Incentivizing lower tier Voidwatch

[Rooks]

Since cruor is no longer useful by itself as an income stream, Voidwatch groups are now basically limited to Bismarck, Morta, Ig-Alima, Uptala, and Qilin. This punishes newer players, who will struggle to assemble a group to clear lower tiers, and prevents players who have already cleared certain tiers from obtaining items from them. What could we do to give people a reason to go back? What about this:

Allow players who have completed the Voidwatch storyline (with the battle in Provenance) to obtain a new quest, where they are tasked with continuing to thwart the Voidwalker incursions. Each VWNM they kill is worth a certain amount of tokens, but those tokens are capped for each target - so you could only get credit for killing Pil 5 times, for example. Those limits would reset every Conquest tally.

Those tokens, plus cruor, could be used to buy things from an NPC - specifically, things you would get from doing Voidwatch anyway. Riftcinder, Riftdross, Heavy metal Plates, even pulse cells. This would do a couple of things:

- Encourage players to complete the Voidwatch storyline
- Give a new use for cruor
- Allow steady, guaranteed, non-luck-based progression on Empyrean weapons
- Make assembling groups to fight lower tier VWNMs easier, as more people would have reasons to go
- (Likely!) Doesn't require extensive additional programming/zones/NMs, making it easier on the development schedule

Thoughts?

[Gaspee]

I really like this idea. It would give VW new life and make upgrading Empyrean weapons (95+) a tad less annoying.

[detlef]

Liked. I will support anything that will get people to continue to do VW even when they already have the NM-specific drop(s).

[Kincard]

I'm not against this idea, but people need to stop thinking that the slowness of non-T3/T6 VW has anything to do with the cruor nerf. If the argument is that people are greedy and only want to do VW for money, it makes no sense to say they would only go for T3/T6s now when they could've done that before the cruor nerf and gotten both drops and cruor.

[Demon6324236]

They did, before it was free dust because of cruor, alot better incentive to goto VW when you never lose a dime on it, than now when a full round of dusts are about 120k, where if you don't get anything worth money then you lose it. Simple math, look at Gaunab for instance. It drops the Athos head and Ogier legs with a 5% drop rate. Its only other drop is Stoertebeker which is 10k, so even getting this drop and selling it, you make a massive 10k back out of that 120k, add up the cost of the NPC items, might make back 30k of it, so still losing 80k. Now, with cruor, 20k cruor/kill = 120k cruor, 120x2.595 = 311.4k gil you walk out with no matter what else drops. See, made money either way, gave people a reason to join this Gaunab shout with or without the need for its drops. Now, no one would think twice about it if they don't need the head or legs, its a total loss of gil and time.

Look at T3 Jeuno, on Phoenix at least, they are falling out too. Plates have about a 33% drop rate, so, 1 in 3 kills, that means an average of 2 a run. Prices here have been falling, plates are at about 70k each right now, falling 10k/week or so, which means on average a T3 Jeuno run will get you a grand 20k! 70k x 2 = 140k, 20k x 6 = 120k, 140 - 120 = 20. So, through math, your gain is minimal unless you get a lolPulsecell. I used to goto Akvan all the time, it was something to do, and I made money alot, so it was worth it, now, its something I ignore on the occasion I see it because I have all its drops, and plates almost make 0 profit now, leaving me with no reason to go anymore. You can not ignore the impact it has had on VW, the bad thing that hurts it even worse though, is that unlike the price of the rewards from VW, the dust has managed to stay the same old price somehow.

[Rooks]

I'm not against this idea, but people need to stop thinking that the slowness of non-T3/T6 VW has anything to do with the cruor nerf. If the argument is that people are greedy and only want to do VW for money, it makes no sense to say they would only go for T3/T6s now when they could've done that before the cruor nerf and gotten both drops and cruor.

Well, sure. Anyone who JUST wanted cruor could get it easier in Abyssea. But it certainly made filling a party easier, if someone could justify it as "well, cruor is money, might as well make a quick buck".

I'm much more interested in reviving the content itself, with minimal development time, and removing as much luck from the process as possible. Cruor having a use again is a bonus (and it wouldn't be terribly useful without the tokens anyway, so we could just remove cruor from that equation if was inconvenient).

[Garota]

Yeah, it's been a while since I've seen a Kalasutrax shout, I still want to get me a pair of Rubeus Spats, same goes for Foreboding Abjuration: Hands from Tsui-Goab, but haven't had any luck with previous kills. I would gladly use Pulse Cells or Crystal Petrifacts to get these items.

[Vladislav]

Yeah, it's been a while since I've seen a Kalasutrax shout .

Lol it is been a while (1.5~2months ) since i saw any Prov shouts ; ; and i still need this clear , i even no thinking about any drops D:

[Economizer]

Yeah, it's been a while since I've seen a Kalasutrax shout, I still want to get me a pair of Rubeus Spats

The joys of being a mage wanting an item from a mob that doesn't drop things all the melees want.

If Rubeus Spats came from the same mob that dropped a Toci's Harness, you'd have one, but instead it comes from the mob that drops Ogier's Helm, so you know, tough luck support class, complain too much or ask for any loot from a fight and they'll bring their dual boxed trashmage to events instead of you.

[Toadie-Odie]

I agree with the OP's suggestion. If the drops/prizes from VW wasn't strictly luck based I would think more people would be interested in doing it. I'm not sure if locking the suggested system to the conquest week would be good though. It sounds limiting, but it also sounds better than what the system is right now.

