I'm not supporting it either. Some people have the patience and time to sit down and camp lottery spawn NMs consecutively, with or without bad luck on pop after killing the placeholders. These are the ones you already see with more than one full emp weapons or even woe versions. Those that do not have the patience or time either take their time whenever they play to do one weapon or don't do them at all. It's pretty much working as intended as far as SE is looking at it.

Remember, empyrean weapons are on the same pedestal as relic and mythic weapons, yet unlike those two, it's still completely possible to make one in two weeks time of dedication and lots of KI holders for abyssea NMs. Most people settle for level 85 and move on or keep going. Meanwhile relics still take several weeks of both dedicated farming in dynamis and/or gil spent on currency just to make one under the new dynamis adjustments. Mythics still take a forever and a day.

Point is, complaining isn't going to make a change considering how many people have already gotten over these feets. There's people out there working on these trials that are at level 95 and don't even have full +2 Empyrean armor, let alone even full +1 sets.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Not all if the info is correct, it's only they player's best guess. It took people 6 years to figure out there's 2 LLs.

[Arcon]

Not all if the info is correct, it's only they player's best guess. It took people 6 years to figure out there's 2 LLs.

No? There's nothing to figure out. It has two DAT entries. No testing or even camping at all required, you can literally read it out. And it was known for at least as long as I've been playing, because LS mates told me when I first went to camp it.

[Runespider]

I hate these nms as much as anyone but if not for this kind of system they would of made it kill Fafnir x10 times or something, they could of been a lot more brutal with them. I do agree they should all take no longer than 4 hours though, wasting the entire day getting 1 nm is pretty frigging stupid.

[Jile]

I can see it now.... (new changes to all nm's: All nm's are now able to be spawned by clicking a ??? with the correct pop item in your possession)

/sigh

While timed spawn/windowed nm's annoy everyone (I still hate Charby) if they mash the easy-button on everything, what would be the point in playing and what pride would anyone have for 'any' of their accomplishments?

[Kimikryo]

There is "making the game to easy" and "wasting time on camping a NM"

Very few of this NMs drop anything thats worth it, so you can at least be sure there are no item campers.
Some NMs share trials, and there still are douches that wont team up with you.
Some NMs have a HUGE roaming area, so while you are at the one edge of it, there is a possibility it spawns on the other side, and maybe even is killed by some passer by.

To make this more easy, and less annoying, they could at least take nms with smaller roaming areas. It would be awesome if you had a hint section in the moogle almanach when it was last killed/if it is about to reappear/if it just was killed.
I knew a "botter" (SE got him good and banned him, serves him right, didnt go NM hunting with him very often because I dislike cheaters) that somehow knew where the NMs deathspot was and most of the time, and saif it this spot dissapears, pop time is near. So the game does seem to have this data somewhere.

Why not make it like this:
Its not about to spawn soon: It seems like something evil is lurking in the shadows.
It is spawned: Take care, something evil is roaming freely.
It got killed very recently: The evil has been purged.
Longer time to spawn: The shadows grow darker and the feeling of dread is rising.

[Kristal]

Drooling Daisy, took 4-6 hours per kill. Also, if you dare go afk, either Simurgh will pop on top of you and kill you, or someone looking for Simurgh sees Daisy and kills it for lols while waiting for Sim to pop. Or if you are REALLY unlucky, Simurgh pops on you WHILE fighting DD, and when you get back to the camp after HPing, DD was killed by someone who just started the trail and saw it up.

I don't expect trials to be over in 5 minutes, but some trials take more time then the rest of the trial chain combined...

[Arcon]

The problem is not with the NMs, but with SE's choice of basing their trials on that. SE's choice of artificially increasing this game's lifetime just happened to overlap with another aspect of the game. Doesn't make it better, but this isn't that huge of an issue. Even if it takes two weeks to camp all trial NMs in a path, it's still not bad, considering the reward you're getting.

[Vold]

TL;DR all posts except OP and need to get back to bed, but I'll just quickly say that once upon a time these NMs might have been meant as a "stumble upon" deal due to the lottery system, these days using them for trials and keeping them as is on their timers is blatantly whoring our time for long hours. Or maybe they've always served this purpose and that nice little message we see every... EVERY SINGLE TIME we log into the damn game about having a life outside of the game, has been utter bullcrap.

Spending any longer than 3 hours per pop is very unnecessary. People thought they knew the NM lottery system in this game with their lame LL and VE camping. They thought that maybe Chary was one of the few awful ones. Well, welcome to reality. The NMs that have drops we care nothing about has the longest spawn timers EVER. The hardest part about magian weapons. Yep. Can't wait to do another run on nin for the same NMs I did for war.

[Spiritreaver]

1)None of those monsters have set respawn times. It could be 4 hours, it could be 10 minutes. The only asbolute rule is it can't spawn back to back.

2)I've never had to wait 8 hours for any of those NM trials. More time than I would like, but the OP is taking things to a bit of an extreme level- especially with the bit about how his "allies" killed the monster while he was D/Ced. Things like that are freak occurrences and aren't SE's fault...

Normally agree with your post, well a good number of them, but can't with this one.

@1 Yes, some of the NMs in the physical trials can pop back to back. I know for a certainty that the dhamel in Tahrongi Canyon and Bugbear Strongman can. These two NMs can both have lengthy periods of time between spawns, but with the way their multiple PHs are handled; sometimes the heavens will align and you can get lucky.

and

@2 Drooling Daisy, a NM i had the misfortune of having to camp. This NM is just dumb when it comes to repopping. There is only the one PH and the repop window starts 1 hour after ToD...but can be as long as 8+ hours. For me pops 1 and 2 were each right at an hour. But for # 3, i literally fell asleep on the JP who had partnered with me about 2 hrs in, woke-up some 5 hrs later and still had to wait over an hour for that damned NM to finally pop.

I know i was extremely unlucky on that pop # 3,, because i have since started a multi-attack sword as well and all three pops went like clockwork.

As to DC's, no they aren't all SE's fault. But by that same token they aren't always not SE's fault either. Can't just give SE a blanket pass, because with the download speed i have there is no reason a connection optimized for 56k should DC as often as it does.

[Francisco]

The red text means he's mad.

[Francisco]

Or if you are REALLY unlucky, Simurgh pops on you WHILE fighting DD, and when you get back to the camp after HPing, DD was killed by someone who just started the trail and saw it up.

I'm not going to say you should be able to solo Simurgh, because I really don't know if he can be soloed by whatever job you're on. But I will say, if you can't kill Drooling Daisy before Simurgh kills you, even at level 75, there's a problem.

[Soranika]

This thread has taken the a most hilarious turn. So I'll say this, if you don't want to 'waste' the time camping trial NMs, then don't. No one is forcing you. Trial weapons are not essential to playing the game and having a good time.

With all the empyrean weapon wielders running around, SE has no obligation to change the 10 year old system of lottery spawn NMs. You seem to forget they want you to waste your time so they can still get paid. Still, I want to know if you checked the magian spectacles to see if you got credit instead of complaining about it.

[Dirtyfinger]

This thread has taken the a most hilarious turn. So I'll say this, if you don't want to 'waste' the time camping trial NMs, then don't. No one is forcing you. Trial weapons are not essential to playing the game and having a good time.

With all the empyrean weapon wielders running around, SE has no obligation to change the 10 year old system of lottery spawn NMs. You seem to forget they want you to waste your time so they can still get paid. Still, I want to know if you checked the magian spectacles to see if you got credit instead of complaining about it.

I agree with this 100%, and it's not like every trial NM takes 8 hours anyway. I've done 5 weapon trials and I could count on one hand the amount of times it's taken more than 3 hours to pop.

[Alhanelem]

There are some extreme cases, yes. But these trials are specifically designed to take a certain amount of time (as an average). It's the lack of consistency in the time through, that makes it so frustrating. Someone else might be doing the same trials as you and finish it in half the time (while others might take way longer than you).

[Kimikryo]

No not the NM killing is the waste of time, the idle time while you dont know if it popped just at a place you were not looking or if someone killed it while you went to get your food or took a dump.

I know, there are players that havent to do anyting but ffxi so they dont give a damn about time sitting around doing nothing in ffxi. but there are also ppl that think this is bullshit

[Alhanelem]

if you just sit in one spot, it's your own dang fault if you missed the NM popping out of your vision range...

[cidbahamut]

ITT: Defending archaic and terrible game design.

[Atomic_Skull]

Sounds to me like he didn't know which mob was the PH. Sometime with obscure NM's this information isn't on the Wiki and people have to figure out the PH and it's spawn patterns for themselves. It's not always obvious which is the PH because it may actually spawn in other places than the NM's spawn location (e.g. Intulo) and sometimes the Wiki information is just wrong (Megalobugard's wiki info was wrong for years)

[Kimikryo]

no there arent nms that can spawn in a FRIGGIN huge area which cant be seen in visual range just like that. they all exactly in front of you with not reason to run around.

and I dont know about you, but I dont play FFXI while pooping or cooking. and no you cant allways wait till the next pop when nature calls

[Atomic_Skull]

ITT: Defending archaic and terrible game design.

Part of the game's appeal is it's oldschool design. If you don't like the fact that this is an EQ clone then why are you playing it? There are plenty of MMOs out there that are closer to what you want.


no there arent nms that can spawn in a FRIGGIN huge area which cant be seen in visual range just like that. they all exactly in front of you with not reason to run around.

Yes actually there are, Black Triple Stars and Deadly Dodo are two such NM's But you should be using /RNG when NM hunting away.


and I dont know about you, but I dont play FFXI while pooping or cooking. and no you cant allways wait till the next pop when nature calls

Why aren't you teaming up with others to get the spawn?

[Kimikryo]

yeah right, because not everyone kisses blind the behinds that are shown to him, he should stop playing a game. Yay!

[Atomic_Skull]

yeah right, because not everyone kisses blind the behinds that are shown to him, he should stop playing a game. Yay!

If the game doesn't appeal to his sensibilities then yet he should stop playing it and find one that does. There are plenty of WoW style casual MMOs out there so it won't be hard.

[Kimikryo]

you dont like it when somebody points out flaws in ffxi right? if someone does this he needs to get easier mmos! gogo away everyone that has ideas to improve the game, go to WoW blizzard listens to their customers, SE doesnt care!

[cidbahamut]

Clearly I'm just not allowed to enjoy the good parts of the game if I dare to break the taboo of criticizing the bad parts.

[Kensagaku]

I have to say, I think that it's really just bad luck on the OP's part. I've done several rounds of weapon trials (I did a Masa back in the day before degearing my SAM at 80 and stopping at the VNM point... I regret tossing my GK now, as well as a Kannagi, an OAT Sword, and am working on an Armageddon), and I've never really had much bad luck on NMs. Masa had some annoyances, I remember the spider was a pain to spawn once. Kannagi? That dang rabbit, Ratatoskr or whatever... that was a pain. The rest weren't a problem, though I might have gotten lucky. Bugbear Strongman spawned from himself on my 3rd and 4th kills, which was nice, and on Hotpot I ended up with five other players to ease the headache, who let me AFK one kill. None of the pops took more than 2 hours or so.

