Suggestions to improve Ambuscade

[Castanica]

The Key item:
This is honestly the most boring part of this whole process, going to get 10 kills on EP mobs every time is very tedious. I don't really have any suggestion on how to improve this without causing more congestion but it is annoying (for instance allowing 4 KI to be stored was an idea I had but that would cause issues with players spamming to enter over and over). Maybe changing the target mobs on a daily rotation might help the monotony, going to kill the same mobs over and over, day after day is part of the problem.

The Ambuscade dungeon:
The basic placeholder dungeon should change every month. I know it's classed as legion content and the devs like things to be kept ordered according to the lore but considering how much of this we are going to be doing this it's getting boring. mamook dungeon rooms, aydewa all exist.

I guess this won't change due to them being incredibly strict with the lore and different tile sets not making sense but a change really would liven it up a bit. Maybe they could write a little text to explain how someone from another region wanted help too and came to get our help with it...or something.

Jade sepulcher single dungeons tileset example:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLZWtOGYVLg


The reward NPC:
Can the NPC to trade items / get rewards from either be put away from the Ambuscade entrace NPC or clones put in starter cities? FFXI players love standing afk at these npcs and trading 20+ times in that situation is incredibly annoying.

The rewards:
The armor is great, pretty much all the rewards are.
The capes however should have a way to rename them, maybe add an npc to +1, +2 capes so that you can actually have multiples and then be able to macro them in without using 3rd party programs. If I want a TP cape and a WS cape, I can't because they are all called the same thing and macros won't work in that situation.

Abdhaljs Seal (triple reward boosters):
Put these on login campaigns, make it a 2k (3k?) item that's sendable on the same account. It encourages people to get more alts, adds a greatly in-demand item to login-campaigns and lessens the very long grind a little.

Feel free to add more if you can think of anything to improve it, I'm sure the devs are looking for suggestions on how to improve this content since they are going to be working on a it long time.

[Zeldar]

Nice post Castanica. I can get behind everything you said, some great ideas. With the interest in synergy finally being addressed, maybe cape naming could be a synergy recipe. Synergize your cape with a needle to get something on the cape to differentiate it from others with the same name. I'm not saying to give them additional stats, just something cosmetic to address the issue of macro usage. I REALLY love the log-in idea. It addresses 2 needs: the need for more hallmarks and the need to keep log-in campaigns useful. Some have really been bad lately. This 1 highly sought-after item would make any log-in campaign great.

[Camate]

Thanks for all of the ideas! We've passed on all your suggestions to the team.

In terms of improvements that we are working on at the moment, to better reward you for your efforts in Intense Ambuscade, we are looking into increasing the amount of Hallmarks earned upon completion. (Gallantry will remain unchanged.)

The team is currently in the process of making adjustments so you receive double the current amount, and we are hoping to get this implemented as early as next week. We hope that this creates more of an incentive to bump the challenge up a bit more and head into Intense Ambuscade! :cool:

We'll follow up if we hear anything further about the suggestions listed in this thread.

[Mookies75]

Thanks for all of the ideas! We've passed on all your suggestions to the team.

In terms of improvements that we are working on at the moment, to better reward you for your efforts in Intense Ambuscade, we are looking into increasing the amount of Hallmarks earned upon completion. (Gallantry will remain unchanged.)

The team is currently in the process of making adjustments so you receive double the current amount, and we are hoping to get this implemented as early as next week. We hope that this creates more of an incentive to bump the challenge up a bit more and head into Intense Ambuscade! :cool:

We'll follow up if we hear anything further about the suggestions listed in this thread.

Usually nobody does Intense Ambuscade because it is horrendously inefficient time wise and the difficulty is unreasonable due to cheesy mechanics. You guys still don't understand that mob enfeeble/TP spam is a major problem.

I think only a very small part of the game pop could make IA efficient. Which means you're spending development time on changes that only affect an incredibly small part of the population. I'm not saying that you need to make it easier. I'm saying it needs to be less cheesy and less broken, because it's got the same problem the rest of end game has. I don't see people attempting the IA VD clear other than a few times to use their seals on it.

It would be nice to have another way of getting the seals, considering most of us are forced to spam the regular fight. It's incredibly tedious between zone load times, que times, fighting with other people for the RoE mobs... I think it's time to consider some QoL improvements regarding this. It may even alleviate some congestion if you give people a way to farm them, maybe through HTBF. It would spread people out, doing different activities, so not everyone is in the same exact spots doing the same exact thing.