[Kincard]

The joys of being a mage wanting an item from a mob that doesn't drop things all the melees want.

If Rubeus Spats came from the same mob that dropped a Toci's Harness, you'd have one, but instead it comes from the mob that drops Ogier's Helm, so you know, tough luck support class, complain too much or ask for any loot from a fight and they'll bring their dual boxed trashmage to events instead of you.

What? A melee that thinks Ogier's Helm isn't useful probably doesn't know to play a melee very well. Actually I'd argue that Rubeus Spats are less useful to a mage than Ogier's Helm is to a melee because Rubeus Spats is either a melee piece or a recast reduction piece, and in terms of that its marched by a couple other pieces (Adhara, Mystagog), while the alternative to the Ogier's is the Odin Helms which have a terrible downside to them.

Kalasutrax is unpopular because he doesn't drop plates, just like Gaunab and Ocythoe. Ocythoe gives a nice melee piece (Athos' Pants) but I haven't seen a shout for him in months.

It probably doesn't help that I refuse to join most shout groups for the guy since most don't seem to have a clue how to beat Kalasutrax without resorting to phasers.

[Karah]

The joys of being a mage wanting an item from a mob that doesn't drop things all the melees want.

If Rubeus Spats came from the same mob that dropped a Toci's Harness, you'd have one, but instead it comes from the mob that drops Ogier's Helm, so you know, tough luck support class, complain too much or ask for any loot from a fight and they'll bring their dual boxed trashmage to events instead of you.

Kalasutrax is never shouted for because the blacksmages who currently inhabit vanadiel can't stun for shit. Making him exorbitantly more difficult.

It's ridiculous how many shout kala I've watched on my server get destroyed because they can't do any damage after 12 stances go off.

The only fight more entertaining to watch is rex, that is HILARIOUS. But off topic.

[Economizer]

What? A melee that thinks Ogier's Helm isn't useful probably doesn't know to play a melee very well.

Definitely could be the case, however I think part of the issue is that anyone who is "good enough" to build a top notch PDT set isn't the type of person to PUG that piece (or they got it when VW was still hot), whereas if it was a DD piece you'd have both pick ups and


Actually I'd argue that Rubeus Spats are less useful to a mage than Ogier's Helm is to a melee because Rubeus Spats is either a melee piece or a recast reduction piece, and in terms of that its marched by a couple other pieces (Adhara, Mystagog)

It is a melee piece. If I wanted recast reduction as a White Mage I'd be getting a pair of Blessed Trousers off the AH, or one of those other Haste pieces, whereas the Rubeus Spats are currently unmatched.

I was definitely simplifying the reasons people don't do the mob, but part of it comes down to SE being really mean about a piece of gear most people won't want, and then not making a better piece in Legion or what have you as of yet.


Kalasutrax is unpopular because he doesn't drop plates, just like Gaunab and Ocythoe. Ocythoe gives a nice melee piece (Athos' Pants) but I haven't seen a shout for him in months.

Yet another reason people don't do the mob, although I do occasionally see shouts for Gaunab, and rarely Ocythoe, but I only ever see Kalasutrax done when there are people trying to clear, which is incredibly rare.


It probably doesn't help that I refuse to join most shout groups for the guy since most don't seem to have a clue how to beat Kalasutrax without resorting to phasers.

As before, most people who are "good enough" to want an Ogier's Helm don't really favor pugs. But all those other reasons given just dig the possibilities of getting drops from the mob deeper and deeper into the ground.

[Kincard]

I think with Gaunab it's that PUGs can actually beat the guy reliably (Although I've recently seen some shouts for him saying to use phasers...really?). I actually don't have an Ogier's Helm myself and I would love to get one, but I also hate wasting my time. It's the same reason I don't join PUG Botulus. If they fixed the difficulty or made the reward per difficulty more sensible then I think you could fix the problem without even adding what the OP suggested.

Not to say what the OP suggested would be a bad thing that is.

[Ramaza]

The joys of being a mage wanting an item from a mob that doesn't drop things all the melees want.

If Rubeus Spats came from the same mob that dropped a Toci's Harness, you'd have one, but instead it comes from the mob that drops Ogier's Helm, so you know, tough luck support class, complain too much or ask for any loot from a fight and they'll bring their dual boxed trashmage to events instead of you.

I feel the same way. Kalaustrux has all but disappeared from PUG group shouts since I came back to the game. I'd really like a pair for my RDM, but there's really nothing that can be done. I can't even finish my Jeuno runs, since finding tier3 shouts on Fenrir is becoming rarer and rarer-so I can't even put together my own Kalastrux runs.

[Elphy]

(Although I've recently seen some shouts for him saying to use phasers...really.

The funny thing is, before we had phasers we could go in with a pug and destroy mobs like bot rex and Kalastrax with little issues. Since they introduced phasers, even with 2+ phasers in place, its a wipe-fest. Even if you tell ppl before hand to macro fools drink and pop it for chainspell, and then even announce in pt when its time to pop fools with enough time for them to do so before chainspell. Bot always kills half the alliance.

I have stopped bothering to put together vw runs. Its not really that there is an issue with drops as much as it is there is an issue with players who dont pay attn to what they should or need to do to win. Even my last few Pils have been total wipes do to lack of skill. They wanna run in and zerg and if that doesnt work they complain its too hard and then everyone just stops doing it.

Its not the fights, or the drops or the drop rates in most cases. Its the skill lvl and the cooperation lvl of the playerbase thats lacking.