My point here isn't to brag, it's more so to show that it's luck. These are Notorious Monsters, rare creatures who have unique loot. Don't get me wrong, I didn't say relevant loot to here and now, but it's supposed to be unique and something you don't pick up casually. These mobs have spawn conditions you have to meet, and then it's no guarantee. Yeah, it's a bit of a time sink at times, but it could be worse. Honestly I've always been more annoyed at converting a clear abyssite to a colorful after 30+ kills, then having it change to a T3 on the first kill after.

Don't like the respawn time? Spend that hour or so of downtime that most NMs have and either go do something else in the game, or if you're going to toss out the RL card, then go do something else. If you only can kill one NM per day (not one trial, just one NM kill on a particular trial), because you don't have much playtime? Just do that. You don't have the time to blaze through an Empyreal WS in a week, that's understandable. Take your time, and work with what time you have, you'll get there even if it takes you a lot longer. You have more RL commitments (or a shorter attention span, more likely) than people who finish off their trial NMs in a day.

tl;dr: NMs can be fickle but generally aren't too bad, and if you want an Empy in a week, free up some time or shut up and take what time you have with your RL situation. No easy button for an already easy weapon.

[Dirtyfinger]

you dont like it when somebody points out flaws in ffxi right? if someone does this he needs to get easier mmos! gogo away everyone that has ideas to improve the game, go to WoW blizzard listens to their customers, SE doesnt care!

I don't think you realise that it isn't a flaw in the game, it's been pointed out several times that it is in fact a time sink.

I'd run out of fingers listing all the time sinks in this game (and they'll be in the other games, MMO or not). Be it from NM timers, relic weapons or crafting & fishing - it's what keeps the player base playing, and for longer durations. If things were easier and quicker in these aspects then everyone would have done everything by now and perhaps would have quit. Or alternatively Square-Enix would have had to invest in several more expansions to keep everyone active, which costs them a lot of money to do.

Think about the amount of man hours that have come to the above from everyone that has participated since the creation of FFXI, then consider how much profit that has made Square-Enix.

[Zhronne]

That reminds me about that time where in 3 days I almost saw more Bloodtear Baldruffs than Lumbering Lamberts >__>
The second time I did it was much smoother.

Friend of mine had to wait 20hrs for a repop. That's a VERY RARE occurrence, but it can happen.
Tbh all these small nms should need is a max window, like there was one for the old HNMs (21-24). You had big opening windows, but also there was a CLOSING ONE.
All these silly NMS should have a max window too. Make it 3 hours, 4, 5... I don't care, but don't leave it potentially infinite as it is now.
It's very annoying indeed.

Now I'd love to add how much most lv95 magian trials sucked and had retarded conditions for retarded upgrades, but I guess I'll leave that for another thread... [/rantoff]

[Soranika]

If a person have real life commitments and responsibilities, they clearly need to readjust their priorities as to how much time they allow themselves to play the game and what activities they participate in during their free time. SE has taken great strides over the last year and a half to make the game more open to those who are more time conscious... And that's how we ended up with Abyssea, easy leveling with a trade off of less informed and improperly equipped and/or skilled whiners... I mean players, among other things.

[svengalis]

Caps locks is cruise control for cool.

I agree that the lottery spawn NMs for Magian weapons do indeed suck. I wouldn't mind seeing something altered. That said, there are so many people with empyrean weapons who obviously went through these trials first, that they can't be that difficult.

Well I was kinda pissed yesterday but I have cooled off now.

[svengalis]

25+ hours of Black Triple Stars of hunting and I still need one more.
This is the NM I am talking about... I logged off after I missed that opportunity to kill.

[svengalis]

That nm is HORRIBLE if you're doing it alone. It's one that you most definitely want some one with. I lucked out and was able to get two in one night, but I wouldn't have gotten that second one without the other person the far opposite end of the spawn area, other wise it would have taken me three days to take that thing out. Easily the most frustrating NM of the the dagger and staff trials.

I'm not against doing something about the spawn times, but I'm not supporting it either. Some people have the patience and time to sit down and camp lottery spawn NMs consecutively, with or without bad luck on pop after killing the placeholders. These are the ones you already see with more than one full emp weapons or even woe versions. Those that do not have the patience or time either take their time whenever they play to do one weapon or don't do them at all. It's pretty much working as intended as far as SE is looking at it.

Remember, empyrean weapons are on the same pedestal as relic and mythic weapons, yet unlike those two, it's still completely possible to make one in two weeks time of dedication and lots of KI holders for abyssea NMs. Most people settle for level 85 and move on or keep going. Meanwhile relics still take several weeks of both dedicated farming in dynamis and/or gil spent on currency just to make one under the new dynamis adjustments. Mythics still take a forever and a day.

Point is, complaining isn't going to make a change considering how many people have already gotten over these feets. There's people out there working on these trials that are at level 95 and don't even have full +2 Empyrean armor, let alone even full +1 sets.

Well if that was true it would still take more then a few days to reach level 75.

[svengalis]

This thread has taken the a most hilarious turn. So I'll say this, if you don't want to 'waste' the time camping trial NMs, then don't. No one is forcing you. Trial weapons are not essential to playing the game and having a good time.

With all the empyrean weapon wielders running around, SE has no obligation to change the 10 year old system of lottery spawn NMs. You seem to forget they want you to waste your time so they can still get paid. Still, I want to know if you checked the magian spectacles to see if you got credit instead of complaining about it.

No I did not get credit.

[svengalis]

I don't think you realise that it isn't a flaw in the game, it's been pointed out several times that it is in fact a time sink.

I'd run out of fingers listing all the time sinks in this game (and they'll be in the other games, MMO or not). Be it from NM timers, relic weapons or crafting & fishing - it's what keeps the player base playing, and for longer durations. If things were easier and quicker in these aspects then everyone would have done everything by now and perhaps would have quit. Or alternatively Square-Enix would have had to invest in several more expansions to keep everyone active, which costs them a lot of money to do.

Think about the amount of man hours that have come to the above from everyone that has participated since the creation of FFXI, then consider how much profit that has made Square-Enix.

Now think about all the people who have quit because of those time sinks and think about all the profit they could have had. I'm pretty confident most of the player base that plays now did not play 8 years ago. Casual gamers rule the industry whether you guys like to admit that or not.

[Dirtyfinger]

While true and we can only speculate this - How many people would have quit due to a lack of content if the time sinks weren't there? Square-Enix would have been forced to expand the game or face a completely dead game. People quit now because of the lack of content, and above all Square-Enix hasn't spent much on expanding.

[svengalis]

The reason I didn't specify which NM it was was because I ran into the same problem sort of while camping Namtar for GA. The random windows is annoying but Black Triple Stars adds to the mix by only spawning at night. There's a 24 min window for his spawn which gives you 4 chances to kill PH in hopes that it will spawn. If it doesn't you have to wait 36 mins til next window. Little bit ridiculous I think.

[Luvbunny]

This long spawn time is a big BS... it should be 30-60 mnts respawn time. At most 90 mnts.

[Soranika]

Now think about all the people who have quit because of those time sinks and think about all the profit they could have had. I'm pretty confident most of the player base that plays now did not play 8 years ago. Casual gamers rule the industry whether you guys like to admit that or not.That's a rather hard, yet inaccurate fact to swallow.

I joined FFXI fully knowing what kind of MMO it was and it's a disturbing to sit here and play the game for what it is and enjoy it but to have a new wave of people rush in and like "NO NO NO! That's wrong, change it!" doesn't settle well. In that case, I tell casual gamers to go find another game to play that will cater to them if they want to do everything and own everything the game with minimum to little effort or time spent.

[Camiie]

I don't mind a challenge. It's just that with these NMs, there is no challenge except the waiting and the randomness. You wait for hours one-shotting too weak place holders and spend a few seconds at most killing your not so notorious monster. I'd rather they give me something harder to kill and let me do it in my own time. Maybe give people an option! Trial of Patience or Trial of Skill. Eh, what am I thinking? Options are for other games! This is FFXI! It's the Moogle's way or the highway!

[Leonlionheart]

I don't mind a challenge. It's just that with these NMs, there is no challenge except the waiting and the randomness. You wait for hours one-shotting too weak place holders and spend a few seconds at most killing your not so notorious monster. I'd rather they give me something harder to kill and let me do it in my own time. Maybe give people an option! Trial of Patience or Trial of Skill. Eh, what am I thinking? Options are for other games! This is FFXI! It's the Moogle's way or the highway!

Quoted for hardcore truth.

Nothing in this game truly takes skill anymore, hasn't really since ToAU. Maybe getting 40k/hour meripos took a bit of skill, but it really boiled down to whether you're an idiot or not, or simply if you have the gear for it.

[Soranika]

I don't mind a challenge. It's just that with these NMs, there is no challenge except the waiting and the randomness. You wait for hours one-shotting too weak place holders and spend a few seconds at most killing your not so notorious monster. I'd rather they give me something harder to kill and let me do it in my own time. Maybe give people an option! Trial of Patience or Trial of Skill. Eh, what am I thinking? Options are for other games! This is FFXI! It's the Moogle's way or the highway!
Pfft... you think I touched a the cure potency staff trial? No bueno.

[Eric]

They should make Argus a Trial NM.

[scaevola]

Honestly there were so many terrible decisions that went into the design of this game that I can't bring myself to be upset about them anymore.

I think this is called "Going Vonnegut".

EDIT: I think it's actually pretty safe to say casual gamers don't play this game, if only because 95% of the industry is better suited to them so why bother?

[Tsukino_Kaji]

I think it's actually pretty safe to say casual gamers don't play this game, if only because 95% of the industry is better suited to them so why bother?A very large portion of the populous is made up of the casual market. The current endgame isn't even "hardcore," it's just more "wait to get in" bull.

[DrStrangelove]

I guess this has had ample discussion, so now what?

There are about 400 NM in the game below level 85. Let's be sure, just because this thread is about magian weapons, it does not mean that the multitudes of casual games are happy with all the other pop conditions. This thread simply happens to be reflective of less than 10% of the NM. People who do other quests for timed spawned, forced spawned or lottery spawned mobs are equally interested in fixes. (Yup people even complain about waiting 15 minutes for repops!)

So let's start: SE does not have unlimited resources. Oh oh... so the snapping fingers or nose twitching tricks won't work.

What are people going to ask SE to stop working on so THIS can get done?

Job abilities?
Spells?
Relics?
Mythics?
Warps?
Graphic displays?
Drop rates?
Weapon Skills?
Avatars? Beasts? Puppets? Wyverns?
AF+3?
AF+2?
AF+1?
Salvage?
Dynamis?
Limbus?
Food?
Abyssea?
Fishing?
Synthesis?
Synergy?
Inventory space?
Auction House?
XP?
WOE?
Voidwatch?
Monthly payments?
Level 99?
Merits?
Job balance?

This is just 29 of maybe 100 we could easily list.

Please can you just list 20 out of these 29 so SE can see how serious you are about fixing NM spawns times so they will stop and work on these 400 NM?