Are you able to pull any statistics as to who is clearing what with regards to ambuscade? I'd be surprised if even 5% of the population is spamming IA for hallmarks/gallantry, monthly RoE aside.

[Fae]

Usually nobody does Intense Ambuscade because it is horrendously inefficient time wise and the difficulty is unreasonable due to cheesy mechanics. You guys still don't understand that mob enfeeble/TP spam is a major problem.

I think only a very small part of the game pop could make IA efficient. Which means you're spending development time on changes that only affect an incredibly small part of the population. I'm not saying that you need to make it easier. I'm saying it needs to be less cheesy and less broken, because it's got the same problem the rest of end game has. I don't see people attempting the VD clear other than a few times to use their seals on it.

It would be nice to have another way of getting the seals, considering most of us are forced to spam the regular fight. It's incredibly tedious between zone load times, que times, fighting with other people for the RoE mobs... I think it's time to consider some QoL improvements regarding this.

Are you able to pull any statistics as to who is clearing what with regards to ambuscade? I'd be surprised if even 5% of the population is spamming IA for hallmarks/gallantry, monthly RoE aside.

I know someone who would tribox the intense quadav, and lead a melee party with brd for the yagudo intense and used multiple tanks for the goblin intense. With the points as they are, they were already better points per hour over normal in most cases, especially if you used seals. In fact even if you do it slow, it's worth it for anyone to use the 2 seals a month on VD and farm it at least that much. The mechanics of a fight aren't cheesy or broken just because you don't like them. I feel the fights have been very well designed and exciting, a lot more than just enter and do damage till something is dead and get healed so you don't die which a lot of the game ends up being. Gimmicks can go too far, like delve goes too far with it in my opinion but some people like that better than anything else. It's good for the game to have variety like this. Intense doesn't imply it's for everyone, it takes work, other good players and game knowledge to tackle it, and gives those types of players something to work toward and have fun doing. Throwing conjecture numbers out there like 5% based off personal experience doesn't really help anyone, among some I play with at least 40% have farmed Intense with full groups for it, several times, and found it faster than normal. All this will do is make it so they farm points even faster, and further distance themselves from players doing normal. Even if they removed all the mechanics you don't like to let you win easily, they would still farm way faster because they have very good gear and attentive team mates to achieve quick farming, all that would really do is make the fights less dangerous and way more boring and way less entertaining. Farming can get a bit boring but at one point I had a group farming a KI having the mage sub blm and everyone zoned quickly and we'd sometimes be back into the fight itself in less than 1.5 mins. Having at least one person in your group use warp II and another that can one shot mobs aoe is essential to a great group.

[Mookies75]

I know someone who would tribox the intense quadav, and lead a melee party with brd for the yagudo intense and used multiple tanks for the goblin intense. With the points as they are, they were already better points per hour over normal in most cases, especially if you used seals. In fact even if you do it slow, it's worth it for anyone to use the 2 seals a month on VD and farm it at least that much. The mechanics of a fight aren't cheesy or broken just because you don't like them. I feel the fights have been very well designed and exciting, a lot more than just enter and do damage till something is dead and get healed so you don't die which a lot of the game ends up being. Gimmicks can go too far, like delve goes too far with it in my opinion but some people like that better than anything else. It's good for the game to have variety like this. Intense doesn't imply it's for everyone, it takes work, other good players and game knowledge to tackle it, and gives those types of players something to work toward and have fun doing. Throwing conjecture numbers out there like 5% based off personal experience doesn't really help anyone, among some I play with at least 40% have farmed Intense with full groups for it, several times, and found it faster than normal. All this will do is make it so they farm points even faster, and further distance themselves from players doing normal. Even if they removed all the mechanics you don't like to let you win easily, they would still farm way faster because they have very good gear and attentive team mates to achieve quick farming, all that would really do is make the fights less dangerous and way more boring and way less entertaining. Farming can get a bit boring but at one point I had a group farming a KI having the mage sub blm and everyone zoned quickly and we'd sometimes be back into the fight itself in less than 1.5 mins. Having at least one person in your group use warp II and another that can one shot mobs aoe is essential to a great group.

