Maybe a few changes to campaign/wotg?

[Sp1cyryan]

I am running around doing campaign on a level 74 mule of mine and to be honest I am finding it to be fun. Like many others I did campaign religiously back in the day. However in my honest opinion I think it has just become a wasteland of good content left neglected as only a few players tend to participate in it at a time. Leaving several issues that arise.

1) It is very apparent that the strength of the Windurstian forces is weaker than that of the Bastokan and Sandorian allies. While this is accurate to the storyline it is a problem as Windurst (on the Asura server) never seems to have a grasp over their territories and is down to just their home nation often.

Now this would not be an issue at all if, and let me point out this is one of the largest ongoing issues with campaign;

2) Attacking a fort in a beastmen controlled territory gains you an extremely low amount of points.

It is not a rare event to see an attack on a beastmen controlled territory with no enemies present to defend the fort. Since attacking forts was nerfed years ago to prevent afk XPing (not like book burns and abyssea didn't replace it anyway) you can attack the fort for 40 minutes to gain 500 experience points. That is just a pathetic waste of time considering you can go grab a few thousand points, a union coffer, complete a defense Op, and actually do something besides stare at a wall in less than half the time.

3) Often I am the only person in a union. No one seems to participate in them anymore.

If I get a single piece of ancient currency in campaign it is quite the feat. They pretty much don't drop in the pool anymore because too few people were in the union if any at all. For some unknown reason people all like to be the only person in their union instead of joining one to increase the treasure pool size.

Perhaps some new items, changes to the union system, or something of the sort to make unions appealing again.

4) There is not much reason to climb the ranks in campaign anymore. While yes you gain more XP and Allied Notes people get their XP from abyssea parties and AN are pretty much only good for purchasing Voidwatch items which people get with cruor outside Port Jeuno anyway as it is quicker.

A big motivator for climbing the ranks was the campaign gear. Some of it was good or decent at 75. However now that is not the case and most of it is just outdated junk. Adding new gear obtainable to the last tier rank or the highest medal would be an ideal adjustment.

5) Why not open up Jeuno (S)?

When WotG was still young before the northlands were released. Some friends and I were discussing how it be cool to see Tavnazia before it was destroyed in the war. However since it is destroyed in the Sandorian quest line that one is out of the question.

But what of Jeuno? We even get CSs of the fighting going on in there during the WotG story line. Adding the ability to campaign in Port, Lower, Upper, and Ru'Lude would be awesome in my opinion. The Beastmen could have to capture Port to move on to Lower and so on.

If new gear was to be added to campaign you could have Jeunoan sigil NPCs sell it.

6) Campaign Ops needing three members.

While it was nice to increase the reward from campaign ops there is still an issue.

For example, currently Windurstian Salvemixers are casting Cure II and Shell 1 on me. I would gladly do the Cut and Cauterize Op to increase their strength. However, finding two other people who want to do that with me is just not going to happen.

These Ops are very easy to complete solo too. Not having a member requirement for them only makes sense.

7) Random adjustments suggestions.

1- Salvemixer/medic NPC respawn during the battle.
2- New freelances?
3- NPC you can talk to in your home nation that restores HP, MP, and all ability timers except for 2 hours for a fee of allied notes. Not available during campaign in the cities.
4- Increase the stored Op Credits from 7 to 10.
5- Fix the glitch where mobs attacking the Aurastery in Windurst (S) walk into the building and can not be attacked
6- New temp items purchasable from the NPC at allied controlled forts.
7- Why can Beastman medic NPCs AoE their spells including ones allied units don't have (like phalanxga) while allied medic NPCs can't?

[Luvbunny]

When they let you gain massive skill ups while doing campaign, that's when you see influx of players swarming the events. They CAN and DID it already with besieged - and adjusted it for Walk of Echoes, so you know it is not impossible. Alas, it's like trying to give suggestion to revitalize and make old content better but always ignored due to BS "barance" issue.... Skill ups and great rewards 5-18 items on chests will make you see TONS of people in campaign again. They can also "adjust" the stats of the old gears or add new gears you can get from campaign points, just use the same gear artwork of the level 60s-70s but give it new stats for level 90s. Easy solution that will bring more people doing campaign. Not in this lifetime I am afraid.