If you can't list 20 then, I think it shows that SE has the priorities just right. This is NOT a big deal. If you can, then we have a chance at giving SE a productive insight to the causal player base.

[cidbahamut]

So let's start: SE does not have unlimited resources. Oh oh... so the snapping fingers or nose twitching tricks won't work.

What are people going to ask SE to stop working on so THIS can get done?


A better question would be "why don't they have enough staff to add this to the list already?"

[Leonlionheart]

I think this thread begs the question,

What is Hardcore?

Is it just patience and waiting a long time?

Or is it playing a long time enough to become a skilled player, and therefore able to partake in harder content?

(if you pick the former, you've played too much FFXI)

[Alhanelem]

Hardcore is playing WAR or MNK or whatever bandwagon job the elitists are playing at ay given time, getting an empyrean/relic/mythic, and killing everything in sight

Disclaimer: Not serious, only taking a stab.

[Arcon]

They should make Argus a Trial NM.

And Noble Mold and Almighty Apkallu.

[DrStrangelove]

A better question would be "why don't they have enough staff to add this to the list already?"

I don't work at SE or a software development company, but I do have lots of experience working at companies. This is what the issue is imo:

Let's say for argument that a company has 156 weeks of work. How does it get it done?

1) 3 people for 1 year and expect more work will come along afterwards
2) 6 people for 26 weeks and really hope and try to get more work but expect to terminate some or have them getting paid while doing nothing
3) 12 people for 13 weeks and have no real hope of keeping them, so expect to fire a lot or pay people to sit around and even have some quit unexpectedly

Now these choices are all different in different industries. Programmers and developers who have worked at the company longer likely understand the product and goals better, while new ones are likely not to. Keeping people enhances continuity but if there are too many it's gonna cost money to keep them if there is no work. But if you lay them off, a lot of people may choose to not work with you. If people see no work on the horizon they just may leave on their own.

So, while it's swell to say why don't they have enough staff to add this request to an endless every growing, swelling to-do list, the answer is simple. No company really works that way. No one has enough staff to do everything possible right away all at the same time. Microsoft doesn't. Intel, AMD and HP don't. The Pentagon doesn't. The Yankees don't. NBC and Verizon don't. Walmart doesn't.

So, the question (only IMO) stands: What as the player base are we willing to say to SE "Don't do these 20 things yet! We want all NM with a lottery spawn time to be fixed?" If we can't find a bunch of things then, this thread is a 'nice to have' item, and the fact is that SE mostly (not always) seems focused on what the player base says they 'need to have.'

In this forum, there are many topics that this is more important than? Just asking...

[Leonlionheart]

Hardcore is playing WAR or MNK or whatever bandwagon job the elitists are playing at ay given time, getting an empyrean/relic/mythic, and killing everything in sight

Disclaimer: Not serious, only taking a stab.

the real elitists play PUP because they think they are so good they can even make the bad jobs good

Disclaimer: Not serious, only taking a stab.

[Alhanelem]

zinnnnngggg

[Yokoh]

to the OP.

TO be able to have a powerful weapon, you must work for it, the NM's are all relatively easy. Time is a good healer, time is power, time is everything. Without time, you cannot focus your energy.

To be able to say YES! i completed this weapon over a long time, working hard, it feels great to have it now!

This is what achievements are, this is how people become proud of possessions. If everything was a 5min re-pop, where is the challenge? Where is the pride and honor?

Welcome to Final Fantasy 11, work hard, or die trying.

and 8hours... it used to be a lot worse, try 21-24 hours for a NM or even up to 72 hours for a CHANCE pop...

[Varlan]

to the OP.

TO be able to have a powerful weapon, you must work for it, the NM's are all relatively easy. Time is a good healer, time is power, time is everything. Without time, you cannot focus your energy.

To be able to say YES! i completed this weapon over a long time, working hard, it feels great to have it now!

This is what achievements are, this is how people become proud of possessions. If everything was a 5min re-pop, where is the challenge? Where is the pride and honor?

Welcome to Final Fantasy 11, work hard, or die trying.

and 8hours... it used to be a lot worse, try 21-24 hours for a NM or even up to 72 hours for a CHANCE pop...

In my opinion, this is crazy talk. Just because it's better than it was, doesn't make it better. The whole system is against the players and drags things out longer than it has to. This whole business about sitting around in the game in one spot for hours just isn't cool. Again, that's my opinion.

[Camiie]

to the OP.

TO be able to have a powerful weapon, you must work for it, the NM's are all relatively easy. Time is a good healer, time is power, time is everything. Without time, you cannot focus your energy.

To be able to say YES! i completed this weapon over a long time, working hard, it feels great to have it now!

This is what achievements are, this is how people become proud of possessions. If everything was a 5min re-pop, where is the challenge? Where is the pride and honor?


Where is the challenge? Good question. There is none in this part of the magian process. It doesn't start to become even remotely challenging until you reach the VNM stage. At least some of those have a chance to kill us. No, the NM camping stage is pure tedium.

Tedium is not challenge. Tedium doesn't test anything except how long you have to play or how long your connection can keep you online while you afk and leech the NM kill.

Where is the pride and honor you ask? I'm proud of my WS based and elemental magian weapons. I'm proud of my +1 and +2 AF3. I'm honored that people have helped me with much of this. I'm proud I was able to solo some of them. None of these were all that hard, but pride and honor? Yep, they're still there.

Now I'll ask you the most important question of all when it comes to gaming. Where is the fun? To me, there's no fun in camping these otherwise worthless NMs. That's the problem. I'm playing a game, but this part isn't fun. It also isn't challenging. Not fun.. not challenging...just tedious... What is a game supposed to be again?

I really don't get why people defend these types of systems within FFXI. To each their own, I suppose, but I surely don't understand it. I've seen people defend the old style 21-24 hour HNM systems by saying that they can go watch TV, play other games, or do web chat between windows. Am I the only one who sees something inherently wrong with that? Why are you paying SE $12.95 a month to watch TV and play other games? I don't want to stand around and wait. I want to play the game. If I wanted to do those things I'd log off and do them. Luckily they changed the HNM system even if it was after it was already obsolete. It's time to look at these NMs as well. They more than likely won't of course, but they need to.


SE, in the future, when you design content your first priority should be FUN. Right now your focus is solely delaying people's progress to keep them playing longer. I realize that's important to your business, and I do understand that. Making things fun, where people want to do them whether there's something to be gained or not, is an excellent way to keep people playing. I'm not saying there's no fun in FFXI, but it certainly seems to be an afterthought especially where high-end or endgame content is concerned.

[Zarchery]

If it's not fun, and this is a game (as opposed to your job or other responsibility) why are you doing it?

[Camiie]

If it's not fun, and this is a game (as opposed to your job or other responsibility) why are you doing it?

You should read to the end of a post:


I'm not saying there's no fun in FFXI, but it certainly seems to be an afterthought especially where high-end or endgame content is concerned.


There are aspects of the game I enjoy. This is not one of them. Now, I know what you'll say, "If you don't want to do it then don't!" Ah, but at some point if you want to improve your character, you have little choice. And to me that's what the RPG in MMORPG is all about; improving your character. My point is, why can't we improve our characters, even to the highest of the high end AND have fun doing it? Why can't it be both? In fact it SHOULD be both. If it's not, it's missing the point entirely.

Should it be a progressively challenging process? Sure! Should it be tedious? Only if you're really bad at it.

[Kimikryo]

And Noble Mold and Almighty Apkallu.
I thought Mighty Apkallu IS included in a trial?

[Arcon]

I thought Mighty Apkallu IS included in a trial?

If you mean Almighty Apkallu, that would surprise me. Which one?

[FrankReynolds]

I'm all for a challenge, I don't even mind the time. It's not playing though. If there was something I could do in game during the 8 hours, that would be different, but since I'm sitting in a level 20 zone, and i'm on a level 95 job, and the spawn window is like 5 minutes, I literally have to just sit there doing nothing.

I mean, I would craft or something, But I have no room for items. >.<

No challenge. Nothing to take pride in. Just boring. They should have just made this part like : Kill 100 of these stupid low level normal mobs instead. That way you could at least stomp something weak instead of just waiting around.

[Soranika]

Waiting hours on end for a NM to pop isn't a challenge, it's just comes down to luck of the draw... spawn... whatever.

It's not fun, but it doesn't make anything any particularly harder. But you say nothing to take pride in, I giggle because it's post like these that make me feel good about sticking it through instead of going in a raging fit because an MMO, a game, tested my patience. You know, back when I was younger, games did that, so I'm cool with it.

[Camiie]

Waiting hours on end for a NM to pop isn't a challenge, it's just comes down to luck of the draw... spawn... whatever.

It's not fun, but it doesn't make anything any particularly harder. But you say nothing to take pride in, I giggle because it's post like these that make me feel good about sticking it through instead of going in a raging fit because an MMO, a game, tested my patience. You know, back when I was younger, games did that, so I'm cool with it.


Which games back when you were younger tested your patience by having your character stand around for hours on end waiting? I've been around gaming since the Atari 2600 and while I admit there are many games I never played, I don't recall games like this. Are you talking about Everquest? I'd love to know what games these were so I can avoid them if I ever get in the mood to play old games I never tried.

See the problem isn't that our patience is being tested... it's HOW. Test my patience with a lengthy dungeon full of interesting things to fight. Test my patience by having me kill level relevant things and earn points toward a goal. Test my patience with interesting quest and mission lines where I travel the world.

Don't test my patience by having me wait around for 2 hours for an NM that takes 2 seconds to kill.

[Kimikryo]

with fishing you often sit around for hours doing nothing but waiting until the fish bites

but.. is this a game?

[Soranika]

Which games back when you were younger tested your patience by having your character stand around for hours on end waiting? I've been around gaming since the Atari 2600 and while I admit there are many games I never played, I don't recall games like this. Are you talking about Everquest? I'd love to know what games these were so I can avoid them if I ever get in the mood to play old games I never tried.lol I didn't mean standing around. Games that were really hard that smashes your face in for a single mistake and save feature didn't exist in many of them... or even frustration of remember passcodes to continue in those that didn't have the de facto save system that we know today.

[Camiie]

lol I didn't mean standing around. Games that were really hard that smashes your face in for a single mistake and save feature didn't exist in many of them... or even frustration of remember passcodes to continue in those that didn't have the de facto save system that we know today.


Ah, well I'm not sure I want it to be THAT mean to us, but I'd still take something hard that I can do on my own time over this pure pointless tedium.

[FrankReynolds]

Waiting hours on end for a NM to pop isn't a challenge, it's just comes down to luck of the draw... spawn... whatever.

It's not fun, but it doesn't make anything any particularly harder. But you say nothing to take pride in, I giggle because it's post like these that make me feel good about sticking it through instead of going in a raging fit because an MMO, a game, tested my patience. You know, back when I was younger, games did that, so I'm cool with it.

I have finished weapons, and will finish more, but can you honestly say that if the pop nm part was all you had to do that you would take any pride in that weapon?