1) Seals are not a renewable resource. I even addressed it saying that the only point to do IA VD would be to use your two seals.
2) Congrats on knowing one person that thinks it's efficient using illegal 3rd party apps to "tri box" the content. Wonder what other 3rd party apps they use?
3) Congrats on being in an endgame LS of capable players that want to take you with them. Not everyone is as fortunate, in fact most people are not.
4) The passive aggressive personal attacks serve nobody but you and your ego.
5) You're throwing as much conjecture out there as you claim I am. I actually asked if they had any way of tracking the actual numbers, read what you quoted, last lines. I didn't realize the prefix "I'd be surprised if," or "I think," meant the thing I'm about to say is 100% factual.
6) Everyone knows about warp2, aoe'ing mobs, etc. It's clear speed and danger I was referring to. Kind of obvious.
7) Read before responding. I didn't ask them to make it easier, I said TP spam and Enfeeble spam are a major cheesy difficulty increase issue in pretty much every part of end game, which is true. And it made IA an inefficient dangerous option for 90% of the game pop.
8) I've seen two shouts in two months for IA, both were for the monthly clears. I'm on a high pop server as well with crazy high pug requirements. You may be sitting pretty in your glass house, but the rest of us rabble are having a tough time.

[Stompa]

The KI farming is a bad system, any system that makes half the server go hunting for the same handful of mobs every ten minutes is a bad system, and goes against the whole ethos of recent QOL Statements, about making the game less competition-based.

Ergo, we stopped developing the incredibly popular NM system which made FFXI so very popular in the beginning, where players could go into the wilderness and hunt rare NMs by slaying placeholders. We felt it was making people compete for the same mobs and causing friction in the community. But here's Ambuscade, where instead of staying in one zone killing placeholders for a NM you really want to spawn, with maybe five other people competing for the same NM and placeholders,you will be warping back-and-forth every ten minutes to kill endless placeholder-type mobs, with half the server doing the same thing.

I loved farming NMs, I enjoyed hanging around a camp chatting to my friends while we killed placeholders. NM camping meant you could stay in one zone and farm, just like Dynamis and Abyssea farming. It was somewhere you could go and spend time, without warping every five minutes. I didn't mind killing placeholders, because the excitement element of "will the NM pop at any moment" made it worthwhile. Also, if the NM dropped your item it was over. You didn't have to get hundreds of items from the NM, it was one NM, one piece of treasure. It worked for me. I'm currently farming Dyes for my 80% completed cape, and as I'm solo, I'm looking at 100~ Easy/Normal fights, with 700~ placeholder type mobs to be killed (which the rest of the server is also trying to kill) and zoning 500x~. All this just for STR+10 on my cape. This does not work for me.

I think the KI is a big issue. But more fundamental is the fact that they tied Cape Augmenting Difficulty to "Free armours". I don't want the Ambuscade armours, I like my Delve2, Alluvion, Escha armours. They were fine with me, I spent ages earning them and I like them. So I genuinely don't want Ambuscade armours. I just wanted the cape. And since the capes are tied to the armours, this means that I have to farm the battles a lot just for dyes, for STR+10 augment. This unreasonable amount of graft for STR+10, is due to the Ambuscade system of giving out HQ armours for free, while farming capes. Armours that I do not even claim with my points.

So I think it would have been better to make two separate Ambuscades for people who want the 119 armour sets, with all the current grind which exists because of them being HQ 119 armour sets. And a lower-grind system for people who just wanted the capes, they are after all just capes. This could be two battle systems, in two locations, reducing congestion. Similar to how I didn't block up alluvion skirmish Armour battlefields when I wanted my Reive JSE cape.

[OmnysValefor]

Stompa, I agree wholeheartedly with the points about key item and disagree about the armors. Since the armors (as well as some dyes) are part of total hallmarks, they aren't doing you any harm by being present and aren't affecting the prices of what you choose to spend points on.

I'm extremely grateful for most of these sets in both their capability to help returning players and capability to fill weaker slots on other jobs, like Megha... being a great -pdt set for thf/dnc/bst etc lacking pdt gear.

Any event where you spend more time acquiring the entry requirement/fee than actually participating in the event is a bad design.

And they really really need to improve the cape trading... 50 (60 with dyes, right?) trades for a cape is an awful waste of time.

[Olor]

It's not just STR +10... it is STR +10 on a cape with a whole lot of other nice stats on it tho.

