My total Reive EXP gain: nearly 400. My total Reive EXP loss: nearly 40,000.

[Edyth]

As a Summoner, I get about 60 EXP per Reive. And now I realize I'm close to being level 98 again, because I've lost almost 40,000 EXP during Reives.

Can we have EXP loss taken out of Reives, or have pets earn exponentially more EXP? There are Reives where I get no EXP at all, even though I fight for more than an hour and the Reive ends in victory.

WHAT I DO IN REIVES:
This may be what I'm doing "wrong:"

I attack the main targets: the lairs and the obstructions. Thanks to the enmity update, that's all I can do. Attacking a monster is death. There's no room to stand far enough away: I have to either aggro or get caught in other people's monsters' AoEs, or I have to stand next to what I'm fighting. Matamata and craklaws have AoE normal attacks, and all reive monsters survive longer than one avatar. I can't resummon when I'm that close.

I do reives on SMN for campaign assignments and to clear paths. The EXP and bayld don't exist. If the lairs and obstructions don't count for much, akin to Fortifications in campaign, that needs to change. Fortifications are almost always unguarded. Reive targets are always surrounded by death.

WHY I DON'T MELEE:
Unfortunately, my staff skill as a career summoner is badass because I use the job for literally everything, and there are plenty of times I can safely melee with my avatar. Therefore my staff is accurate, although not stronger than an avatar's Assault. However, if it's a monster, I still die due to Edyth's enmity spiking despite her avatar dealing more damage, or the monster dies before I whack 4 times with my staff due to bonafide melee jobs attacking the monster. If it's the main target I'm fighting, meleeing with my avatar gets me killed due to danger all around me.

CHANGES NEEDED:
Even if you want to keep the main targets of the Reives "worthless" in terms of EXP/bayld, these changes should be made I feel:

Pets should earn EXP in Reives.
EXP loss should be eliminated in Reives. Eliminating EXP loss makes it so that players who prefer to focus on the true objective of the Reive (lairs and obstructions) are neither punished nor rewarded for ignoring the infinite small fries that spawn.

Currently, the system is like this: Your objective is to kill the metaphorical king. We will profusely reward those of you who take out the king's infinite grunts. To the man who kills the king, you get nothing, but you will be punished severely for the injuries you incur.


Note: I do indeed possess "Logging," Demolishing," and Reive unity, so that's not the issue.

[Alhanelem]

As a Summoner, I get about 60 EXP per Reive. And now I realize I'm close to being level 98 again, because I've lost almost 40,000 EXP during Reives.

Can we have EXP loss taken out of Reives, or have pets earn exponentially more EXP? There are Reives where I get no EXP at all, even though I fight for more than an hour and the Reive ends in victory.
It seems to me like you're doing something wrong, because while I agree that the xp given vs likelyhood of dying and losing it is a problem, you should be able to do a LOT better than 60 per an entire reive on SMN.

I'm guessing you're just standing there and only using your avatars or something. Pets earn basically no contribution points. Get a good DD staff and use shattersoul or cataclysm and your scores will get much better. Use party BPs like hastega and inferno howl to up your damage and also help everyone around you.

Rather than cancelling XP loss though, I think they should award like 3-5 times the EXP they do currently, because the current values are pathetic, even if you're on a DD.

[Zagen]

Maybe it's something you're doing or not doing because I see SMN doing Colonization Reives and I can't believe they're happy getting that kind of rewards when I get 1-4k Bayld on BLU, DRK, or PLD (I don't track/notice the EXP).

Do you spam buffs, spam damage pacts, and melee along with the avatar? I see this a lot so I assume that's the way to go.

[Cybermario]

I think they should award like 3-5 times the EXP they do currently, because the current values are pathetic, even if you're on a DD.agreed. Hitting roots all day long isnt fun, this could make it more attractive.

[Luvbunny]

This is the problem with SoA in general, the main activities are not fun AT ALL... It's boring, uninteresting and rather crappy with crap rewards. They really need to go back to the drawing board on this and hopefully the next 4-6 adjustment will fix this sad sorry expansion. I am optimistic BUT looking at the miserable state of WoTG expansion, I am very worried with this SoA future. Between the boring activities, "invisible" walls designed to slow down our progression, and horrible hate system, this game become from FUN and ADDICTIVE to super annoying in the span of one update.....

[Asymptotic]

Personally I enjoy Reives when there are fewer people doing them so crowd control is actually a challenge

[Zagen]

This is the problem with SoA in general, the main activities are not fun AT ALL... It's boring, uninteresting and rather crappy with crap rewards. They really need to go back to the drawing board on this and hopefully the next 4-6 adjustment will fix this sad sorry expansion. I am optimistic BUT looking at the miserable state of WoTG expansion, I am very worried with this SoA future. Between the boring activities, "invisible" walls designed to slow down our progression, and horrible hate system, this game become from FUN and ADDICTIVE to super annoying in the span of one update.....
For me it was the other way around. Don't get me wrong the whole pet hate issue and my pets taking more damage sucks but overall and more so once I got the expansion I'm actually having fun with Reives and that addiction is coming back, heck it even got me to go back to a few old events to get things i missed/put off.

[Asymptotic]

Between the boring activities, "invisible" walls designed to slow down our progression, and horrible hate system, this game become from FUN and ADDICTIVE to super annoying in the span of one update.....

That's really interesting! They didn't remove the rest of the world/events from FFXI when they added Adoulin access to my server.

[Luvbunny]

There is nothing fun when you get horrible lag issue when a lot of people are doing it. It's hard to target or execute macro, very very laggy. I mean sure it's interesting for the first few days but not if this is what we have to do everywhere in the SoA to "clear" the way.... You see a lot of people doing campaign nowadays? Look let's not sugar coat a turd when we see one - lol - after 4-5 big updates (which translate to a year maximum) then we may be able to judge SoA differently. It may as well be very amazing expansion, but as it is now. Pure gold turd!!

