Congestion for notorious monsters in Abyssea areas

[Phylo]

It seems with the introduction of the Empyrean weapon Magian trials, there are many NMs that are severely over-camped. In an effort to alleviate the congestion, SE shortened the spawn time on some of the NMs which drop key items required to pop the larger NMs. While this did increase the likelihood for smaller groups to acquire seals for the Empyrean armor in the short term, it has had an unfortunate side effect. Dedicated Abyssea linkshells saw an opportunity to complete the final stages of Empyrean weapons in a hurry, simply by repeatedly gathering the pop sets as fast as they could spawn and kill the NM. In this fashion, one member of a large alliance can complete his/her weapon in the span of a few evenings. While no game mechanic is explicitly being exploited, this essentially means that no other group has a shot at making any sort of progress. The congestion seems far worse on the weekends as well, when many large groups are competing for the same set of monsters. Meanwhile, smaller groups have little to no chance to do one or two battles, as the other groups will lock out all competition for hours on end.

I don't have any clear solution for the above-mentioned problem; just making a statement that I have seen this as a huge source of frustration for many, many years of playing the game. Before Abyssea, the same issue existed for Dynamis linkshells, with many linkshells competing for the same areas. As the content has become easier to complete, and more groups with fewer members have started to compete for the same zones, the problem became so drastic that SE has now announced countermeasures to combat congestion and foster greater participation for groups of varying size. This is a great step in the right direction.

I'm not advocated a short and simple path to any goal in the game. I am also not advocating that all content should be conquerable with a small group. I do think, however, that if all other things are equal, those with equivalent skill should have just as much chance to complete the goals of the game as those with greater numbers. Unfortunately, the monopolization that occurs in Abyssea and many other areas of the game means that the more frequent occurrance is that a few high-ranking members of an end-game linkshell acquire the rewards due to the hard work of the lower-ranking members which make up the overwhelming majority. In the meantime, those who do not which to participate in such a skewed system are locked out from any rewards...the unfortunate reality being that if the competition is over who can cast Dia or use Provoke or just happen to be in the right place at the right time: those groups with more members will usually win.

[Lushipur]

i do abyssea with 5 other friends, we are no abyssea ls, just a bunch of ppl doing abyssea. we are more casual than hardcore.
this weekend we farmed and popped 5-6 sobek in an hour while there was another ls with 10-12 ppl doing the same.
its not really difficult if you are organized...

however SE already said they want to do something and I hope they will allow multiple copies of NM to pop at the same time.

[Xilk]

i do abyssea with 5 other friends, we are no abyssea ls, just a bunch of ppl doing abyssea. we are more casual than hardcore.
this weekend we farmed and popped 5-6 sobek in an hour while there was another ls with 10-12 ppl doing the same.
its not really difficult if you are organized...

however SE already said they want to do something and I hope they will allow multiple copies of NM to pop at the same time.

I agree that the current NM spawn is acceptable and viable to give players a fair chance to progress through abyssea.
however...

Your times are wrong. You are exaggerating so much it hurts your case. Gakumatz respawn is 15 minutes. There is not enough time for him to spawn that many times in 1 hour, even if you were 1-shot killing him and taking no time.

Furthermore, farming gakumatz, sirrush, minax and sobek x5 times each means you are killing 20 NM's within an hour means you have 3 minutes per fight if you did nothing else. if you had 6 sobek kills.. then thats even less time. this doesn't even count farming additional triggers, which you CAN do simultaneously w/ some of the NM kills, but there is still likely more of a delay going on here.
This is if you got every spawn, but clearly another group got some of them too. Maybe you were having fun, and didn't notice the time, but It would take at least 2 hours and more likely 3+. If all you did was spam sobek, sure, you can do that in an hour no problem.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Honestly I've never seen any congestion anywhere in any abyssea zones.

[Evilaion]

Try going between 7am to 12 pm est. Every aby on my server has between 75-125 and soon we are merging. Going to be fun when that's doubled.

[Tsukino_Kaji]

4am-9am? That's when I sleep. lol

[Evilaion]

Just saying there is congestion. May not be in your play time but in others there is.