[Zeldar]

The system to get the KI intentionally draws you away from Mhaura for a time to free up congestion. It was a well planned mechanic of the battle system . More time getting the KI = less people trying to enter at once. It serves a needed purpose

As for intense ambuscade, like you said people don't do it because it is inefficient. That is why they are looking into raising the reward for it. if you can do intense on normal as easily as regular on VD and get more rewards, its wort it to do both. It will be much more efficient to do intense then regular every time . Intense is not un-winnable at all. There are plenty of people willing to do it for the challenge and to break the monotony of spamming regular.

[Nyarlko]

I know it has been said before, but it is still a problem. The very event that the zone being used for Ambuscade is named for has become nearly inaccessible, namely Legion.

Can you please PLEASE reserve just one zone instance for the event that the zone was created for? I actually enjoyed farming in Legion before Ambuscade was released.
I enjoyed teaching others the tricks that I'd learned inside to deal with certain bosses.
I had enough fun soloing it that I actually bought a second account so that I could try my hand at dual-boxing inside of Legion using my 2nd laptop.
.... So, why is it that I can't get in anymore? T_T

It seems that the Ambuscade queue system is simply locking me out if there is ANYONE in the Ambuscade queue. I'm not sure if the actual number of zone instances are being used up, or if it is just an issue of the way the Legion entry system works, or some detail I'm not seeing the devil in, but something is wrong here. I somehow luckily managed to sneak in a LS group into Hall of Mul a few days ago after ~15-20min of Legion entrance Enter-key spamming and everything worked fine inside, so it's not the event itself that is causing the problem.
(It was the the first time 7 out of the 10 of us had ever stepped inside, they all got shiny new vorseals, and everyone had a blast. I promised everyone {fun} and {death} and maybe {money}, and we all had plenty of the first two and a few payouts from pricey drops. ^^)

Had a LS member asking about Cerberus and Behemoth spawn conditions yesterday for learning Blue Magic, and I suggested Legion since the mob types are set with no 21-24hr windows or expensive pop items, and we simply couldn't get in.. I tried spamming entry as a test and gave up after ~1.5hrs... Please fix this. :( Legion was my "fun" event for when I got tired of killing endless trash mobs for merits, job points, or Ambuscade entry... It makes no sense that it's essentially shut down for the first 3 weeks each month.

Please fix this.

[Vanfrano]

It's not just STR +10... it is STR +10 on a cape with a whole lot of other nice stats on it tho.

I agree with the fact that the capes are nice but they require way too much work, especially with the added dyes and fourth bracket. You need 4000 hallmarks for 5 dyes, that is HQ Feet + HQ Hands, if you take into consideration the stats these two pieces give you, it is really unbalanced that you only get STR+5 with dyes for all this work. Add on top of this the 5 other monthly dyes that you get by totalling 20000 hallmarks, that means the whole HQ set is worth less than STR+5.
Even taking into account a fully augmented cape, the armors are for several jobs, the capes are for one job and you often want to have several capes for one job.

I gave up on Ambuscade a while ago and the cape I solo'd is sitting at three brackets too, I'd rather enjoy the rest of the game than having to go through the zoning, killing 10 mobs, queueing and doing the same boring thing monthly.

Stompa if you ever want to complete your cape though, look me up, unless you would rather solo.

[Rooj]

I saw the word "solo" and cried a little.

I'm not gonna say that Ambuscade couldn't be a bit more convenient in certain ways, but on the other hand... you're not required to cap anything from it... I didn't get the 10th dye last month, and I don't give any sort of poop about it either. Cause I knew I'd get it next month. To be fair the dye cap was lower last month, I'm definitely glad it was raised this month. I kinda had a feeling it would be eventually, but it was done way sooner than I expected :D

Don't let the megagrind ruin the game for you ;\

[OmnysValefor]

The system to get the KI intentionally draws you away from Mhaura for a time to free up congestion. It was a well planned mechanic of the battle system . More time getting the KI = less people trying to enter at once. It serves a needed purpose

As for intense ambuscade, like you said people don't do it because it is inefficient. That is why they are looking into raising the reward for it. if you can do intense on normal as easily as regular on VD and get more rewards, its wort it to do both. It will be much more efficient to do intense then regular every time . Intense is not un-winnable at all. There are plenty of people willing to do it for the challenge and to break the monotony of spamming regular.

See, if they're worried about the "content" itself being the bottleneck, then improve the variety of the content. There's no defense for all the needless zoning and fighting with other groups over the same mobs (which is not as terrible this month, being arcana).