[Asymptotic]

I'm personally satisfied with the expansion, but even if it were absolutely terrible, exactly how does that take the fun out of the other 99% of FFXI?

[raps1355]

As a Summoner, I get about 60 EXP per Reive. And now I realize I'm close to being level 98 again, because I've lost almost 40,000 EXP during Reives.

Can we have EXP loss taken out of Reives, or have pets earn exponentially more EXP? There are Reives where I get no EXP at all, even though I fight for more than an hour and the Reive ends in victory.

EDIT:
This may be what I'm doing "wrong:"

I attack the main targets: the lairs and the obstructions. Thanks to the enmity update, that's all I can do. Attacking a monster is death. There's no room to stand far enough away: I have to either aggro or get caught in other people's monsters' AoEs, or I have to stand next to what I'm fighting. Matamata and craklaws have AoE normal attacks, and all reive monsters survive longer than one avatar. I can't resummon when I'm that close.

I do reives on SMN for campaign assignments and to clear paths. The EXP and bayld don't exist. If the lairs and obstructions don't count for much, akin to Fortifications in campaign, that needs to change. Fortifications are almost always unguarded. Reive targets are always surrounded by death.

This is most unusual that you only get 60 exp if you have been there for one hour. Can i ask how low is your blood pact delay, which avatar, are you hitting with your staff too?

[Alhanelem]

In my experience, if I only use summons, I get nothing most of the time. If I melee and support I get decent XP/bayld.

[Yinnyth]

agreed. Hitting roots all day long isnt fun, this could make it more attractive.

If all you're doing is hitting roots, you're not doing it right. If you get a billion gil, exp, and cool new gear for hitting roots, SE is not doing it right. The answer to boring things is not to increase the reward for doing boring things.

Reive Unity, accomplish the scores it requests, everyone gets bonuses.

[Hayward]

All I can say is welcome to the professional endgamer's version of Campaign, where fun is anathema and mages need not apply.

[Zagen]

All I can say is welcome to the professional endgamer's version of Campaign, where fun is anathema and mages need not apply.
I was not aware a mage was incabable of meleeing or curing.

When I show up on PLD and I see a single mage I always wish they'd say "hey don't use waltz/cures I'll keep you alive while I widdle the roots so we both get points while waiting for more to show up. We can all dream I guess...

[Horadrim]

As a Summoner, I get about 60 EXP per Reive. And now I realize I'm close to being level 98 again, because I've lost almost 40,000 EXP during Reives.

Can we have EXP loss taken out of Reives, or have pets earn exponentially more EXP? There are Reives where I get no EXP at all, even though I fight for more than an hour and the Reive ends in victory.

EDIT:
This may be what I'm doing "wrong:"

I attack the main targets: the lairs and the obstructions. Thanks to the enmity update, that's all I can do. Attacking a monster is death. There's no room to stand far enough away: I have to either aggro or get caught in other people's monsters' AoEs, or I have to stand next to what I'm fighting. Matamata and craklaws have AoE normal attacks, and all reive monsters survive longer than one avatar. I can't resummon when I'm that close.

I do reives on SMN for campaign assignments and to clear paths. The EXP and bayld don't exist. If the lairs and obstructions don't count for much, akin to Fortifications in campaign, that needs to change. Fortifications are almost always unguarded. Reive targets are always surrounded by death.

As a pet job you can solo Lair reives... so I don't get it... As PUP my lowest average is around like 1k bayld and thats when I'm not even trying.

Side note /WHM, Sneak/Invisible. The mobs won't even notice you, unless they patched that.

[Jerbob]

I think the point is that, if I should decide that I want to do some reives as BLM, I should be able to attend and recieve full rewards for performing the role my job is designed to fill. The same most certainly goes for SMN. If SE has given us all these jobs then they should all be able to access broad-spectrum events like reives. That they cannot is essentially a design flaw.

I'm not adverse to hitting things with staves as a summoner, nor to healing people who need healing. If someone is in dire need then I'll drop what I'm doing and support them as best I can. It isn't nice for someone capable of assisting another not to do so! However, people need to realise that I'm there to play SMN, and that I should not be penalised for participating in an event that's obviously supposed to be broadly accessible - just based on my job selection.

I think it's also worth pointing out that, just like in Campaign battles, healing is yet another thing that is is not particularly well rewarded and that "Mage" is not a job, it is a very broad category of many different jobs that all have different roles - most of which are not dedicated (or even remotely proficient) healers. I wholeheartedly agree that it's nice to support your fellow reive participants with healing when possible, but people should not feel entitled to it when, in fact, it often results in another player that you don't even know sacrificing their own gains in bayld and EXP. That is why "mages" didn't focus full time on healing in Campaign, and why many don't do so now. It may seem selfish when you're not getting full time one-on-one "mage" support in reives, but it's also selfish to expect others to make these sacrifices in every reive they engage in.

[Areayea]

just so all of you know, Luvbunny has expressively expressed that she doesn't like anything about SoA, so I wouldn't waste my time debating her, and more time just ignoring her, anyway I enjoy the expansion, but everything has had a lot of simular problems, I remember never being able to cap my ISP in besieged when I went as smn... they have it fixed now, but just got to give it time, they probably templated the old besieged formula of dmg vs ISP, so they have to work out the kinks. Other than that I love meleeing on smn... it makes ppl have a shocked look, just have the right gear/staff and it's amazing (also if you can try to get the staff off Jormungand, the one that attacks 2 to 5 times) so yep... just keep at it ^^

[Luvbunny]

just so all of you know, Luvbunny has expressively expressed that she doesn't like anything about SoA, so I wouldn't waste my time debating her, and more time just ignoring her, anyway I enjoy the expansion, but everything has had a lot of simular problems, I remember never being able to cap my ISP in besieged when I went as smn... they have it fixed now, but just got to give it time, they probably templated the old besieged formula of dmg vs ISP, so they have to work out the kinks.