Finishing the harder parts requires some degree of skill / dedication. the 8 hour pop level 30 nms are just lame. No one is gonna brag about killing trumbling truffle or w/e its called 3 times.

[Cowardlybabooon]

The spawn time is to deter you from getting WoE versions. Its for your own good.

But yeah I think we should get full powered empy weaponskills at level 1 after killing bubbly Bernie. That way we could have life be FAIR so that lazy people get everything too. Obama sucks :-)

[FrankReynolds]

The spawn time is to deter you from getting WoE versions. Its for your own good.

Well in that case, it actually works. No way i'm going to build an WOE version of anything that I might want to Remake as the full version later. I haven't done anything but hang out in latheine/buburimu/carpenter's landing for the last 3 days. I think I will just build the full version, and toss these coins.


But yeah I think we should get full powered empy weaponskills at level 1 after killing bubbly Bernie. That way we could have life be FAIR so that lazy people get everything too. Obama sucks :-)

erm.........lol?

[svengalis]

The spawn time is to deter you from getting WoE versions. Its for your own good.

But yeah I think we should get full powered empy weaponskills at level 1 after killing bubbly Bernie. That way we could have life be FAIR so that lazy people get everything too. Obama sucks :-)

Come on your just making stuff up. There is nothing wrong with woe weapons. They still have one of the best weapon skills in the game. I am working on my third one and I am proud of it. They take 1/10th of the time(unless you have friends or ls members stupid enough to farm them for you) and effort to do.

[FrankReynolds]

Come on your just making stuff up. There is nothing wrong with woe weapons. They still have one of the best weapon skills in the game. I am working on my third one and I am proud of it. They take 1/10th of the time(unless you have friends or ls members stupid enough to farm them for you) and effort to do.

I don't know, I decided I was going to do WOE to make H2H when I finished Kanaggi. I think it took me almost as long to get 20 coins as it did to get 50/50 helms and skins. And after getting full length pops on almost every one of the first 3 trials for H2H, I think I'm gonna toss the coins and just make the full version now. WOE doesn't seem worth the effort unless you want to build like 10 weapons out of all the crap coins that you weren't after.

Edit: In short, if they were trying to scare me into not doing the trials twice...... it worked.

[Atomic_Skull]

MMORPG's are more like hobbies than games.

[Zarchery]

There are aspects of the game I enjoy. This is not one of them. Now, I know what you'll say, "If you don't want to do it then don't!" Ah, but at some point if you want to improve your character, you have little choice. And to me that's what the RPG in MMORPG is all about; improving your character. My point is, why can't we improve our characters, even to the highest of the high end AND have fun doing it? Why can't it be both? In fact it SHOULD be both. If it's not, it's missing the point entirely.

Should it be a progressively challenging process? Sure! Should it be tedious? Only if you're really bad at it.

The thing is, you need bottlenecks like this or else you blast through everything too quickly and are left bored saying "What now?" I'm seeing a lot of this with the backlash against the expansion of Voidwatch. Abyssea made everything too easy. People blasted through all that too quickly, and now complain that Voidwatch is too hard or too boring. Grind slowly or progress too rapidly and end up bored; pick your poison.

[svengalis]

I don't know, I decided I was going to do WOE to make H2H when I finished Kanaggi. I think it took me almost as long to get 20 coins as it did to get 50/50 helms and skins. And after getting full length pops on almost every one of the first 3 trials for H2H, I think I'm gonna toss the coins and just make the full version now. WOE doesn't seem worth the effort unless you want to build like 10 weapons out of all the crap coins that you weren't after.

Edit: In short, if they were trying to scare me into not doing the trials twice...... it worked.

You only need 30 coins per weapon. I'm usually done with the NM part of the trial in a few days or so. You can solo some empyreans but it takes FOREVER that way. I know some people who solo/soloed em. Also it takes way more effort put into and time. TO ME they are not worth it, especially if you are like me and hardly ever play the jobs you are farming one for. If you play the job a lot then by all means farm an empyrean. Kannagi/Almace is probably the easiest and less time consuming path to take. Chloris and Ulhushida are easy but damn Chloris is hell to farm. To each his own.

[FrankReynolds]

The thing is, you need bottlenecks like this or else you blast through everything too quickly and are left bored saying "What now?" I'm seeing a lot of this with the backlash against the expansion of Voidwatch. Abyssea made everything too easy. People blasted through all that too quickly, and now complain that Voidwatch is too hard or too boring. Grind slowly or progress too rapidly and end up bored; pick your poison.

They could have made the bottleneck into: Kill X amount of this mob, or Do blah blah blah, or complete this quest etc.

Standing around is just that. If thats really all they want, why not just have the moogle say "ok, you have activated trial 68. Come back in 4 days to complete it."

That way you could still play the game while wasting the prerequisite amount of time, instead of just standing there.


You only need 30 coins per weapon. I'm usually done with the NM part of the trial in a few days or so. You can solo some empyreans but it takes FOREVER that way. I know some people who solo/soloed em. Also it takes way more effort put into and time. TO ME they are not worth it, especially if you are like me and hardly ever play the jobs you are farming one for. If you play the job a lot then by all means farm an empyrean. Kannagi/Almace is probably the easiest and less time consuming path to take. Chloris and Ulhushida are easy but damn Chloris is hell to farm. To each his own.

Yeah, the problem is that I only want to build 1, maybe 2 WOE weapons, and a Twashtar. So far getting the coins has been more of a pain than farming the items for the real weapon would have been. That would not be the case with twash, but......that's the one I'm definitely gonna make a real weapon. I Guess I'll find out when I get to the chloris stage.

[Glamdring]

OKAY I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS SO FUN ABOUT CAMPING A NOTORIOUS MONSTER THAT HAS AN 8 HOUR WINDOW WTF!?????!?! SERIOUSLY THERE IS NOTHING I REPEAT NOTHING FUN ABOUT CAMPING A LOTTERY SPAWN NOTORIOUS MONSTER FOR 8 HOURS WITH NO POP. SO THE NM POPS AND AS SOON AS IT POPS I LOOSE CONNECTION. LUCKY ME MY PARTY MEMBERS KILLED IT BEFORE I GET BACK. 4 HOURS WASTED!!!... WASTED. ON A NM THAT ONLY SPAWNS AT NIGHT WHAT THE F?!??! SERIOUSLY SE?

at least give out Preparation H with the trial, this pain in my ass is killing me...

Honestly, this is a game, isn't it supposed to be fun? I could get a job hand cleaning septic tanks in 2nd Life and it would be just as fun as doing empy trials.

[Olor]

Voidwatch is too hard or too boring. Grind slowly or progress too rapidly and end up bored; pick your poison.

Voidwatch IS NOT hard. I just tried it for the first time this week and I was astounded by the fact that if anything the NMs were easier than abyssea NMs (no brew), what with multiple proc freezing and temps out the arse

It is, in fact, boring to stand around waiting for people to get to the battlefield, however.

As for "progressing too fast" leaving people bored - that's bonkers. If people are running out of stuff to do in game they should probably just play less. The game shouldn't be designed to require you to play it like a full time job. It's simply not healthy - and will drive normal people with lives to games that don't punish you for having other things to do.

[Kimikryo]

The game shouldn't be designed to require you to play it like a full time job. It's simply not healthy - and will drive normal people with lives to games that don't punish you for having other things to do.

1000 times this

although it kinde feels this thread gos offtopic more and more

[FrankReynolds]

As for "progressing too fast" leaving people bored - that's bonkers. If people are running out of stuff to do in game they should probably just play less. The game shouldn't be designed to require you to play it like a full time job. It's simply not healthy - and will drive normal people with lives to games that don't punish you for having other things to do.

I would even settle for a full time job. Waiting on these lame NMS is more like sitting in traffic trying to get to work :P

[svengalis]

I'm on my last dagger trial lottery NM and I have to say dagger has been the worst so far. I don't think I can even bother with doing this trial again... I was doing woe weapons as a placeholder if I ever decided to do the Empyrean version but yeah... I won't ever be farming an Empyrean dagger.

[FrankReynolds]

I'm on my last dagger trial lottery NM and I have to say dagger has been the worst so far. I don't think I can even bother with doing this trial again... I was doing woe weapons as a placeholder if I ever decided to do the Empyrean version but yeah... I won't ever be farming an Empyrean dagger.

Don't laugh at me, but I actually built the Double Attack Version already. There is no way in hell I am doing WOE, and then doing a third trial for Empy later. I am doin the dagger all the way this time for sure, no matter how long it takes.

[Ritsuka]

You must be new to the game~

lol i like this post :)

[Sekundes]

lol I didn't mean standing around. Games that were really hard that smashes your face in for a single mistake and save feature didn't exist in many of them... or even frustration of remember passcodes to continue in those that didn't have the de facto save system that we know today.
Or make a game where your "continue passcodes" don't work... Hello thar faxanadu.

On topic... I agree that some nms are a problem. I hold a stance fairly close to that of Camiie's. Also, I don't think that adjusting a couple of problem nm's spawn timers or conditions is really going to take that much dev time.

[Calintzpso]

The long waits suck big time when doing Magians. So much so I was able to make a comic about it while waiting for one NM to spawn. It's got chuck testa and rage face in it.

Hell I could write a whole comic book waiting for this crap to pop.

http://goo.gl/0hB2W

Comics language might not be safe for young ones.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-K2Jh_bVLVtk/TahY7kkNP8I/AAAAAAAAAho/OvOmIzkJgFw/s1600/thatching+rake+2.jpg
Your move SE.

[Selzak]

FFXI IS HARD

I WANT A TOP-TIER WEAPON TO SET ME APART FROM OTHER PLAYERS BUT IT'S MAKING ME DO SHIT I DON'T WANNA DO. FFXI IS HARD.

[FrankReynolds]

FFXI IS HARD

I'M A TROLL I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY SO I WILL JUST YELL AT YOU!! BOO WHY DOES NO ONE LIKE ME!

fixxed for you

[Xellith]

FFXI IS HARD

I WANT A TOP-TIER WEAPON TO SET ME APART FROM OTHER PLAYERS BUT IT'S MAKING ME DO SHIT I DON'T WANNA DO. FFXI IS HARD.

Standing around for 1 hour+ killing the same monster every 5 mins or whatever its repop is, over and over again and then spending 10-30 seconds in the actual fight is hard mode? Are you fu**ing kidding me?

NM spawn time's are there to slow you down. That is all. They are not there for the challenge. You seriously think its challenging to see who has the most patience/no social life? Are you stupid or something?

[Soranika]

Wow, I can't comment without sticking my foot in my mouth but the responses are hilarious. I will say this, you don't have to do the trials, SE isn't forcing you to complete them. Nor are they firing those who do to camp out on hours on end to finish a trial in one sitting. That's a personal choice if you want to stick it out and test your luck.

[FrankReynolds]

Wow, I can't comment without sticking my foot in my mouth but the responses are hilarious. I will say this, you don't have to do the trials, SE isn't forcing you to complete them. Nor are they firing those who do to camp out on hours on end to finish a trial in one sitting. That's a personal choice if you want to stick it out and test your luck.

We requested a change in the quests....