IMO, since Intense takes place in the same battlefield, longer fights = more waiting at book for other groups, especially slow/solo/lowman/inefficient groups.

I would like to see them improve the limit points reward to something like 5 merits per run (50k exp) so that groups were encouraged to bounce between content. ("Merits are full, let's go hit xxx HTBF"). I also think Ambuscade should give a full JP per run, regardless of bonuses or anything.

[Diavolo]

So I know that there are other things on the cape - I already solo farmed them, and it took me a whole month to do so. A month of zoning hundreds of times, and killing like thousands of mobs that other people may have wanted to xp on, and zoning every ten mobs, queueing in Mhuara, calling trusts, battle, zoning, killing ten mobs, repeat. For a whole month. For a cape.

We've done more for less in this beautiful time sink of a game, though I must ask, why not party up and turn those 30 days of grinding into 2 or 3?



My point is that the grind is unreasonable for my new JSE cape that is only slightly better than my old JSE cape which took an hour to farm and augment.

Wait a couple more years to farm your Ambuscade capes and they'll surely be just as easy then as Adoulin JSE capes are now. They also took far more than an hour to farm up and later augment when they were introduced. ;)

[CrAZYVIC]

Thanks for all of the ideas! We've passed on all your suggestions to the team.

In terms of improvements that we are working on at the moment, to better reward you for your efforts in Intense Ambuscade, we are looking into increasing the amount of Hallmarks earned upon completion. (Gallantry will remain unchanged.)

The team is currently in the process of making adjustments so you receive double the current amount, and we are hoping to get this implemented as early as next week. We hope that this creates more of an incentive to bump the challenge up a bit more and head into Intense Ambuscade! :cool:

We'll follow up if we hear anything further about the suggestions listed in this thread.


camate can you ask the dev team if is posible

12 000 Hallmarks be enough for cap the HQ +1 Set from ambuscade?. 12K its a right amount its equal complete two capes in a month.

Also its possible the "Daily normal ambuscade" give you x2 hallmarks rewards? only the daily?. This will help a lot people with limited time to play thanks!

[Zeldar]

Honestly though Stompa, while I can definately see where you are coming from, I know you read the reddit AMA and saw when Matsui said that the game is built around playing with others. If you had the group to go with as a party, alll your time, zoning, killing, etc would be cut to about one third. It really isn't THAT much of a grind considering you have a month to do it. 20,000 total hallmarks at 300 per run is only 67 runs: 65 since you will have 2 seals to increase rewards. Even in a short month, thats between 2 and 3 runs per day, much closer to 2. So do a very easy and manageable 5 runs each time you join a group. It will take an hour tops with a good group. In 2 weeks, you have the entire gear set, want it or not, and what, about 2 capes? Not to mention the millions in upgrade materials you could get. The system is very rewarding if you utilize it in its full capacity. If you don't, thats fine, but its right that you dont get the full reward.

[Rydal]

67 runs of Ambuscade is pretty bad. That's equal to doing to going through 13 full merit (75) runs of Tenzen VD. Finding a group, getting the KI, and waiting for an entry are what cause the process to become even more tedious. God forbid someone decides to afk or leave the group. There's no guarantee you'll find 5 other people to do VD with you every day. People have limited time to play and can't spam Ambuscade without sacrificing other events. Everyone is trying to finish 20k points before the campaigns rolls out next week. They're pressured because NO ONE will be doing Ambuscade over CP, VW, WKR or NNI so they have to do it now not to miss out. I think Ambuscade is a huge time sink. When have you spammed something 67 times in a month outside of a campaign unless you're making a legendary weapon? That's just to get all the exclusive armor, not to max out points.

[Zeldar]

67 runs at 5 minutes a pop , another 5 minutes to get the KI= 11 hours on an event in a month. Add in another hour for miscellaneous bs. Compared to what you'd need to do in the past or present to cap any other gear set and get the other items you are getting is really close to nothing. This is just another instance where a small percentage of the community wants things practically handed to them. If you aren't willing to spend 3 hours per week to get an entire 6 piece set (including cape) then you really don't want it that badly.

Also, when you get in the habit of joining pick-ups, people in those pick-ups start seeking you out when they need bodies for ambuscade. I get a few /tells every day asking if I want to do ambuscade, and I'm on one of the smaller servers.

[Castanica]

Thank you Camate, sounds great. I think doubling the reward from intense versions will get more people to at least consider doing those and vary it up somee.