Look, if you want to become a beta tester for SoA and paying for it, by all means, go right ahead. It is very obvious this expansion is not ready to be released and there are tons of bugs that needs to be ironed out. You can like it, no one stopping you, but the same goes to others who do not really enjoy it, and being vocal about it. It did not stop me from trying to see what the expansion all about. At the end of the day though, I am tired being used as guinea pig for this expansion - so I am gonna wait a good 3-6 months to see what they will plan on fixing it. It's good to take a break from this game :)

[Mokeil]

As a pet job you can solo Lair reives... so I don't get it... As PUP my lowest average is around like 1k bayld and thats when I'm not even trying.

Side note /WHM, Sneak/Invisible. The mobs won't even notice you, unless they patched that.

I tried this as a Summoner duo with a buddy of mine looking to clear some Peacekeeper missions... While we did (eventually) clear the Reive, we received almost 0 exp/Bayld while doing so. I think I got about 100xp and 10 Bayld across the whole thing?

The problem as a Summoner is that our avatars have, to put it lightly, really lousy DoT. Going purely on auto-attack DoT, our avatars don't generate enough points to pass the minimum evaluation threshold. Thus, each time the evaluation happens, we get rated at 0 and set back to start. A solid BP Rage can still do an OK chunk of damage... but that puts us smack within aggro range and drops invisible. Dead Summoners are the only result of that!

As a side note, our use of the Assault (pet attack) command also drops Invisible, while the equivalent commands for BST and PUP do not. Even getting the avatar on the lair is down right risky.

I was interested in trying it as PUP, though. If I may inquire, which frame did you use? I'm afraid I've rather dreadfully neglected my non-mage frames...

[Asymptotic]

People seem to like the RNG frame for some reason, but I feel like the RDM frame might be the way to go since magic damage is a separate evaluation category.

[Hayward]

My last post was facetious but Jerbob nailed the point I tried to convey. That Avatar damage/support is a non-factor in reive evaluations is almost unthinkable. Elemental magic damage certainly should count for more than what I've been hearing about. Where I am going is that melee damage cannot and should not be the largest factor in reive evaluations when various aspects of a successful fight are involved--healing, elemental magic, enfeebling, crowd control, etc.

[Alhanelem]

My last post was facetious but Jerbob nailed the point I tried to convey. That Avatar damage/support is a non-factor in reive evaluations is almost unthinkable. Elemental magic damage certainly should count for more than what I've been hearing about. Where I am going is that melee damage cannot and should not be the largest factor in reive evaluations when various aspects of a successful fight are involved--healing, elemental magic, enfeebling, crowd control, etc.
They've already nerfed melee contributions and buffed healing/elemental/enfeebling contributions. Would you like them to be nerfed more?
... I didn't think so.

I think the issue with pets is they didn't include contribution for them because of the way pet enmity/aggro/linking works and the fact that pets can clear a rieve with no interaction from the player in many cases. Should you really get significant exp/balyd for dropping your pet on the roots then standing back at the edge where the mobs (usually) won't get you? Seems too easy to me considering the risk every other job has to take.

finally: Even if pet actions give you xp/bayld, you can still get more by meleeing/casting spells of your own/etc. There's still no reason not to, no matter how much you insist you're a mage job and you should never melee.

[Makenshi]

I hardly get anything out of reives. As a BLU im lucky to get 100-200.

[saevel]

I hardly get anything out of reives. As a BLU im lucky to get 100-200.

Then either you suck hard or your not doing it right. BLU is a monster in reives. I often get 2~4K per fight, depending.

[Hayward]

They've already nerfed melee contributions and buffed healing/elemental/enfeebling contributions. Would you like them to be nerfed more?
... I didn't think so.

I think the issue with pets is they didn't include contribution for them because of the way pet enmity/aggro/linking works and the fact that pets can clear a rieve with no interaction from the player in many cases. Should you really get significant exp/balyd for dropping your pet on the roots then standing back at the edge where the mobs (usually) won't get you? Seems too easy to me considering the risk every other job has to take.

finally: Even if pet actions give you xp/bayld, you can still get more by meleeing/casting spells of your own/etc. There's still no reason not to, no matter how much you insist you're a mage job and you should never melee.

Where did I ever suggest that melee rewards be reduced? That adjustment was definitely a cop out in a bad attempt to save face.

On pet jobs' contributions, it's in their job descriptions (Use pets to fight besides you. You of all people should understand that). Why would S-E want to penalize SMNs, BSTs, and PUPs for using the key component of their jobs? Forcing SMN to melee for a decent result is absurd due to their lack of appropriate equipment. Show me a set of armor for SMN that is melee-friendly and I'll change my position, but until then I want to see Avatar contributions count for something.

[Ravenmore]

I hardly get anything out of reives. As a BLU im lucky to get 100-200.

Really. You're doing it wrong then. With how short amount of time you have you have to pile up the damage and fast to get good results and roots and nest both have MP, nice fat bags of MP so no reason to hold back. I soloed a nest the other day and never did my MP drain kisses drop bellow 100mp and many were above 150. Just soloing a Lair netted me 400 bayld. That was me just using WoR and thunderbolt on the mobs. I could have done better if getting bayld was my adjective but just getting the nest down for a assignment was all I cared about while not having to deal with mobs respawning.