You replied "You don't have to do them".

Everyone posting on these forums live in places where they have sufficient rights as humans, as to not be forced by anyone to play a video game. Just to clear that up.

We want to do them. We just want them to be fun. Not lame.

[Zerich]

OKAY I DON'T KNOW WHAT IS SO FUN ABOUT CAMPING A NOTORIOUS MONSTER THAT HAS AN 8 HOUR WINDOW WTF!?????!?! SERIOUSLY THERE IS NOTHING I REPEAT NOTHING FUN ABOUT CAMPING A LOTTERY SPAWN NOTORIOUS MONSTER FOR 8 HOURS WITH NO POP. SO THE NM POPS AND AS SOON AS IT POPS I LOOSE CONNECTION. LUCKY ME MY PARTY MEMBERS KILLED IT BEFORE I GET BACK. 4 HOURS WASTED!!!... WASTED. ON A NM THAT ONLY SPAWNS AT NIGHT WHAT THE F?!??! SERIOUSLY SE?

you understand that you're playing an MMO...right?
everything is a timesink.
quit while you're ahead.

[Camiie]

you understand that you're playing an MMO...right?
everything is a timesink.
quit while you're ahead.

But it doesn't have to be boring or tedious. Timesink isn't a problem, it's the nature of the timesink.

[Meyi]

I think people are confusing 'wanting fun' with 'wanting things handed to them'. These are actually reciprocals of each other, as the more spoon fed an activity is, the less enjoyable it becomes. So can we try to break the association of wanting fun in a video game equaling wanting everything spoon fed?

Those trials are boring. Earlier in this topic someone made a decent argument; why should we be expected to play other games to pass time in this one? This game should be fun to play on its own, from the moment we log in to the moment we log out. Periods of stagnation and boredom should be minimum in a video game designed for entertainment. It's not as if we gain anything else from this game; it doesn't pay the bills, it doesn't put food on the table, it's just here for enjoyment.

If anyone ever feels superior to someone else because of accomplishments in a video game, then I feel sorry for them. Every player is different with their own lifestyles and own busy schedules. Some people have more time than others. Some people have more enjoyment out of beefing up their character to the best potential. But there's nothing wrong with anyone wanting fun in a media designed to provide fun.

Perhaps Square Enix could provide another leg for these trials? Something like killing a bunch of a specific monster. That way you could either go the 'fast' route of NM hunting (because lottery pops can get lucky), or the guaranteed route of monster slashing.

[Calintzpso]

Yes! Got my vote!

[Selzak]

Standing around for 1 hour+ killing the same monster every 5 mins or whatever its repop is, over and over again and then spending 10-30 seconds in the actual fight is hard mode? Are you fu**ing kidding me?

NM spawn time's are there to slow you down. That is all. They are not there for the challenge. You seriously think its challenging to see who has the most patience/no social life? Are you stupid or something?
I insinuated that it wasn't that hard, and was a necessity for the game to function properly.

Just because something doesn't really require skill doesn't mean that it's not hard to do; so yes, camping an NM with a long spawn window is hard (it requires patience/willingness/want). Something has to be there to make it so that not every single person has the best weapons, otherwise the whole concept of "loot" or "treasure" which drives MMOs falls apart since everyone has whatever they want. What's the point of having special, rare items in the game if it all just requires an afternoon to acquire? That's very short-sighted and completely missing the grand scheme of things.

You don't have to do everything in one sitting- I'm building an Apocalypse and making a ton of gil right now by playing ~2hours a day (every other day) doing Dynamis on BST. My playtime is pretty limited and I get in 10 hours a week if I'm lucky. In several months when I'm about halfway done with my relic weapon and have a chunk of gil stored away, some other player who spends all day standing in Port Jeuno might say I have no social life...I guess I will just be the "stupid" one with no life and enjoy my time while he spends his complaining.

If you want to acquire "elite" items in post Abyssea FFXI, you can do it on your own sweet time- but you do have to put in that effort. If you don't want to put in that effort (either in small spurts over a long time or long sittings in a shorter time) then you are part of the bigger piece of the pie that makes the smaller piece feel accomplished. If that Empyrean/Mythic/Relic weapon isn't earned, then you don't feel anything when you finally do get it. If you don't think that's the way it should work, then just play on the Test Server.

[cidbahamut]

Wow, I can't comment without sticking my foot in my mouth but the responses are hilarious. I will say this, you don't have to do the trials, SE isn't forcing you to complete them. Nor are they firing those who do to camp out on hours on end to finish a trial in one sitting. That's a personal choice if you want to stick it out and test your luck.
No one's forcing us to keep playing FFXI either. Bad game design will naturally drive off players, and your solution is to do nothing? Because that makes a whole lot of sense.

[FrankReynolds]

I insinuated that it wasn't that hard, and was a necessity for the game to function properly.

Just because something doesn't really require skill doesn't mean that it's not hard to do; so yes, camping an NM with a long spawn window is hard (it requires patience/willingness/want). Something has to be there to make it so that not every single person has the best weapons, otherwise the whole concept of "loot" or "treasure" which drives MMOs falls apart since everyone has whatever they want. What's the point of having special, rare items in the game if it all just requires an afternoon to acquire? That's very short-sighted and completely missing the grand scheme of things.

You don't have to do everything in one sitting- I'm building an Apocalypse and making a ton of gil right now by playing ~2hours a day (every other day) doing Dynamis on BST. My playtime is pretty limited and I get in 10 hours a week if I'm lucky. In several months when I'm about halfway done with my relic weapon and have a chunk of gil stored away, some other player who spends all day standing in Port Jeuno might say I have no social life...I guess I will just be the "stupid" one with no life and enjoy my time while he spends his complaining.

If you want to acquire "elite" items in post Abyssea FFXI, you can do it on your own sweet time- but you do have to put in that effort. If you don't want to put in that effort (either in small spurts over a long time or long sittings in a shorter time) then you are part of the bigger piece of the pie that makes the smaller piece feel accomplished. If you don't think that's the way it should work, then just play on the Test Server.

No one asked for them to be easier guy. We want them to be different, so we can play to earn the weapons, instead of standing around to earn the weapons. You could have saved yourself the time of writing that essay, and just left it at the first HURDURRR! post that you wrote.

[Selzak]

No one asked for them to be easier guy. We want them to be different, so we can play to earn the weapons, instead of standing around to earn the weapons. You could have saved yourself the time of writing that essay, and just left it at the first HURDURRR! post that you wrote.
How should they be different and not easier then? Because it looks like someone (the OP) has, in fact, asked for them to be easier by making the process faster so that he doesn't run as high of a risk of his party killing the NM while he D/C's. You know...because FFXI is too hard.

[cidbahamut]

How should they be different and not easier then? Because it looks like someone (the OP) has, in fact, asked for them to be easier by making the process faster so that he doesn't run as high of a risk of his party killing the NM while he D/C's. You know...because FFXI is too hard.

X hours of actively doing something to make progress instead of X hours of sitting with your thumb up your ass waiting for NMs to pop.

[Sonshou]

I made a post else where for a way to shorten the NM camp for magian trial. But didn't get many response. I think it is lost in the sea of posts.

[Selzak]

X hours of actively doing something to make progress instead of X hours of sitting with your thumb up your ass waiting for NMs to pop.
I prefer the latter since "actively" amounts to sitting with your thumb up your ass performing repetitive tasks and you don't have to have your thumb in your ass while you're waiting for an NM to spawn.

[cidbahamut]

You are the exception then.

[Camiie]

I insinuated that it wasn't that hard, and was a necessity for the game to function properly.

But it's not. Just because it's the way SE does it doesn't mean it's the only viable way. People often seem to think that SE's way is the only way to run an MMO, but it's not. It's certainly not the most successful way that's for sure. I agree that they do get some things right, and I stay for those things. This particular set of trials is not "right" in my opinion so I'd like to see some sort of compromise between what we have now and what I think would be better.



Just because something doesn't really require skill doesn't mean that it's not hard to do; so yes, camping an NM with a long spawn window is hard (it requires patience/willingness/want).


It requires a wiki, luck, the ability to move, target, and choose attack. Or it requires other people there to kill it on your behalf while you are afk.


Something has to be there to make it so that not every single person has the best weapons, otherwise the whole concept of "loot" or "treasure" which drives MMOs falls apart since everyone has whatever they want. What's the point of having special, rare items in the game if it all just requires an afternoon to acquire? That's very short-sighted and completely missing the grand scheme of things.


Let me ask you, would you still try to get the best gear you possibly could even if everyone else had it? I would. I want to improve myself, not improve myself in comparison to others. I don't care about being rare or common. I just care about being better today than I was yesterday.

And please don't resort to hyperbole. No one is asking for empyreans to be completable in a single day from start to finish. What I want is a more active experience. It's not about the time spent, it's HOW it's spent. I wouldn't care if it took longer! Heck if I was having fun doing one weapon, I'd be more inclined to spend more time doing more weapons! Can you imagine? Spending more time playing the game... and being happier doing so! I don't see how that's not a win-win situation.



You don't have to do everything in one sitting- I'm building an Apocalypse and making a ton of gil right now by playing ~2hours a day (every other day) doing Dynamis on BST. My playtime is pretty limited and I get in 10 hours a week if I'm lucky. In several months when I'm about halfway done with my relic weapon and have a chunk of gil stored away, some other player who spends all day standing in Port Jeuno might say I have no social life...I guess I will just be the "stupid" one with no life and enjoy my time while he spends his complaining.


I applaud you for your progress on your weapon! It's a shame Empyreans don't work the same way. I can't hop into Dynamis and plow through mobs for currency to build an empy. I wish I could. It'd be a lot more fun that way.



If you want to acquire "elite" items in post Abyssea FFXI, you can do it on your own sweet time- but you do have to put in that effort. If you don't want to put in that effort (either in small spurts over a long time or long sittings in a shorter time) then you are part of the bigger piece of the pie that makes the smaller piece feel accomplished. If that Empyrean/Mythic/Relic weapon isn't earned, then you don't feel anything when you finally do get it. If you don't think that's the way it should work, then just play on the Test Server.


No one is asking for them not to be earned. What they're asking for is a way that feels more involved, interactive, and challenging. They want a way to do it that doesn't FEEL like a waste of time. They want a way they can do on their own time like you can with your Apocalypse. They don't have that with Empyreans. The very concept of NMs with random pop conditions flies in the face of that. It doesn't have to be that way. SE just needs to start thinking outside their own little box.

[Meyi]

You don't have to do everything in one sitting- I'm building an Apocalypse and making a ton of gil right now by playing ~2hours a day (every other day) doing Dynamis on BST. My playtime is pretty limited and I get in 10 hours a week if I'm lucky. In several months when I'm about halfway done with my relic weapon and have a chunk of gil stored away, some other player who spends all day standing in Port Jeuno might say I have no social life...I guess I will just be the "stupid" one with no life and enjoy my time while he spends his complaining.