[Rydal]

67 runs at 5 minutes a pop , another 5 minutes to get the KI= 11 hours on an event in a month. Add in another hour for miscellaneous bs. Compared to what you'd need to do in the past or present to cap any other gear set and get the other items you are getting is really close to nothing. This is just another instance where a small percentage of the community wants things practically handed to them. If you aren't willing to spend 3 hours per week to get an entire 6 piece set (including cape) then you really don't want it that badly.

I don't know if anyone wants anything handed to them. No one is asking for the HQ set to be offered in the 300 login reward slot. Ambuscade is almost impossible to get into on my server right now. People are looking at anywhere from a 8 to 15 minute wait time during US primetime (8pm to 12pm EST). 11 hours a month is a lot for ONE event, even if you play everyday. And that's with ideal circumstances; you'd be singing a different tune if you were doing a party with less than 6 or doing D or lower. It wouldn't be so bad but (as I mentioned in my last post) 67 runs is just to get this month's armor. Considering you have a limited time to do so, you have to choose between spending a night spamming Ambuscade for 3-4 hours to get 1/3 of the needed points or doing this month's limited time campaign. 3 hours a week is completely reasonable if there were constant groups to join and no other, more appealing events to do in the meantime.

As Stompa has hinted at, people have real life to do. 3 hours is a lot for some people. I have enough free time to usually get at least the HQ body and max capes. A lot of others do not. Considering the armor is MOST appealing to new/returning players, a lot of whom probably only play a few hours a week and want to do something other than Ambuscade, it's not too much to ask to lower the cost of the HQ pieces. Not give triple points or make them cost 1000 Hallmarks.

Making intense more appealing will at least lessen the bottleneck of getting into normal.

[Zeldar]

Nothing is ever good enough for this community, is it?

[Castanica]

If they make the KI faster to get, more people will be waiting to enter. They just need to add some variety to get the KI honestly.

I would say vary the target monsters on a daily basis so that you aren't doing the same mobs all month long and add other ways to get the KI, for instance 6? successful fishing catches also gives a KI, or 6 successful synths etc.

Would be funny as all heck to see 50 people all fishing in Muhara for KI :D

[Zeldar]

If you want the HQ armor, spend some HQ time on the event. If you want the best capes in the game, you need to work for them. Lets leave out the fact that ambuscade makes making an RME weapon a lot easier and less boring. If you don't want to dedicate the time to the game or don't have the time to dedicate, thats fine: settle for the NQ set or take 2 months to get the entire HQ set. I'm sick of running into people in the game that have great gear but are useless because they don't know how to play their job. Why? because they don't want to spend time earning and learning. I agree that right now, getting into ambuscade does take more time since it is new and people are excited about the new gear. Thats fine...nothing wrong with waiting 2 weeks . Yes, when the campaign hits everyone will want CP and ambuscade will die down. Maybe thats your time to spam some ambuscade. A grind? Ninja please. 4 hours per week of Dynamis plus another one preparing just to get your rdm hat in, oh I don't know, A YEAR?!? THAT is a grind. 2100 job points: THAT is a grind. Ambuscade is a leisurely stroll through the park.

[Olor]

I agree with the fact that the capes are nice but they require way too much work, especially with the added dyes and fourth bracket. You need 4000 hallmarks for 5 dyes, that is HQ Feet + HQ Hands, if you take into consideration the stats these two pieces give you, it is really unbalanced that you only get STR+5 with dyes for all this work. Add on top of this the 5 other monthly dyes that you get by totalling 20000 hallmarks, that means the whole HQ set is worth less than STR+5.
Even taking into account a fully augmented cape, the armors are for several jobs, the capes are for one job and you often want to have several capes for one job.

I gave up on Ambuscade a while ago and the cape I solo'd is sitting at three brackets too, I'd rather enjoy the rest of the game than having to go through the zoning, killing 10 mobs, queueing and doing the same boring thing monthly.


I agree the cape is grindy but that is just why I don't worry about finishing it in a big hurry. The dyes are bad, I agree, but it gives me something to work on over time.

Honestly they should increase the hallmarks across the board for fights though, or even just give a single daily bonus 500 hallmarks via quest. That way you could get HQ set and a completed cape by logging in once a day every month and doing one successful battle.