[Makenshi]

I dont know what im doing wrong. I spam spells, use weapon skills, make skill chains.

[Rustic]

And an hour or two in Abyssea and suddenly, you're back up that 40K exp.

Exp loss is trivial unless you're literally sitting there getting your face chewed off like clockwork. Are you just taking regular ol Raise/Reraises vs. one of the higher-tier ones?

[Alhanelem]

Where did I ever suggest that melee rewards be reduced?


Where I am going is that melee damage cannot and should not be the largest factor in reive evaluationsConsidering they've reduced it already, you can be sure they're not going to increase it again.

The fact is most of the damage done in this game is done by melee, so of course it should be the largest factor- everybody can do it.


On pet jobs' contributions, it's in their job descriptions (Use pets to fight besides you. You of all people should understand that). Why would S-E want to penalize SMNs, BSTs, and PUPs for using the key component of their jobs?To prevent abuse, that's why. (And I do use my summons to *fight beside me*, not *fight instead of me*.)


Show me a set of armor for SMN that is melee-friendly and I'll change my position, but until then I want to see Avatar contributions count for something. peruse FFXIAH for melee sets for every job in the game, even sch which has less melee capability than SMN. Any SMN who cares about doing more damage on their job is basically forced to do this right now, so plenty of research has been done on the subject. You also don't need super melee gear. I melee all the time, especially in rieves, use my BPs whenever possible, and basically fight like a team similar to how most PUP play their jobs. I get plenty of XP/bayld on SMN.

THere's just no reason not to. Even if pets give OP contribution points, you can STILL get more by meleeing. You are going to be in harms way in rieves every second that you're in one- you're not any less in harms way if you don't melee, because there is no place to stand as a back line and "be a mage." Generally "mage jobs" stand back because the risk of being close is much higher than other jobs. However, in Rieves, you can't really stand back and remove that risk- so you may as well be in the thick of things.

Your weapon is a tool- and that tool occasionally has some use, no matter what job you're on.

(Disclaimer: obviously this is not aboutt HNMs and other "serious content"- such actions are much higher risk in those situations usually)

[Jerbob]

I would argue that a reive system that is designed in such a way that it becomes necessary to essentially nullify contributions made by jobs using their primary tool is an intrinsically flawed system anyway. If SE are truly concerned about reives being soloable by pet jobs (and any jobs capable of ranged attacks or ranged magic attacks, for lair reives - that's a LOT of jobs) then effectively disallowing rewards for those jobs is about the most terrible way possible of "solving" the issue. A design adjustment that makes soloing ineffective, impossible or impractical that also makes non-solo participation actually rewarding is the more difficult, but correct solution.

Whether meleeing as a non-melee specialist job is more or less effective is essentially irrelevant in the context of this issue, really. There are ways for almost any job to further increase their rewards by doing somewhat "nonstandard" things. But it should not be necessary or required in order to recieve passable rewards, as opposed to the use of a job's primary mechanics, as it currently is for jobs like SMN.

[Alhanelem]

I would argue that a reive system that is designed in such a way that it becomes necessary to essentially nullify contributions made by jobs using their primary tool is an intrinsically flawed system anyway.Except it's really not. Use the buffs that help you and everyone around you (summoner effects work on everyone.


then effectively disallowing rewards for those jobs is about the most terrible way possible of "solving" the issue. A design adjustment that makes soloing ineffective, impossible or impractical that also makes non-solo participation actually rewarding is the more difficult, but correct solution.You're not disallowed from rewards. You're only disallowed from exclusively using pets to do everything while you sit back and watch. Back when campaign was new they had to nerf BRD song contribution because large numbers of people were going BRD, standing away from the action, and spamming bard songs. How would you have solved this problem? How do you prevent such passive participation from being rewarded more than putting an effort in? Fair question- I'm willing to listen to solutions.


Whether meleeing as a non-melee specialist job is more or less effective is essentially irrelevant in the context of this issue, really. There are ways for almost any job to further increase their rewards by doing somewhat "nonstandard" things. But it should not be necessary or required in order to recieve passable rewards, as opposed to the use of a job's primary mechanics, as it currently is for jobs like SMN. Well, you were arguing that you should be able to consciously choose to perform worse than people around you and still get the same benefit - at least, that's how I saw it - because that's basically what you're doing by refusing to melee on any given job in a rieve.

Balancing contribution so that all 22 jobs can earn exactly the same will be nearly impossible.

[Jerbob]

I must admit I gave up on SMN pretty quickly in reives (partly because it was so dreadful and partly because I got sick of enmity issues elsewhere) so I don't recall if using lots of wards is rewarded well, but judging by Campaign (and other "contribution-relative reward" systems) and a rep comment a few days ago mentioning that reives were specifically set up to prevent the "bard bot" problem you mention, I suspect the rewards for enhancing in particular are very substandard. Of course I don't have direct evidence for this at the moment so I'll have a look for myself over the weekend, probably. Obviously enhancing/healing people with wards is a very positive thing, but if there is no reward for it then I refer back to my first post in this thread re: the expectation that "mages" heavily sacrifice their own rewards for others.

Pets are the foundation of SMN. As a summoner I'm fragile, I'm not built for meleeing, and my selection of equipment is limited. There's also the argument that if I wanted to get seriously into melee I wouldn't be there as SMN. A loose comparison might be an avatar to a MNK's hand-to-hand weapon - yes, I can punch (melee) things with a degree of success, but without my hand-to-hand weapon (avatar) I'm really losing out. If a MNK's bonuses from their weapon were ignored in rieves, there would be uproar. I would never claim that meleeing isn't possible during rieves for SMN - it certainly is - but it's not why I'm there as a SMN and it's not what I'm good at, so it should not be required if I am to recieve any benefit.