[Dragoy]

I would think that the forces are actually rather ba... bla... balanced, but I think your server just sees less people fighting for Windurst. It has always been the same for Fenrir. San d'Oria was the favourite in the past as well as in the present (Bastok all the way for me), and I guess it still is so. Not many participate in Campaign Battle though, even after the so-called improvements which I think basically no one really asked for at that point (after Abyssea), which is more EXP/LP, and I might even say that the way it currently is, is a little bit annoying.

To elaborate on that quickly: Unless I do it at lower levels, I will reach the limit of 9000EXP/LP and 4500AN (Medal of Altana) within a very short amount of time, meaning I will have to get rid of the Allied Tags and get new ones if I don't want fighting to seem pointless in that regard. It does not make sense in the heat of a battle, and I'm assuming it will also reset your contribution to a Campaign Union.
I would probably prefer that there would be no need for 'renewing the tags' as it really doesn't 'fit', even if they would have to reduce the highest possible amount of points one would be able to get with the current system.

One argument the developers use (I believe) for having lower experience points et al yield from Campaign than for anything from Abyssea for example, is that within Abyssea, players are restricted by time. Well, if it is not clear yet, they are just as restricted there, as they are anywhere else right now (excluding Salvage and other battlefields of course). What I mean is, when getting experience points or other stuff in Abyssea, people are not really troubled by the time restriction as long as they are not just beginning with Abyssea altogether.

So with that said, I don't think this is good reasoning for why the limit of 9000/4500 should be in place at all.

Voidwatch, for now, helped a little in revitalising Campaign a bit I guess due to Allied Notes being used for Voiddust, but it's truly a shame that such massive content is just left to be, like all the other old stuff while they hastily create new stuff with as much random and time-sink as possible.

/etc/init.d/rantd stop

Oopsies, almost got into rant-mode there.

What I meant to say, in short, is that there are good ideas and swell thoughts, and I really intended the above to be just some quick comments on them, but it sort of... expanded upon itself. :S

As a conclusion, I shall quote one of my posts from another Campaign related thread, where I not-so-long-ago compiled some links to even more related threads. I think they all contain good stuff, and I guess it has become a sort of a Campaign Operation for me to keep these things around (is probably a waste of effort, though).

Oh and: Skillupses ! !! !


I'll list some threads from my subscriptions list, and some that I found with a quick search. Mostly I guess for my own fun (yeah, I know that's weird), and to see how many threads will come up without really digging in really deep. Some might find them interesting and didn't notice them before.

It's quite easy to see most of them are requesting for skillupses, and that's no surprise. There are, however, quite a bunch of other ideas thrown around, too.

Personally I don't think I have anything new in mind, none other that I didn't list here:

A Few (More) Campaign Suggestions!
Basically, the ones on top of my mind I guess would be:

Skillupses, yes, it would just work.
Shorten the time between Evaluations (not that it affects me as I've got the Medal of Altana, twice, already).
Re-locate the NPCs who give them Allied Tags as it is sometimes quite messy nearby them Fortifications which makes the process frustrating, especially if you want to join a Union, which has a few second delay for whatever reason between one of the options and even more frustrating will be getting Temporary Items.
With that said, how about distributing Temporary Items in the same manner as in Besieged? There could be some sort of a payment implemented where you could choose either to have them or not have them and with a Medal of Altana, you would of course get them for free in any case. Perhaps the Medal one possesses could define how many/which items one would get. Oh, the possibilities...
Adjust Fortifications, seriously... I'm sure there is something that can be done, if the EXP/LP yield can not be raised. I understand that one doesn't want players to just whack-a-wall for points, be it AFK or not, but yeah, this needs to be dealt with.
Move the NPCs dealing with Sigil closer to where everything else is. For example, in Bastok, you have to run all the way to the exit to Port Bastok/North Gustaberg [S] to get the Sigil, and perhaps other items, and then all the way back to warp to a locations. Same goes with if there is a battle in Bastok Markets [S], and you run to get the Allied Tags, but forgot your Medal has expired. It's a very trivial issue, yes, but very annoying to have to run back and forth that much. If the PS2 memory resources are limiting the NPC amount around where the OPs and Warp NPCs are, then, move some of the other NPCs away as there are many that are not used at all.
Make your opinions that are delivered to the leaders matter. I have a feeling they do matter, but no one really notices it and this, they do not give their opinion to them at all. Give some points for it, or have it really make a difference, that everyone can notice, especially now as not so many players are doing Campaign in the first place, this could be helpful. Though, seeing how little people are taking interest on Bastion, which has quite awesome effects to everyone in the area, the effect(s) would indeed need to be quite drastic.
Auto-Reraise wouldn't probably be a bad idea, especially since the NPCs will Warp away immediately after a fight ends. I can't really think of how that could be abused, even...
Enhance the Livery gear so that they boost your movement speed more, and in more areas, perhaps all the areas within allied-control. As a side-note, still haven't really noticed the other enhancements of them do anything...
Add more useful gear, or ways to upgrade the old.
Oopsies, in the end, I could probably go on for quite a while... In general, I just wish this would not become like any other event that has been left basically alone by the players, being just a speck on the memory-lane, wasting space and server resources. It's a great system, and I've had some of the most fun times in the game while doing Campaign. It could be expanded upon, and renovated for the players of today in many ways, I'm sure.

Many if not all of the things mentioned have been indeed asked for quite a few times with only one vague'ish reply from the developers from 05-28-2011, that I could find without digging deeper:


Comparatively, this type of adjustment is rather high on the difficulty scale. The development team can't make any promises at the moment, but they did mention that they will look into this further.

Would be nice to get an up-to-date opinion on that.

I'll list some of the related threads now, so that they have a connection to the (currently) most up to date thread, a sort of a compilation, if you will.

Skill ups in campaign
Campaign Battle Suggestions
Campaign
Adjustment to Campaign Battle
Campaign Frequency and Notification
Campaign rank progress
Make CAMPAIGN* better (sorry bad spelling)
Campaign Improvements: What it could and should be.
Skilling ups in campaign please!
Please add skill ups to campaign sessions
Campaign Weapon Skill Unlocks: Yes please!
New campaign cap?
Can we get more information on Campaign mechanics?
[To Dev Team] Further campaign adjustments
Auto-Reraise for Besieged/Campaign
Idea for Campaign (Go ahead, flame it)
WoTG - Campaign
Campaign Battle changes
Reallowing skill ups in campaign?
Campaign Battle updates?
[dev1034] campaign/beseige updates and fellow npc
Skill Ups Coming To Campaign?
Campaign Auto-Reraise
Campaign Warps to La Vaule, Oztroja, Beadeaux, Zvahl: developers considering?
Idea for Walk of Echoes and campaign-gear
campaign.
Campaign/Walk of Echoes.
Hostile Takeover! Campaign Battle for a Better FFXI!
[dev1034] Campaign
From a span of almost a year, I guess that's not so many, and perhaps most of them are about the same things. That alone should mean something!


Just some thoughts~

[Luvbunny]

Everything you posted is great ideas - but as always they tend to ignore everything that the player base suggested. Seems like their focus is to create "new" contents based on old existing contents. But they implement them in the worst way possible and everything is so half baked, the quality is just extremely bad. The worst part is they are very slow in adjusting the void watch, neo nyzul and legion. They created magian trials that is the absolute cake when it comes to grindtastic but refuse to give us more ways to acquire the drops. They promised this and that but fail to deliver, yeah void watch tickets. Neo Nyzul is completely dead on arrival, and so is Legion. Promenance is laughable when it comes to drop and those articifical time barrier. I mean if you are going to put crappy lot, get rid of 24 hours timer and KI requirement and let everyone duke it out for the 0.1% drop rate. We never have to deal with this clear completion on previous VW other than cities clear, why punishing us with more crappy "timesink" barriers.