I also solo most of the time and it can be a bit painful. I have done some groups but it is really hard to know what a group is capable of. I've often found it *harder* to do the fights with other people than soloing because of uneven gear and skills so, unless I have a lot of time I am hesitant to go that route. My gear is not good enough for VD, and when I do random pickups it is unusual for the group as a whole to have the gear/skills to be good enough for anything harder than normal (which I can often solo, depending on the gimmicks).

I never thought I'd say this but a proper gear check number would help a lot, right now there is just such wide variation in 119 armors and I don't know enough about every job to be able to quickly eyeball someone's sets to see what they can do. Augments also further complicate things. Huge difference between well augmented skirmish gear and badly augmented skirmish gear.

There never used to be such a massive massive difference between decent and good and great gear sets. It mattered but, not like today. It makes it a lot harder to make pick up groups.

[Zeldar]

Wow Olor, you are running into some very bad pick-ups, lol. I am not in any way doubting what you have said: its a sad state that this game is in when 6 level 115-119 players cant beat something over 119. I have yet to be in a pickup that couldnt at the very least crush difficult. Most pick-ups I've done are fine on VD. Some we have done D instead just because it was faster with returning players. I can't imagine trying to solo all of my hallmarks, it just seems way too inefficient to me. I'd much rather wait until a group is available.

[Olor]

I have had a couple of fun ones and some really good duos. I think part of it was job combos. Trusts make it easy insofar as you can just roll with what will work, whereas groups people will be on random jobs that may not really work very well together.

[Rooj]

Also, when you get in the habit of joining pick-ups, people in those pick-ups start seeking you out when they need bodies for ambuscade.

This. I love it when this happens. <3

Also I would just like to say that there were multiple times last night when doing Ambu on Asura that when I queued my group, we were next in line.

[OmnysValefor]

If you want the HQ armor, spend some HQ time on the event. If you want the best capes in the game, you need to work for them. Lets leave out the fact that ambuscade makes making an RME weapon a lot easier and less boring. If you don't want to dedicate the time to the game or don't have the time to dedicate, thats fine: settle for the NQ set or take 2 months to get the entire HQ set. I'm sick of running into people in the game that have great gear but are useless because they don't know how to play their job. Why? because they don't want to spend time earning and learning. I agree that right now, getting into ambuscade does take more time since it is new and people are excited about the new gear. Thats fine...nothing wrong with waiting 2 weeks . Yes, when the campaign hits everyone will want CP and ambuscade will die down. Maybe thats your time to spam some ambuscade. A grind? Ninja please. 4 hours per week of Dynamis plus another one preparing just to get your rdm hat in, oh I don't know, A YEAR?!? THAT is a grind. 2100 job points: THAT is a grind. Ambuscade is a leisurely stroll through the park.

Oh come off it. I have all 4 previous HQ sets and am halfway to Morrigan's HQ: The spam nature of the simple fight is bad event design. It stops being any sort of fun long before you're done with it.

Dynamis was at least diverse, required attention and a level of skill and coordination. You also, in its heyday, couldn't spam it but you weren't limited by time constraints. You didn't spend more time preparing for dynamis than doing dynamis. (usually lol)

Edit: And yeah, the cape-trading is the most obvious timesink I've ever seen. It was deliberately designed to be that way and there's no valid defense for that either.

[Vanfrano]

It is only a matter of opinion but to me Ambuscade is the one and only event in FFXI that I dislike, I don't even think that the idea of monthly time-limited events belongs in FFXI.
I guess it was their way to make sure we were kept busy after the last "real" update but I really do not think this was needed nor true to what FFXI is. There are many things in this game to keep old and returning players busy, our love for Vana'diel alone keeps a lot of us subbed (I couldn't even leave for a whole month, I'm weak :D).

Maybe they should focus on bringing two or three big updates per year after March 2017 with well-thought events and content, and monthly QoL updates if needed.

[Fae]

...
Tribox never has and never will mean illegal tools or cheating, wat.

None of my comments were directed at you, I was relating personal experiences to counter your personal experiences. The only one aggressive in any form here is you, especially with name calling. I used conjecture and personal experiences to show my point that people will have different personal experiences and that conjecture isn't a valid base for your statements. For which I'm called passive aggressive, egotistical, and that I play with cheaters. Thanks for that :(

If they lessen the enfeebles and the number of tp moves, it objectively makes it easier. Saying it's cheesy just makes it sound like you're trying to pass it off and make it a problem with the game instead of thinking of things you could do to beat it, which for many is actually the joy and fun to be found in it whatsoever. So yes you are asking them to make it easier and your requests if implemented would directly affect the enjoyment me and many friends actually get from the intense fights. Intense isn't meant for pickup groups it's intense and "high pug requirements" is subjective and isn't any better a device than conjecture.