If you want to acquire "elite" items in post Abyssea FFXI, you can do it on your own sweet time- but you do have to put in that effort. If you don't want to put in that effort (either in small spurts over a long time or long sittings in a shorter time) then you are part of the bigger piece of the pie that makes the smaller piece feel accomplished. If that Empyrean/Mythic/Relic weapon isn't earned, then you don't feel anything when you finally do get it. If you don't think that's the way it should work, then just play on the Test Server.

I bolded things I found important to respond to.

You're insinuating that because someone doesn't want to put all 10 hours of their playtime into one sitting to camp ONE pop for their trial, that they are lazy. You, on the other hand, are able to acquire your dream gear (Apocalypse) by spending 10 hours actually working towards your goal. If you log out prematurely, at least you have been somewhat productive in that one session. However, someone who is camping a lottery spawn NM may have to leave, and, after two hours of sitting around waiting for the monsters, leave with no progress on their weapon.

How is it fair to accuse them of being lazy? How is it fair to accuse them of wanting the easy way?

All people are wanting is to have the same opportunity to build their weapon as you have; to spend some time on it, every day, and have the progress to show for their work. You collect currency, but they could collect monster kills or some other item to show their dedication. Lottery Spawns are not fair, and not equal, because they are so random.

Be thankful at least your weapon of choice can be worked on whenever you have the time for it.

[Calintzpso]

I prefer the latter since "actively" amounts to sitting with your thumb up your ass performing repetitive tasks and you don't have to have your thumb in your ass while you're waiting for an NM to spawn.

Kings, HNMS, Tiamat, Vrtra back in the 75 cap days would like you sit down and drink your cup of STFU now.

Cause 3AM phone calls for "Tiamat popped, get on or your kicked from the shell" really makes FFXI a hard game >.> Na it makes Real life with an enjoyable casual retreat(aka FFXI) a hard game.

I play FFXI to get away from retarded wait times, idiots, asshole bosses, and deadend jobs. So i can be somewhat happy and have time to collect my thoughts, all while having some level of social life.

I don't play this game to be like a inception of life. Of shitty life that when inside a game that emulates and takes on a shittier life to create a magnitude of shitty retardedness. So yes, the game should be dam near always enjoyable, regardless if I'm watching paint dry in my mog house or fighting the harbinger of a dev teams Mother in the game.

With the time frame you mentioned you played, i take it you never done any of the kings back then. You have no idea what the retarded wait times in this game has driven people to do or what people have done for this "so called" and "apparently justified" hard worked for loot and treasure.

High wait times like the HNM system has contributed to:

3rd party tools development, cause having my PC's whole screen locked illegally by SE until recently was a lot of fun.

Taking a break from real life. To obtain that Item that would maximize my character. Who needs sleep? Social life? Sex life? money for food? when I got this shinny ridill. (At this time, i'd like everyone to think about Pandemonium warden 18 hour fight, think about it, feel that stupidity, feel it, ok, now run with it. We should now all be on the same page)

Botting. Eventually some players got smart just like a criminal does(70% of our brightest people in the world are in jail for trying to beat the system, they just had poor moral ethics and choices to end up there), why sit around for days on a NM that only pops 1/3rd the year, and has a 1% chance of dropping an item. We've already burned the rule book with windower, why not piss out the ashes and just cheat/probably get banned/quit. Then come back and use the same tool to grind right back up in record time!

[FrankReynolds]

I prefer the latter since "actively" amounts to sitting with your thumb up your ass performing repetitive tasks and you don't have to have your thumb in your ass while you're waiting for an NM to spawn.

Then you either:
A) haven't built a weapon because your time schedule doesn't allow
or
B) Had someone else kill the NMs while you were AFK "BECAUSE FFXI IS TOO HARD!"

Either way, your opinion is now meaningless.

[Selzak]

You're insinuating that because someone doesn't want to put all 10 hours of their playtime into one sitting to camp ONE pop for their trial, that they are lazy.
That's not what I mean to insinuate. The point I want to make is that someone who doesn't put all 10 hours of their playtime into something that will benefit them later instead of instantly shouldn't expect to be rewarded higher than other players. Like it or not, an MMO is going to have the concept of working towards a goal. Some people don't feel like 'working' in a video game, and that's fine and totally understandable- but they can't turn around and expect to benefit from it too. Some people are willing to put in more effort for more reward because that's what's fun to them, and that's really all this is.


lots of irrelevant stuff
What does 75 content have to do with Empyrean weapons? The point I'm making is that they're not that hard to do. You don't need to set your life aside to build an Empyrean weapon unless you're trying to do it in two weeks.


Then you either:
A) haven't built a weapon because your time schedule doesn't allow
or
B) Had someone else kill the NMs while you were AFK "BECAUSE FFXI IS TOO HARD!"

Either way, your opinion is now meaningless.
Saying someone's opinion is meaningless is the best way to make yourself look retarded.

I have built a weapon, and it was easy as shit (specifically, I camped that exact spider NM mentioned here earlier). It may have taken me longer than it does most people, but I'm fine with that because it didn't require me to have any obligations while playing- something that I've never subjected myself to. It's because of this that I know Empyreans are fine. If someone like me, who refuses to let the game wake me up at 3AM (as mentioned above) for some mandatory LS thing can do it, then anyone can.

[FrankReynolds]

Saying someone's opinion is meaningless is the best way to make yourself look retarded.

I have built a weapon, and it was easy as shit (specifically, I camped that exact spider NM mentioned here earlier). It may have taken me longer than it does most people, but I'm fine with that because it didn't require me to have any obligations while playing- something that I've never subjected myself to. It's because of this that I know Empyreans are fine. If someone like me, who refuses to let the game wake me up at 3AM (as mentioned above) for some mandatory LS thing can do it, then anyone can.

No, walking in a forum and shouting :


FFXI IS HARD

I WANT A TOP-TIER WEAPON TO SET ME APART FROM OTHER PLAYERS BUT IT'S MAKING ME DO SHIT I DON'T WANNA DO. FFXI IS HARD.

is the best way to make yourself look retarded.

I say your opinion is irrelevant because you clearly did your trials by having someone in party kill the nms while you were AFK. Which is a perfectly fine way to get them done. But it doesn't earn you the right to call anyone lazy, and it certainly doesn't mean that anyone should care about your opinion.

[Selzak]

I say your opinion is irrelevant because you clearly did your trials by having someone in party kill the nms while you were AFK.
Oh ok, then you're just wrong and like to jump to your own conclusions. Most people do that, I'm sorry for saying it was retarded. Also, something doesn't automatically become an opinion because people are arguing about it. It's a very aggravating misconception that people have here.


But it doesn't earn you the right to call anyone lazy, and it certainly doesn't mean that anyone should care about your opinion.
I called people short-sighted and pointed out that for accomplishment to exist in this game you have to include sacrificing immediate enjoyment for future enjoyment. If anything, playing a video game in the first place is lazy.

Spending your time 'inefficiently' and expecting to benefit from it is just short-sighted, it's not lazy. If we each have 15 hours to play a week, and I spend mine building a powerful weapon and you spend yours having fun that doesn't make you lazy...it just makes my character better than yours eventually. That's how shit works, it's how it should work, and it's how it will work in any legitimate MMO.

This is the same old, "I want good gear, but I don't like to farm for gil because it's not fun!" debate that's been in the game forever. There's nothing wrong with spending all of your time (or more of your time) on the game having fun and neglecting the less enjoyable aspects to build up your character, but you can't turn around and have it both ways because it cheapens the game.

Unfortunately, this whole issue borders on an economics debate and the level of intelligence on this board (for whatever reason) has been ridiculous since it was opened.


As for my first post: Compare it to the OP to get the context.

[Camiie]

Selzak, are you really saying fun cheapens a GAME? Really? Are you sure we're the ones missing the point?

[Selzak]

Selzak, are you really saying fun cheapens a GAME? Really? Are you sure we're the ones missing the point?
What makes the Test Server less fun than the real game?

[Camiie]

Your premise is flawed. You act as though it's all or nothing. It's not 8 hour spawns or press button for gear. There is something in between. You know that. They could simply compromise and adjust the maximum spawn timers just as they've lowered kill requirements for other Magian trials. There are other ways to progress in an MMO. In fact SE themselves have utilized these methods in various aspects of the game.

They have options that while obviously not pleasing to you, would make quite a lot of others happy without making the items free handouts like you seem to think they would be.

[Selzak]

Your premise is flawed. You act as though it's all or nothing. It's not 8 hour spawns or press button for gear.
I'm saying that it's easy enough as it is (which I think is self-evident by the number of empyrean weapons lying around) and that anyone can do it.

Then we got into a series of separate arguments (like the one you brought up) over things like whether or not it should require anyone to do something they don't want to.

[Glamdring]

Wow, I can't comment without sticking my foot in my mouth but the responses are hilarious. I will say this, you don't have to do the trials, SE isn't forcing you to complete them. Nor are they firing those who do to camp out on hours on end to finish a trial in one sitting. That's a personal choice if you want to stick it out and test your luck.

you forget, in PUG that have "elites" you are expected to already have fully upgraded empy weaps (unless you have a relic or a mythic), otherwise "you suck". since /blisting party members is counterproductive, the only alternative is to have the weap. ask the elites, it only takes a week at most. now add up the spawn windows and average them, you'll find that they take longer than a week before you even get to the aby mobs. So the real problem is you get BS quests in the game or BS advice here. Either way, most players aren't fond of playing with dung...

[Glamdring]

I think people are confusing 'wanting fun' with 'wanting things handed to them'. These are actually reciprocals of each other, as the more spoon fed an activity is, the less enjoyable it becomes. So can we try to break the association of wanting fun in a video game equaling wanting everything spoon fed?

Those trials are boring. Earlier in this topic someone made a decent argument; why should we be expected to play other games to pass time in this one? This game should be fun to play on its own, from the moment we log in to the moment we log out. Periods of stagnation and boredom should be minimum in a video game designed for entertainment. It's not as if we gain anything else from this game; it doesn't pay the bills, it doesn't put food on the table, it's just here for enjoyment.

If anyone ever feels superior to someone else because of accomplishments in a video game, then I feel sorry for them. Every player is different with their own lifestyles and own busy schedules. Some people have more time than others. Some people have more enjoyment out of beefing up their character to the best potential. But there's nothing wrong with anyone wanting fun in a media designed to provide fun.

Perhaps Square Enix could provide another leg for these trials? Something like killing a bunch of a specific monster. That way you could either go the 'fast' route of NM hunting (because lottery pops can get lucky), or the guaranteed route of monster slashing.

I wouldn't mind the time sink IF I WAS ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISHING SOMETHING! XP, Skill-ups, at least a little gil, get some tabs of F/GOV, something. as is, all I get is a RL butt that's fallen asleep from cutting off the blood flow waiting for 12 hours to see 1 NM.

[Calintzpso]

I called people short-sighted and pointed out that for accomplishment to exist in this game you have to include sacrificing immediate enjoyment for future enjoyment. If anything, playing a video game in the first place is lazy.