I would argue that using avatars is not passive participation any more than someone engaging a target in melee and weaponskilling at 100% TP. I still have to be wary of my avatar's HP, and my own. I still have to "weaponskill at 100% TP", i.e. use blood pacts. In fact, as you have demonstrated, my ward pacts have a more beneficial effect on other participants than a generic auto-attacking player. Bards spamming songs in Campaign -IS- passive participation, I agree. That problem could have been solved by allowing songs to hit NPCs/allied PCs like Wards do, and requiring that songs affect multiple targets that are actively participating in battle before they grant EXP, which would also put bards into more dangerous positions that would require active player input. Likewise, pet "abuse" by soloing rieves could be prevented by having monsters link to roots/lairs. It'd suck for the people who solo rieves at the moment, granted, but I'm not convinced that it's not unintended exploitation anyway and it'd be nice for everyone else.

I think we are miscommunicating on your third point. Of course, meleeing and healing in addition to using an avatar is more beneficial than not doing so. However, meleeing and healing are the only significant source of rewards for summoners, and we aren't very good at either. If I was just to stand back and have an avatar deal damage and enhance with wards, I should recieve the same reward as someone else dealing the same damage and performing the same enhancements. Currently I do not. I think, in fact, your comment is the one that indicates that others should benefit more than me for the same contribution - a non-pet job may do the same things as I do, but I recieve nothing for it. My primary tool for doing anything is being completely ignored.

Of course I recognise that balancing 22 jobs will be difficult, but it is SE's job to make sure that it's done. It's not difficult to devise solutions to issues - I've suggested one for "bard bot" in campaign and one for pet jobs, and I'm neither a developer nor did I spent more than 5 minutes devising those solutions. I would argue that they have a responsibility to make sure that all jobs can contribute in the manner in which they are intended to function, regardless of how difficult that may be.

[Alhanelem]

I must admit I gave up on SMN pretty quickly in reives (partly because it was so dreadful and partly because I got sick of enmity issues elsewhere) so I don't recall if using lots of wards is rewarded well, but judging by Campaign (and other "contribution-relative reward" systems) and a rep comment a few days ago mentioning that reives were specifically set up to prevent the "bard bot" problem you mention, I suspect the rewards for enhancing in particular are very substandard.They are, the point of using Wards is to improve your own capability + that of those around you, as Wards affect all players in range in a rieve.


Pets are the foundation of SMN. As a summoner I'm fragile, I'm not built for meleeing, and my selection of equipment is limited. There's also the argument that if I wanted to get seriously into melee I wouldn't be there as SMN. A loose comparison might be an avatar to a MNK's hand-to-hand weapon - yes, I can punch (melee) things with a degree of success, but without my hand-to-hand weapon (avatar) I'm really losing out. If a MNK's bonuses from their weapon were ignored in rieves, there would be uproar. I would never claim that meleeing isn't possible during rieves for SMN - it certainly is - but it's not why I'm there as a SMN and it's not what I'm good at, so it should not be required if I am to recieve any benefit.Yes, avatars are the foundation of SMN, but there is absolutely no reason, as I've stated multiple times, not to melee in a rieve. You say you're fragile, and yes, that's true, but avoiding being in the range of some monster's AoE, especially when you're trying to damage the roots, is basically impossible. You are in harms way anyway, so there's no reason not to do it.


I think we are miscommunicating on your third point. Of course, meleeing and healing in addition to using an avatar is more beneficial than not doing so. However, meleeing and healing are the only significant source of rewards for summoners, and we aren't very good at either. If I was just to stand back and have an avatar deal damage and enhance with wards, I should recieve the same reward as someone else dealing the same damage and performing the same enhancements. Currently I do not. I think, in fact, your comment is the one that indicates that others should benefit more than me for the same contribution - a non-pet job may do the same things as I do, but I recieve nothing for it. My primary tool for doing anything is being completely ignored.Actually, you should get slightly less, because there are simultaneous actions you could be performing that would further increase your score. if BPs alone gave you the same contribution score as everyone else, meleeing would mean you could get MORE than everyone else- causing there to again, be no reason not to do it.

I'm not saying pet actions SHOULD contribute nothing- not at all - however I also understand the problems SE is trying to avoid, and they are not easy to solve.

All I was trying to say from the beginning is that if you're willing to think outside the box a bit, Summoner can still get decent bayld from rieves.

[Jerbob]

I do realise that wards are important and valuable in terms of the bonuses people recieve, but from a strictly objective perspective, if I'm doing my job as an AoE enhancer then I should benefit from it. If I don't, then using my time and resources on wards which grant me no reward is pointless. In the same vein, I wouldn't expect a melee job to use Wasp Sting to open skillchains for me, granting me extra rewards at their detriment. A more extreme example, but a congruent one nonetheless I think. I would like to stress that I will glady do things in reives to help others that give me little or no reward, but the point is that the contribution should be rewarded - or it shouldn't be expected.

I have never disagreed with you that meleeing is a good thing. If a SMN can and does do it, that's great and I fully agree with you that they should be rewarded extra for contributing more. I simply take issue with meleeing being their primary (or one of their primary) means of gaining rewards, especially when their relative lack of capability in that area (and others) means they can't gain sufficient rewards to make up for their completely ignored contributions (the avatar). I also strongly believe that my primary means of gaining rewards should be the primary strength(s) or function(s) of my job. Overall, I'm not expecting a perfectly synced up level of reward between all jobs, so slight differences don't worry me that much. It's the extreme cases that worry me. As long as everything is in the general region of being equal then I have far fewer issues.