[Kingofgeeks]

sadly yeah, i agree it sucks but what can you do? Its always been the issue that people with more time and resources can progress a lot faster than noncasual, nonobsessed players. I believe they tried to combat that with the creation of FFXIV, which sadly, is not doing that well. I don't know what they can do about the congestion of NMs and the unfairness of those who do not wish to dedicate 5 out of 7 days a week in abyssea linkshells, but hey, just like everything else in this game, in a few months no one will care about it anymore

[Nellaf]

I agree 100% with the OP. On the Weekends and most weekday nights FFXI no longer becomes a game about skill and working with teammates it becomes who can spam your provoke/dia macro fastest.

Camps such as Guku, Heqet, etc. I waste hours trying to get a claim against multiple other people. I do win claims and I am slowly getting my emphy weapons done, but I do not have a dedicated linkshell for this. I normally run with 1 or 2 friends and hope that I can get at least 1 claim for the evening so I can get 1 step closer to done.

I would take any solution to this problem. KI's in gold boxes. Ability to buy KI's with Kindred Seals. Ability to purchase KI's with cruor. Multiple ways to get the KI. Instanced Timed NM's. I just want to be able to play the game, not spam my provoke macro for 45 minutes to an hour til I luck out and Guku spawned in front of me and not the other 10 people trying to win the claim.

[Phylo]

My problem is not so much that it takes a long time to get something; I also tend to play at least a little an hour or two most days. The problem is that a large part of that time is essentially wasted. If I need to farm Asanbosam, Gukumatz, etc, and there happens to be another large group there, the odds of my getting that mob are much lower. And even if I do have a pop set, competition for simply popping Sobek, for example, is sometimes so great that it's not a good use of time. I don't see the skill or the fun involved in sitting there and trying to pop your one set, while the other group has 18 members there trying to get the pop as well. It would be great if these groups were a little more cooperative, but this has not been my experience unfortunately. Again, to be clear, I'm not arguing that a small group should be able to progress as fast as a large group. I just want to be able to make SOME progress, especially because most of these monsters can be defeated with a group of six or less.
The problem seems to me to have been around as long as the game. First it was present for ground NMs with very long pop times. Then it existed in sky as more and more groups competed for the same monsters for spawning gods. Then very prominent in Dynamis where only one group could even enter at a time, and generally only a few people in any given group had any hope of completing a relic weapon. Then in Abyssea as pickup groups would farm the same monster for the Empyrean body seals for hours at a time. Now it's very prevalent for Abyssea monsters which are used to upgrade Empyrean weapons. It doesn't seem very fair or very fun that the greatest skill in the game is not mastery of the battle, but rather a quick trigger finger.

[Cream_Soda]

lol @ ppl who play during primetime

[Nellaf]

There is a reason its called prime time. Not everybody is lucky enough to pop on in the middle of the workday to claim an NM.

[Cream_Soda]

My statement still stands, regardless of any situation you or anyone else may be in.

[blowfin]

The solution to all this: a little bit of patience.

[Phylo]

The solution to all this: a little bit of patience.
I wholeheartedly agree....a little bit of patience, shared equally by all players, would go a long way. That's not the way the online world tends to work. Under the mask of anonymity, without an incentive to act cooperatively, the jerkwad demographic seems remarkably representative.

[Lushipur]

I agree that the current NM spawn is acceptable and viable to give players a fair chance to progress through abyssea.
however...

Your times are wrong. You are exaggerating so much it hurts your case. Gakumatz respawn is 15 minutes. There is not enough time for him to spawn that many times in 1 hour, even if you were 1-shot killing him and taking no time.

Furthermore, farming gakumatz, sirrush, minax and sobek x5 times each means you are killing 20 NM's within an hour means you have 3 minutes per fight if you did nothing else. if you had 6 sobek kills.. then thats even less time. this doesn't even count farming additional triggers, which you CAN do simultaneously w/ some of the NM kills, but there is still likely more of a delay going on here.
This is if you got every spawn, but clearly another group got some of them too. Maybe you were having fun, and didn't notice the time, but It would take at least 2 hours and more likely 3+. If all you did was spam sobek, sure, you can do that in an hour no problem.


i never said we farmed all 3 the NM to pop sobek...
first you really need just guku cause all other KI can be chest farmed...usually if you do an exp ally you exit with all the KI and just need the 3 time pop...

second sobek is a 5min kill at most. if u dont need seal you dont have to proc grellow, we were there for the skin so you just usually need to land a th8-9 to get 2 skin

yes maybe it was 1h and 15min or 30min...things doesnt change...you just need organization and a bit of luck cause without external tool its just a spam enter to pop asap XD