They did adjust campaign a bit, but it is still pale in comparison to what they can do. You should get xp in the 10-30k when you are lvl 99 and hit the highest medal when it comes to 30 mnts battle. And they should ramp up the xp for people with level 50-75 characters so they too can join the battle and not have to leech xp. Letting people trade AN for alexandrite, heavy metal, coins, ancient currency etc will revitalize the content and you will see massive droves of people doing it.

[Sp1cyryan]

Dragoy. I am not actually sure and always wondered. Personally I cash in my tags and rejoin the union of two people. Sometimes doing that I get coins and sometimes not. Does cashing in tags still give a boost to the union coffer while resetting your progress to earning spoils on it or does it just reset it all?

Speaking of unions, YES SE WHEN I CLICK JOIN A UNION I WANT TO JOIN A UNION. WHY, do you have the default option "NO THANKS I AM GOOD I CLICKED JOIN A UNION FOR NO REASON"?

[Dragoy]

I'm not sure either. I never really tested it.

If I had to guess, I would think it resets the points completely, or in other words, they are not added in the final tally. One reason why I imagine this is that you lose your Allied Tags (and any points that you had) when and if you are disconnected from the game. On the other hand, when it comes to the Unions, it could well be a different story.

It should be a lot easier to test at this time though, since there are empty Unions probably most of the time. I recently took Red Mage from 95 to 99 in Campaign (I took it to 75 there too some years ago, oh how slow it was then... I just had to get my first level 99 that way too), but I didn't think of testing it at all then.

And yes, I don't quite understand why it takes 3 seconds to ask you if you want to join a Union or not. Just display the list at once, please. It can be quite frustrating since the NPC has to be right next to the fortress (provided the area is within Allied control) which may or may not be attacked by the beastmen often using more or less area attacks. Not to mention the variety of other causes to have that 'event' skipped. >.<

[Dudelsack]

I would think that the forces are actually rather ba... bla... balanced, but I think your server just sees less people fighting for Windurst. It has always been the same for Fenrir. San d'Oria was the favourite in the past as well as in the present (Bastok all the way for me), and I guess it still is so. Not many participate in Campaign Battle though, even after the so-called improvements which I think basically no one really asked for at that point (after Abyssea), which is more EXP/LP, and I might even say that the way it currently is, is a little bit annoying.

To elaborate on that quickly: Unless I do it at lower levels, I will reach the limit of 9000EXP/LP and 4500AN (Medal of Altana) within a very short amount of time, meaning I will have to get rid of the Allied Tags and get new ones if I don't want fighting to seem pointless in that regard. It does not make sense in the heat of a battle, and I'm assuming it will also reset your contribution to a Campaign Union.
I would probably prefer that there would be no need for 'renewing the tags' as it really doesn't 'fit', even if they would have to reduce the highest possible amount of points one would be able to get with the current system.

One argument the developers use (I believe) for having lower experience points et al yield from Campaign than for anything from Abyssea for example, is that within Abyssea, players are restricted by time. Well, if it is not clear yet, they are just as restricted there, as they are anywhere else right now (excluding Salvage and other battlefields of course). What I mean is, when getting experience points or other stuff in Abyssea, people are not really troubled by the time restriction as long as they are not just beginning with Abyssea altogether.

So with that said, I don't think this is good reasoning for why the limit of 9000/4500 should be in place at all.

Voidwatch, for now, helped a little in revitalising Campaign a bit I guess due to Allied Notes being used for Voiddust, but it's truly a shame that such massive content is just left to be, like all the other old stuff while they hastily create new stuff with as much random and time-sink as possible.

/etc/init.d/rantd stop

Oopsies, almost got into rant-mode there.

What I meant to say, in short, is that there are good ideas and swell thoughts, and I really intended the above to be just some quick comments on them, but it sort of... expanded upon itself. :S

As a conclusion, I shall quote one of my posts from another Campaign related thread, where I not-so-long-ago compiled some links to even more related threads. I think they all contain good stuff, and I guess it has become a sort of a Campaign Operation for me to keep these things around (is probably a waste of effort, though).

Oh and: Skillupses ! !! !

your list need a large update :D

[Dudelsack]

SE WAKE UP! updates please!
so call me maybe ?