I think the problems can (and therefore should) be solved. I believe it's SE's responsibility to come up with good solutions for potential exploits, and it's certainly not impossibe - we've all contributed ideas. Tweaking monster behaviour, making rewards conditional (such as needing to attack vines/lairs to gain rewards from monsters, as they have done) and having more complex rules for rewards (eg. requiring "damage taken" and "HP cured to self" events to both occur for self-healing to gain rewards, preventing curekit bot style behaviour) are all possibilities. If SE really has serious issues with potential exploits and is using that to justify bad rewards for lots of jobs / playstyles (which I'm not convinced about - they've demonstrated a clear inability to balance "contribution >> reward" systems before) then they need to fix those exploits in the system instead of taking the easy route and blocking the jobs or job functions that can potentially exploit those problems.

Thinking outside the box is generally a positive thing, but consider a scenario where all contributions were ignored apart from healing magic. Would every DD in the game be happy using /RDM, disengaging from battle and spamming Cure IV on each other? It's an outside-the-box approach to getting rewards on DD jobs, but I suspect it would not be appreciated. FFXI's job variety is a wonderful thing, and we should be able to enjoy it at every opportunity - and that means focusing on each job's uniqueness, not having arbitrary restrictions and requirements that punish us for using all the tools at our disposal.

Perhaps I'm just being too idealistic.

[Thundarian]

Hi. I hate to inform you, but you are doing it wrong.

Firstly, do you have the appropriate KI's for the reives that you are doing? IE Woodcrafting, etc?
Second, do you have reive unity yet? I have seen a lot of people doing them without this KI, and it is absurd to not have it for what it gives.

I only play summoner at the moment, and am capable of getting 1-4k bayld per reive depending on how the reive goes etc. A majority of my contribution comes from healing / status effect removal / buffing, with a smattering of damage thrown in. Carbuncle tends to be one of the better full time pets for reive's with a large number of buffs to cycle through and the best heal you have avaliable.

Damage is nice to have, and it doesn't hurt to have your pet sitting on a root and using a blood pact rage every once in a while, but my bread and butter is healing / support. Also, grab the reive staff if you don't have something equivilant, the +MAB to pets in reive's makes a noticable difference in damage output.

[Ravenmore]

I dont know what im doing wrong. I spam spells, use weapon skills, make skill chains.

I don't either since I just got 1.5k walking into a roots reive that about half way done. I stay mostly on the mobs and only go over to the root to use MP drain kiss. Mobs are easier to cap damage out on and taking damage helps to. I use a -pdt set and /rdm to keep damage low and I don't use occult unless I have more then one mob on me.

[Caketime]

Balancing contribution so that all 22 jobs can earn exactly the same will be nearly impossible.

Balancing to ensure that all 22 jobs can earn approximately the same amount baased on contribution seems to be escaping the devs as well. Personally I find it annoying that I can't go and do Reives on WHM and support if I'm expecting decent Bayld per Reive, I'm forced to either wear melee gear and drop my spell potency, or just stand in the corner slinging spells and deal with the small amount of Bayld per Reive. Of course, I can just be a jerk and give out no buffs, focusing solely on melee. Lots of Bayld that way.

[Luvbunny]

I think they should double the rewards when you cast cure on your fellow players. Though reive unity sometimes refill everyone HP and then what are whms suppose to do? I mean, let's face it, reive is a big total joke, just let everyone get lots of bayld doing spammable spells - or just make it easier - it's going to die within 6 months anyway - then no progress will be made and in a year, all the returning players will find it impossible to progress in SoA quests + areas....

[Demon6324236]

I think they should double the rewards when you cast cure on your fellow players. Though reive unity sometimes refill everyone HP and then what are whms suppose to do? I mean, let's face it, reive is a big total joke, just let everyone get lots of bayld doing spammable spells - or just make it easier - it's going to die within 6 months anyway - then no progress will be made and in a year, all the returning players will find it impossible to progress in SoA quests + areas....I'm getting really fkin tired of your 'the world is ending!' attitude, the expansion has been out for less than a month, shut the hell up, offer some feedback that isn't insultingly pessimistic, and wait till its been out a bit longer, if in 2~3 months it is still not to your liking, then complain, till then, sit down, suck it up, play the content, and offer feedback.

[Edyth]

Hi. I hate to inform you, but you are doing it wrong.

Firstly, do you have the appropriate KI's for the reives that you are doing? IE Woodcrafting, etc?
Second, do you have reive unity yet? I have seen a lot of people doing them without this KI, and it is absurd to not have it for what it gives.

I only play summoner at the moment, and am capable of getting 1-4k bayld per reive depending on how the reive goes etc. A majority of my contribution comes from healing / status effect removal / buffing, with a smattering of damage thrown in. Carbuncle tends to be one of the better full time pets for reive's with a large number of buffs to cycle through and the best heal you have avaliable.

Damage is nice to have, and it doesn't hurt to have your pet sitting on a root and using a blood pact rage every once in a while, but my bread and butter is healing / support. Also, grab the reive staff if you don't have something equivilant, the +MAB to pets in reive's makes a noticable difference in damage output.

I do have "Logging", "Demolishing", and Reive unity.

[Luvbunny]

I'm getting really fkin tired of your 'the world is ending!' attitude, the expansion has been out for less than a month, shut the hell up, offer some feedback that isn't insultingly pessimistic, and wait till its been out a bit longer, if in 2~3 months it is still not to your liking, then complain, till then, sit down, suck it up, play the content, and offer feedback.

No point of playing as "paying beta tester" - I ain't going to suck it up and deal with it, it's best to avoid the content till more adjustment is being made. We all know it's not going to get better after 4-5 updates anyway - they generally ignores our feedback - we can keep trying but unless it's happening in the japanese forum, not much is gonna get done.