Friend camps a NM for Magians, gets 4 for 4 in a row with 1 hour on the dot respawns. I camped the same nm some time later. I got for 1 hour pop, 8 hour pop, 12 hour pop, 10 hour pop. Who sacrificed "more" immediate enjoyment for future enjoyment? I'm not looking for a handout on a silver platter like my friend, but I sure as hell don't want a handout on a paper plate that's been shit on twice over and soaked in the piss of a skunk.


Spending your time 'inefficiently' and expecting to benefit from it is just short-sighted, it's not lazy. If we each have 15 hours to play a week, and I spend mine building a powerful weapon and you spend yours having fun that doesn't make you lazy...it just makes my character better than yours eventually. That's how shit works, it's how it should work, and it's how it will work in any legitimate MMO.

This is the same old, "I want good gear, but I don't like to farm for gil because it's not fun!" debate that's been in the game forever. There's nothing wrong with spending all of your time (or more of your time) on the game having fun and neglecting the less enjoyable aspects to build up your character, but you can't turn around and have it both ways because it cheapens the game.

Missing the point. We want balance and equality. What we do with our own time is to each their own. But when we go and spend our time like others on this gear, we expect to some degree to get similar results as others.

And don't you dare bring skill in as the determining factor in that. It sure as hell doesn't take skill to sit in a spot with our thumbs up our asses for 5-10 hours a pop on some NMs. A Mentally handicapped 3 year old could do it, But does that mean some players should be treated as one? No. Luck is one thing, then there is stupidity. And to reach the level of stupidity is to ask anymore then 2 hours wait; a pop on any NM in the game.

And 2 hours appears to be the norm, just look at the AV and PW Turf and Nerf time cap after that 18 hour PW incident.

[Zerich]

But it doesn't have to be boring or tedious. Timesink isn't a problem, it's the nature of the timesink.

No one is holding a gun to your head, telling you to stay logged in (or even stay in that area) for the non-repop windows that most NMs have. Pick up crafting or farm the too-weak mobs in the area for materials. And with the nature of rewards that you are asking for; to have no type of frustration or difficulty on your part is just absurd.

I understand that idling for hours upon hours about a mob is not anyone's idea for fun. Don't get me wrong, when doing empy trials I LOATHE it. However, the game supplies you with plenty of things to do to fill that void of time (that we'd consider the 'timesink') to make it not so much a burden.

Just wanted to recap, TIMESINKS SUCK, yet you are playing an MMORPG (something that guarantee's it's PROFIT from the TIMESINK). I'd complain about the OP's inability to have another outlet of fun in their life.

[Zerich]

Perhaps Square Enix could provide another leg for these trials? Something like killing a bunch of a specific monster. That way you could either go the 'fast' route of NM hunting (because lottery pops can get lucky), or the guaranteed route of monster slashing.

lol they do, it's called elemental weapon trials

[Meyi]

The point I want to make is that someone who doesn't put all 10 hours of their playtime into something that will benefit them later instead of instantly shouldn't expect to be rewarded higher than other players.

And I'm saying they could put the 10 hours into a sitting and walk away with no progress. Especially if they don't put all 10 hours of their playtime into one sitting/session.


Like it or not, an MMO is going to have the concept of working towards a goal.

I agree, but again working towards a goal doesn't always mean actually reaching the goal.



lol they do, it's called elemental weapon trials

...

I was referring to the empyrean weapon trials for NM kills having an alternative route. Trust me, I know about Elemental Magian Weapon Trials.

[Camiie]

No one is holding a gun to your head, telling you to stay logged in (or even stay in that area) for the non-repop windows that most NMs have. Pick up crafting or farm the too-weak mobs in the area for materials. And with the nature of rewards that you are asking for; to have no type of frustration or difficulty on your part is just absurd.


Difficulty is fine. I never ever said there should be no difficulty. Make it harder for all I care, just don't make it boring.
To auto-translate it for you <fun> <excitement> <Can I have it?> Yes things in an MMO have to take time. High-end items have to take even longer. They DO NOT HAVE TO BE BORING, DULL, OR TEDIOUS.

I'm sorry to be mean, but people need to get their heads out of SE's <rear>, devs and players included. Go try other MMOs and other RPGs. There ARE other ways to challenge AND entertain at the same time. It doesn't have to be easy, it does HAVE to be fun otherwise you just end up with a MMORP. Last I checked this was a MMORPG. Until they drop the G from the end I expect fun even in the most hardcore of content.



I understand that idling for hours upon hours about a mob is not anyone's idea for fun. Don't get me wrong, when doing empy trials I LOATHE it. However, the game supplies you with plenty of things to do to fill that void of time (that we'd consider the 'timesink') to make it not so much a burden.

Just wanted to recap, TIMESINKS SUCK, yet you are playing an MMORPG (something that guarantee's it's PROFIT from the TIMESINK). I'd complain about the OP's inability to have another outlet of fun in their life.


This is the mentality we need to break. Timesinks do not have to suck. Sometimes I think, much like SE, the player base often just doesn't know any better.

[cidbahamut]

It truly baffles me that people will defend bad game design with such ferocity.

[FrankReynolds]

Oh ok, then you're just wrong and like to jump to your own conclusions. Most people do that, I'm sorry for saying it was retarded. Also, something doesn't automatically become an opinion because people are arguing about it. It's a very aggravating misconception that people have here.

I didn't jump to conclusions. You posted about your play time. Its doesn't match up with the Spawn windows. Your lying and / or exaggerating something here to give weight to your argument. I don't really care which.


I called people short-sighted and pointed out that for accomplishment to exist in this game you have to include sacrificing immediate enjoyment for future enjoyment. If anything, playing a video game in the first place is lazy.

There are other forms of sacrifice besides boredom. As a matter of fact, boredom is usually what people are trying to alleviate when they create / play a game. It shouldn't be part of one.


Spending your time 'inefficiently' and expecting to benefit from it is just short-sighted, it's not lazy. If we each have 15 hours to play a week, and I spend mine building a powerful weapon and you spend yours having fun that doesn't make you lazy...it just makes my character better than yours eventually. That's how shit works, it's how it should work, and it's how it will work in any legitimate MMO.

People should be able to have fun doing this stuff. Trials where the guy who plays the longest and hardest, and makes the best decisions gets the gear fastest make sense. Trials where the guy who passes out while in party with a bunch of JP players and lets them camp the mob for him gets the gear are lame.


This is the same old, "I want good gear, but I don't like to farm for gil because it's not fun!" debate that's been in the game forever. There's nothing wrong with spending all of your time (or more of your time) on the game having fun and neglecting the less enjoyable aspects to build up your character, but you can't turn around and have it both ways because it cheapens the game.

How does changing a quest from "Stand in one place with your thumb up your ass for 27 hours, and then report back to the magian moogle" to -----> "go kill <insert number that is equal to 27 hours of thumb up your ass here> of X monster, and report back to the magian moogle" cheapen the game?


Unfortunately, this whole issue borders on an economics debate and the level of intelligence on this board (for whatever reason) has been ridiculous since it was opened.

lol at the guy with 300+ posts who makes fun of the forum for having stupid posters.


As for my first post: Compare it to the OP to get the context.

He was angry and wrote in all caps (the only similarity between his post and yours). If he goes back and removes the caps lock, he still has brought up a very valid point. Taking the caps lock off on your post wouldn't change the fact that you came in here trying to pick a fight. I don't see why you would bring that up.


I'm saying that it's easy enough as it is (which I think is self-evident by the number of empyrean weapons lying around) and that anyone can do it.

The problem isn't really with the difficulty, no matter how bad you want it to be. It's with the fact that standing around is not difficult OR fun. If people were in here complaining about the VNM part, I could see you making an argument, but people just want to actually get credit for the work they put in. Currently, the guy who gets 8 hour pop windows on every NM still gets the same weapon. More importantly, he's not playing. He's standing in one place. You don't need to pay $11.95 a month to do nothing. It's free. How far should they be allowed to take this? What if they just say "If you don't log in for 6 months, we will give you a level 99 relic of your choice."? That might be the most challenging trial ever huh?

[Selzak]

Friend camps a NM for Magians, gets 4 for 4 in a row with 1 hour on the dot respawns. I camped the same nm some time later. I got for 1 hour pop, 8 hour pop, 12 hour pop, 10 hour pop. Who sacrificed "more" immediate enjoyment for future enjoyment? I'm not looking for a handout on a silver platter like my friend, but I sure as hell don't want a handout on a paper plate that's been shit on twice over and soaked in the piss of a skunk.

That's a legitimate argument and I can get behind it. The idea of pseudo-randomness has always been a big part of this game though, and it extends to most aspects of it. Whether that's a good decision or not (I think it's not) is genuinely debatable. Thanks for making an actual point.

If this is all we're arguing about, I agree. It's other stuff, like "Doing X isn't fun...but I want Y!" where Y is something rewarding that not many people should have that I've been trying to address.


I didn't jump to conclusions. You posted about your play time. Its doesn't match up with the Spawn windows. Your lying and / or exaggerating something here to give weight to your argument. I don't really care which.
So it's impossible to kill an NM with an 8, 9, 10, or 20 hour spawn window with only two hours of attention? While it's possible for an NM to take a long-ass time to spawn, most of the the lottery spawns take about two hours on average. All you need is the ToD in your log and to be able to add time.



lol at the guy with 300+ posts who makes fun of the forum for having stupid posters.

lol at logical fallacy. Penguin says: Lots of birds fly!

[Camiie]

If this is all we're arguing about, I agree. It's other stuff, like "Doing X isn't fun...but I want Y!" where Y is something rewarding that not many people should have that I've been trying to address.


So, is making something mind-numbingly tedious really the best way to separate the best from the rest? I agree that it is a successful roadblock to progress, but I think it is appropriate to discuss whether it is a valid one in a game environment.

Many of us think it is not valid even in an MMORPG where the rules of gaming often seem to not apply. I know I would prefer it if they did in this case. What's so wrong about that?

[FrankReynolds]

That's a legitimate argument and I can get behind it. The idea of pseudo-randomness has always been a big part of this game though, and it extends to most aspects of it. Whether that's a good decision or not (I think it's not) is genuinely debatable. Thanks for making an actual point.

If this is all we're arguing about, I agree. It's other stuff, like "Doing X isn't fun...but I want Y!" where Y is something rewarding that not many people should have that I've been trying to address.

Glad we finally agree


So it's impossible to kill an NM with an 8, 9, 10, or 20 hour spawn window with only two hours of attention? While it's possible for an NM to take a long-ass time to spawn, most of the the lottery spawns take about two hours on average. All you need is the ToD in your log and to be able to add time.

Trying to kill an NM with a window that big by only logging in for 2 hours a day is clearly possible. The odds that you did that, and didn't in fact either spend far more time than you are claiming, or have someone else kill them however, are really low. And even if you did get that lucky, you know damn well that most people won't. At best, you are playing devils advocate, But really I doubt that.



lol at logical fallacy. Penguin says: Lots of birds fly!

Well, I'm just sayin.... if you go around posting things like:

I WANT A TOP-TIER WEAPON TO SET ME APART FROM OTHER PLAYERS BUT IT'S MAKING ME DO SHIT I DON'T WANNA DO. FFXI IS HARD."