It's good that you are overtly optimistic though. I am surprised you wanna bear and grind it for 3 months lol. Crap content is crap content, you can't dress up turds and expect it's going to start tasting like caviar. At least some updates and adjustments are being made, I suppose baby steps...

[Demon6324236]

No point of playing as "paying beta tester" - I ain't going to suck it up and deal with it, it's best to avoid the content till more adjustment is being made. We all know it's not going to get better after 4-5 updates anyway - they generally ignores our feedback - we can keep trying but unless it's happening in the japanese forum, not much is gonna get done.Then simply don't play it, just stop going into every single fucking thread about the expansion complaining how it sucks and is going to continue to suck. If you haven't noticed, they have actually been changing the content a bit in accordance with feedback and making it better over the last month rather than simply leaving it as is, so apparently in this case they are actually doing something with our feedback.


It's good that you are overtly optimistic though. I am surprised you wanna bear and grind it for 3 months lol. Crap content is crap content, you can't dress up turds and expect it's going to start tasting like caviar. At least some updates and adjustments are being made, I suppose baby steps...I think in the time I have posted on these forums I have made it quite clear I am against pointless grinds and highly luck based events, so its not like I ''wanna bear and grind it for 3 months" I just want people to shut up and give it time. I'm tired of seeing both people I know and people I don't going and leaving this game because of stupid issues they have without any patience to see what happens. People keep whining about Reives, or about lack of content, or about RMEs not being the top, people need to suck it up and wait. If you expect everything to be perfect on release, your an idiot, if you are leaving or giving up early, your a fool. I am not optimistic, I am waiting, and I am being patient rather than simply insulting the expansion in every thread about the expansion, unlike you, who seem to say something negative about it every single possible chance you get even when its not related to the topic, while you praise the amazing Abyssea all the same.

Basically, if you can not be patient and wait for a bit, go away, stop bitching before we see how it turns out, if in a few months its not better than now, then you have every reason to complain. Also, this is not a beta test, that would insinuate that we are testing basically everything, the game is still there, the only thing that changed is there is a new expansion, and a few old rules changed like Defense and Enmity, simply adapt, go back to Abyssea and hide out there, maybe in a few months you will think its worth doing, till then take your pessimism elsewhere...

[Alhanelem]

No point of playing as "paying beta tester" - I ain't going to suck it up and deal with it, it's best to avoid the content till more adjustment is being made. We all know it's not going to get better after 4-5 updates anyway - they generally ignores our feedback - we can keep trying but unless it's happening in the japanese forum, not much is gonna get done.

It's good that you are overtly optimistic though. I am surprised you wanna bear and grind it for 3 months lol. Crap content is crap content, you can't dress up turds and expect it's going to start tasting like caviar. At least some updates and adjustments are being made, I suppose baby steps...
You're a paying beta tester in any MMO you'll ever play, because MMOs are never finished. so stop injecting your whininess into every discussion.

[Demon6324236]

You're a paying beta tester in any MMO you'll ever play, because MMOs are never finished. so stop injecting your whininess into every discussion.Exactly. Your not really testing it, your simply playing a game where things are subject to change at any time during its lifespan, testing is done before release, now its just being fine tuned to the player base and their wishes.

[Luvbunny]

There are still easy bayld to do, those tags are not going to go wasted, even RMT are acknowledging this lol. Glad you are very optimistic about this half baked expansion. I know that MMO is always evolving and adjustments are constantly being made. The thing that is beyond my reasoning is that these same developers have done very similar content with besieged, campaign, and walk of echoes. These are like a good 3-5 years experience, along with Abyssea, Voidwatch and Meeble.

They are not a bunch of juniors and interns (or maybe they are, who knows....) so when SoA launched which is a full fledged expansion and not add ons, it baffles me that they have not learned anything from all their past failures and successes. And then expect us to "just wait it out" and go play test it. It's one thing if Reives - a brand new way of playing unlike anything we have ever seen before (Besieged when it was first launched, and still laggy even after 7 years). But Reives is campaign lite version 2.0. and not a very good one at that.

At least they are fixing and tweaking it, hopefully this April update would be a good meaty one. Otherwise you should take a long hard look at WoTG expansion, which share similar ideas of player's co-operation in advancing contents and areas - and see where it gets us, at this point, everywhere in the past is owned by beastmen pretty much. I sure do hope they are fully testing the upcoming content fully and thoroughly before releasing it. Whatever happened to the test server? They used to put a lot more stuffs in there and get feedbacks and fixing a lot of the contents before being released.

In this age, 2013, first impression is everything, people are not gonna sit and wait patiently and paying for months for updates when there are plenty of newer, better, faster pace game out there that are competing for their attention, time, and money. SoA failed to impress on first impression and on the get go, granted this may not be their intention and perhaps it is suppose to be "slow burn" type of expansion. They should have made Reives very compelling, addictive and fun, so people will leave abyssea and grind on those activities and exploring the new areas more.

[Demon6324236]

At least they are fixing and tweaking it, hopefully this April update would be a good meaty one. Otherwise you should take a long hard look at WoTG expansion, which share similar ideas of player's co-operation in advancing contents and areas - and see where it gets us, at this point, everywhere in the past is owned by beastmen pretty much. I sure do hope they are fully testing the upcoming content fully and thoroughly before releasing it. Whatever happened to the test server? They used to put a lot more stuffs in there and get feedbacks and fixing a lot of the contents before being released.Well so far as player cooperation, they seem to understand the speed needs adjusted for Adoulin, and have changed it up a bit so we can advance through it, I hope if it slows down, they will do what is needed to keep it good enough to work. As for the test server, not enough people did things on it so far as I could tell, it was mostly abused for .dat mining and learning things like that, so for the most part I think it was a failure unless I missed something and they basically left it alone and abandoned.


In this age, 2013, first impression is everything, people are not gonna sit and wait patiently and paying for months for updates when there are plenty of newer, better, faster pace game out there that are competing for their attention, time, and money. SoA failed to impress on first impression and on the get go, granted this may not be their intention and perhaps it is suppose to be "slow burn" type of expansion.I agree, first impressions matter, and I have no problem with people taking a break and coming back later to see if things get better, but people I know have been selling their accounts, quiting completely and abandoning the game. There are also people who come here like you do and simply complain about it, rather than offering true constructive criticism which might improve it. For instance your comment at the end of this entire thing which I will make sure to point out right now.


They should have made Reives very compelling, addictive and fun, so people will leave abyssea and grind on those activities and exploring the new areas more.This is not constructive criticism in my opinion, its telling them some very vague goals, goals of which I am sure they already had set and did not need to be told about. This is much easier said than done, but rather than giving them some ideas, telling them how to change it exactly so it would be funner, and more appealing, you simply say 'make it like abyssea!' which says nothing to them. You say you do not like simply bashing roots, ok, so what could they do to make it funner? How would they go about making it better for you and more enjoyable? When you can tell them that and make posts about it, I will welcome your feedback, because thats what it will be, feedback, rather than mindless ranting about how it sucks, which is what you seem to be doing now.

[Luvbunny]

You want to know what's fun, and addictive, even though it is just pure grind fest? And the sad part is, they did manage to somewhat re-create it but then as usual put all these nonsense limitations.... Phantasy Star Online. Which they managed to copy with Assaults but then never fully fleshed out and you have to deal with the damn tags. They made another attempt with Moblin Maze, which is a wonderful idea on paper, and yet again with those damn tags, and rewards were a sore miss, so no one does it. Campaign is better than Reive. Walk of Echoes is also better than Reive. The lag is horrible on both events. Meeble is great, but for some reasons no one bother to do it, and then you have those damn tags again. Desire of Emptiness BCNM type is actually fun, and yet they made you climb all the way up instead of warped direct there. Voidwatch is good, but the RNG is not, simply giving people points so they could trade for gears of their choice like Meeble, Legion or Assault would be great. There are plenty of examples of how they managed to do somewhat good job, but then you have to deal with another damn tags. SoA 6 hours = 1 tag is not too bad. They should just create a bunch of different mini events where you have 30 mnts to complete objectives using your tags, for 3-6 people - some sort of expedition. That would be a lot more fun.

[Alhanelem]

WHY I DON'T MELEE:
Unfortunately, my staff skill as a career summoner is badass because I use the job for literally everything, and there are plenty of times I can safely melee with my avatar. Therefore my staff is accurate, although not stronger than an avatar's Assault. However, if it's a monster, I still die due to Edyth's enmity spiking despite her avatar dealing more damage, or the monster dies before I whack 4 times with my staff due to bonafide melee jobs attacking the monster. If it's the main target I'm fighting, meleeing with my avatar gets me killed due to danger all around me.Well, you're doing something wrong, because I don't have any of these problems. If you're truly a master of every corner of the job you'd have the good judgement to choose the right targets and melee without dying. There is a technical issue with hate right now but once you get a feel for it you can return to (mostly) normal behavior.


You want to know what's fun, and addictive, even though it is just pure grind fest? And the sad part is, they did manage to somewhat re-create it but then as usual put all these nonsense limitations.... Phantasy Star Online.That's great! Glad you found something you enjoy. How about playing that instead of trolling us?

[Dantedmc]

Hi. I hate to inform you, but you are doing it wrong.

Firstly, do you have the appropriate KI's for the reives that you are doing? IE Woodcrafting, etc?
Second, do you have reive unity yet? I have seen a lot of people doing them without this KI, and it is absurd to not have it for what it gives.

I only play summoner at the moment, and am capable of getting 1-4k bayld per reive depending on how the reive goes etc. A majority of my contribution comes from healing / status effect removal / buffing, with a smattering of damage thrown in. Carbuncle tends to be one of the better full time pets for reive's with a large number of buffs to cycle through and the best heal you have avaliable.

Damage is nice to have, and it doesn't hurt to have your pet sitting on a root and using a blood pact rage every once in a while, but my bread and butter is healing / support. Also, grab the reive staff if you don't have something equivilant, the +MAB to pets in reive's makes a noticable difference in damage output.

While Healing can be good, you have to depend on others taking damage. When Reives become overcrowded or there are many self sufficient jobs its hard to rack up points. Sometimes on Sch I have to pull mobs just so they can damage me in order to have hp to cure. Only problem with that is others will come fight them for points as well.

The only reason I even have to focus on healing is because nuking gives fewer points for more effort.

[Thundarian]

While Healing can be good, you have to depend on others taking damage. When Reives become overcrowded or there are many self sufficient jobs its hard to rack up points. Sometimes on Sch I have to pull mobs just so they can damage me in order to have hp to cure. Only problem with that is others will come fight them for points as well.

The only reason I even have to focus on healing is because nuking gives fewer points for more effort.

Entirely true, i agree 100%. Obviously some reives are better for this than others (bunnies almost always have shit tons of healing to do, butterflies status removal, etc), but I'm finding that slowly my server is becoming educated on reives and learning that killing mobs is as important as kill roots if you want to get large amounts of bayld, which helps increase the healing needed as mobs respawn and are picked up.

Don't be afraid to form / join an alliance if you are having trouble with the zerg pugs running around. Easier to establish group tactics so you can get your healing / buffing support in.