Then there is a good chance that you are one of the people lowering the perceived intelligence curve of the forum.

Maybe they need to make a subsection called the sparring pit where people can go to shout insults and or berate each other. That might be fun.

[Luvbunny]

Do we even get a respond from the developer on this? I guess not, lol, they want their timesink and this is one of the best one they got for now.

[Ordoric]

only Nm i have found issues with is triple black stars the 5 minute window lottery just makes me want to kill i am forced to amuse my self here bat bat bat bat bat, let me chop your wings i have yet ot see the famed 2 spawn in one night

[Arcon]

Do we even get a respond from the developer on this? I guess not, lol, they want their timesink and this is one of the best one they got for now.

They're fine with it, probably because this is still one of the lowest timesinks in the game, and very few of the complaints in here are justified.

[Camiie]

They're fine with it, probably because this is still one of the lowest timesinks in the game,


Data please.



and very few of the complaints in here are justified.


OK, so which are justified and which are not?

[Arcon]

Data please.

Data on whether they're fine with it or data on why it's the lowest timesink? If it's the first, well, because they didn't respond yet? If it's the latter...

From the thread title: 8 hour pop. And they're complaining about this as one of the worst cases. Average probably 2~3 hours (for me personally it was hardly ever two hours and I've done three Empyrean weapons up to the VNM path). But for good measure, let's say 4 hours on average. There's 21 NM kills required before the VNM trials. Let's say you're doing three Empyrean weapons. That's 84 hours invested in this. If you're dedicated enough to work on an Empyrean weapon in the first place, I'd say you can get that done in two weeks easily (six hours daily). Lazy students like myself could do it in four days, and to show that these numbers are retardedly high for averages, I finished all of mine in about two days.

But doesn't matter, let's stick to two weeks. Now, if you can only invest 6h/day, how long do you figure the rest of that one Empyrean weapon alone will take you (not counting the last trial)?

How long does it take to get +1 gear for one of your job? +2 gear?

How long does it take to make a trial weapon (+3)?

How long does it take to get a specific item you're after from Dynamis? Nyzul? Sea? Sky? Einherjar? Salvage?

How long does it take you to camp NMs for drops instead of mere kills?

Or to put it very simply: Two weeks out of your entire FFXI career (let's be gentle and say two years) is 2% of your playtime.

Now while you ponder this data, try to think about how this would translate if you want more accurate results, and adjusted the numbers as such. 2h average on NM kills, 8h daily play time, playing for 6 years equal about 0.2% of your playtime. Another thing worth pondering is the fact that you can do most of those afk or asleep if you're in a party with others, again reducing a lot of the time you need to invest in this to the point that it becomes negligible.


OK, so which are justified and which are not?

The ones saying SE shouldn't have put the trials on NM kills are the only justifiable ones I've heard. That was a stupid decision on SE's part, but you can see why they did it (generic content, ease of development). However, "fixing" repop times, as many suggest, is not, because they're not broken. The repop time is so NMs cannot be spammed (which happened to coincide with SE's longevity plan for trial weapons). Now trials just suffer from a game mechanic that wasn't intended for them, and changing it for trials would override the previous logic used to install this delay in the first place. That doesn't make it better for people pursuing trials, but since it's not so bad to begin with I don't see what the fuss is about. It's not like you're doing ten Empyrean weapon trials, and if you, you really have no reason whatsoever to complain about time sinks.

[Neisan_Quetz]

None of those NMs should even potentially take 12-20 hours to spawn.

I'm looking at you Hovering Hotpopt (at least his PH spawn sooner now?).

[FrankReynolds]

I don't mind these therefor you don't shouldn't either.


I'm glad that you had an easy time of these, but the points your bringing up about shortening pop times aren't really addressing the issue. The actual issue has revolved around the fact that sitting in one place is dumb, and that there should be a path that is engaging to the player so that people can actually play the game, and have that progress recorded, not do laundry or sleep or w/e it is you do during retardedly long pop windows. While i think these pop times are stupid, and they encourage things like botting and griefing, that's not the real issue. The mobs in question don't really matter because nobody wants the drops anyways. I don't even think the lottery NMs should be involved in these quests. The real point is that as annoying as things that require 1,000,000 kills of x monster are, they at least allow you to play, and record your progress. where as a quest like "sit with your thumb up your ass for 84 hours" is really just asking people to go play a different game.

I play about 3-4 hours a day avg. I've done 4 weapons now, and this most recent monk one took me 7 days to get to the VNM stage. If I had not had the help of some JP players who let me afk a couple of nights, it would have taken longer. That's 7 days that I couldn't play the game. I just sat in a field somewhere. How is that good game design? Why is asking to be able to fight something, collect something, feed something or do anything but just stand there a bad request?

[Arcon]

Bla

Don't put words in my mouth. I never defended it. I just said it wasn't as bad as other time sinks in the game. In fact, I flat out said that it was a mistake to put the trials on NMs. SE shouldn't have done that. I don't agree with a majority of the things that SE did since Abyssea was released. If they adjust it, sweet. If not, I don't particularly mind, but feel free to keep complaining, maybe it'll do something.

[FrankReynolds]

Don't put words in my mouth. I never defended it.


but since it's not so bad to begin with I don't see what the fuss is about.

123453646584

[Luvbunny]

Personally I rather make all these NMs as popped one where you get item or obtain key item and battle it out with 5 other people and make it hard bcnm. Or make it as part of "revised" Moblin Maze where you can "forced" spawn them if you have the right maze rune combo and an item purchased by your marbles. Any other activities that require player to engage directly instead of the current ones. But nooooo, this will be too much of a challenge for the developers.

[Arcon]

Don't put words in my mouth. I never defended it.


but since it's not so bad to begin with I don't see what the fuss is about.

And? I believe you're trying to show a contradiction. Try harder. Actually no, save your time and effort, it won't lead anywhere anyway.

[cidbahamut]

That was pretty clear cut.

[Kimikryo]

So,I started my GK Trial agai, after I left it at the Quaddav Stage. All went rather fast, apart from that friggin Spider. Started Camping it with a PT yesterday 11:30PM GMT+1 its now 10AM and we just killed it the third time 30 minutes ago. I fell asleep short before the second kill, that was around 4AM.
Is it really necessary to give NMs that drop crap such a high repop Timer? isnt 90 Minutes enough?
First I was hunting VNM TI while we waited, just than the VNM stop to be close to me.
If those Hunt Regimes for our NMs would at least wield something better than evoliths and not realy usabele currency, it would be a bit less annoying.

[Logandor]

I don't seem to have trouble with the time spawns granted I am finally and been on trial 6 for about a month now. It's mainly people not wanting to team up and soloing the nm with no cares as oh if we team up we can all get done faster. *sigh* My suggestion is maybe add an extra spawning nm we can fight for our trials to take care of these selfish people and get our trials done. Then again that would just give more people reason to not team up so I guess it would not make a lick of difference. With that being said anyone have these types on their servers? Tempted to move servers...
I will admit triple star sucked hard core because he only spawns at night from certain placeholder and can go poof and you be sol til next night with a no show. On that maybe they fix it to if he was up before sun up and not killed that come night fall the following day he respawns. Just a thought.

[Kimikryo]

good thing the jp players seem to like to team up, I hope I dont get to meet selfish a-holes. It allready sucks to get colofull abysites, so helping each other out on that would be great

[Logandor]

good thing the jp players seem to like to team up, I hope I dont get to meet selfish a-holes. It allready sucks to get colofull abysites, so helping each other out on that would be great

Yeah I know right. This I thought was a social mmo and granted this was my first choice ever as a online game. I just wish there were more social people and less lone wolves where and when I can play. Yeah the jap community seem to be pretty helpful and nice but even they are having the same issues I face on these trials. You know a thought came to mind. How about they make a no money charge to move servers to a lone wolf server and place those kidos there?

Anyways back about time spawns I remember helping with hotpot and it was not too difficult back before the server update. Did they change it's lotto spawn time or something?

[FrankReynolds]

My experience hasn't been with lone wolves. I have found that there is just no one else there a lot of the time.

[Camiie]

The ones saying SE shouldn't have put the trials on NM kills are the only justifiable ones I've heard. That was a stupid decision on SE's part, but you can see why they did it (generic content, ease of development). However, "fixing" repop times, as many suggest, is not, because they're not broken. The repop time is so NMs cannot be spammed (which happened to coincide with SE's longevity plan for trial weapons). Now trials just suffer from a game mechanic that wasn't intended for them, and changing it for trials would override the previous logic used to install this delay in the first place. That doesn't make it better for people pursuing trials, but since it's not so bad to begin with I don't see what the fuss is about. It's not like you're doing ten Empyrean weapon trials, and if you, you really have no reason whatsoever to complain about time sinks.


Instead of fixing repop times, they could lower the kill requirements. Make it 1 or 2 instead of 3. If we can't get wholesale changes, then we have to look at compromise. If not changing the NM pop conditions then that's about the only other option I can think of.

[Arcon]

Instead of fixing repop times, they could lower the kill requirements. Make it 1 or 2 instead of 3. If we can't get wholesale changes, then we have to look at compromise. If not changing the NM pop conditions then that's about the only other option I can think of.

Yeah, that was my point. Change the trials, not the NMs. I'm sure most people wouldn't care if they changed the NMs, with 99% of these NMs now being completely useless, but still it would mean trials completely usurped this older game mechanic, which sounds out of place.

[Glamdring]

see the Moogle's Law thread, I know there's an entry for "the NM You've been camping for 8+ hours without a Spawn is guaranteed to spawn immediately after you have to log to tend to real life".

Oh, and on the subject of teamwork, I was in a party camping Okupyete or whatever its name is; half the pt just went AFK. after 2 spawn cycles with no activity from them, the other 2 and myself dropped and formed a new party (and eventually inviting 2 new people on the same trial); we got kill about 110 minutes later, the AFK trio still not so much as twitching. The next day I log on to have a message flame from the original party leader (who went AFK). Was I outta line for replying with "shouldn't have been napping numbnuts!"?

[svengalis]

Nah you can do whatever you way to do but was it realty that big of a deal that they went afk and you were still there camping it? I don't see the issue with them being in party if you have room. Not everyone can play 24/7 or wants to spend all their free time camping one NM.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

was it realty that big of a deal that they went afk and you were still there camping it?

Nobody likes the freeloader. And the amount of dislike increases exponentially with the amount of effort required of others.

[Limecat]

I didn't mind the windows on higher-end stuff, but little chump NMs that anyone could solo at 75 should never take more than an hour to repop.

[Glamdring]

Nah you can do whatever you way to do but was it realty that big of a deal that they went afk and you were still there camping it? I don't see the issue with them being in party if you have room. Not everyone can play 24/7 or wants to spend all their free time camping one NM.

one of the AFK had lead, we couldn't invite the new guys, besides, I hate people who want the rewards without the work (read boredom and suffering)

[svengalis]

one of the AFK had lead, we couldn't invite the new guys, besides, I hate people who want the rewards without the work (read boredom and suffering)

Well then there is nothing wrong with what you did and you should have blacklisted the person who sent you tells.