[Zeldar]

The event is made much less "spammy" if you team up. It is also faster, easier, and more rewarding. They flat out said they designed it this way intentionally to promote team play. The guys that are on this thread complaining about the nature and design of the event are the ones that are also saying "I like to solo or duo" Well , ok....but there are a few things about that I hope you realize. First, its so much slower. Slower kills, a lot less rewards, and no gallantry. Second, YOU are the ones congesting the event and creating a NEED for the "monotonous" nature of obtaining the KI. You are taking twice as long or longer to kill it than a party, but taking up the same amount of room. Team up....get more rewards , faster rewards, and have more fun actually interacting with people. Yeah I know, you always have excuses and just glaze over my suggestions the same way teenagers do when an adult offers words of wisdom. If you took the time and initiative to put them into action rather than argue so much about it, you would have a much easier time, and maybe even a little fun.

And yes, the cape augmenting is just silly. I got forum banned for a while for calling them out on it in my usual not-so-nice way.

[Olor]

Hey, maybe you would find it fun to spend an hour trying to even get people then failing at something you could do solo.... but I don't. I get accolades much faster by just logging in and grinding them out than I would if I waited to find enough people with the right jobs to do it. It is different for folks who are geared enough to do the VD runs that other people who are geared enough do, but for scrubs it's often just faster to solo than to find enough other scrubs with decent gear and decent jobs.

If I felt like I wouldn't be dragging down VD groups, I'd totally join more groups, but if you're just gonna do normal it's not worth the set up time for a group.

I had a lot of fun duoing with a player, and got a lot done with them before, and would do it again, but full groups are usually not worth it for me, especially given how much time it takes to set them up, especially because I generally prefer to play for an hour or two at a time.

And you're totally ignoring the fact that some folks just enjoy soloing. There is nothing wrong with that, and god knows the game pushes most people into doing that most of the time.

As for the event being congested, it's totally artificial, SE could set it up two or three options of different battlefields to use, but they chose not to. That's a dev issue, not a player issue. It's not players' job to decongest content.

Besides which I am on the busiest server and rarely have to wait more than 2 minutes for a run, usually I get in on the next number so I don't get this argument that congestion is so bad. I just don't do it on the first day it comes out.

[Zeldar]

Olor I doubt you are a scrub.

This is not Final Fantasy 1-10, 12, and variation of 13, or 15. It is not a solo game. It was not designed to be a solo game. The former developers and the current developers make content for the game based on what the game is : a social mmorpg. So you can't log into a game meant to be multiplayer and say " I want to play solo, so tailor-make this multi-player game around soloists!" It is a multi-player game. Would you lobby the Olympic committee to give a solo option to all of the team sports and change the rules to accomodate people who want to play alone? Then why are you trying to do it to a multi-player game?

[Stompa]

The event is made much less "spammy" if you team up. It is also faster, easier, and more rewarding. They flat out said they designed it this way intentionally to promote team play. The guys that are on this thread complaining about the nature and design of the event are the ones that are also saying "I like to solo or duo" Well , ok....but there are a few things about that I hope you realize. First, its so much slower. Slower kills, a lot less rewards, and no gallantry. Second, YOU are the ones congesting the event and creating a NEED for the "monotonous" nature of obtaining the KI. You are taking twice as long or longer to kill it than a party, but taking up the same amount of room. Team up....get more rewards , faster rewards, and have more fun actually interacting with people. Yeah I know, you always have excuses and just glaze over my suggestions the same way teenagers do when an adult offers words of wisdom. If you took the time and initiative to put them into action rather than argue so much about it, you would have a much easier time, and maybe even a little fun.

And yes, the cape augmenting is just silly. I got forum banned for a while for calling them out on it in my usual not-so-nice way.


About this whole "team up" thing. Most people run with regular groups, people who they know and trust. If you're going to be hitting a VDmode battle, and your regular friends are online, you're going to pick them first, because you know they can be relied on to play specific jobs in a proficient way. Nobody is going to pick up random strangers for VDmode fights if they can use their true and trusted friends instead.

And this is where it all breaks down. I've been running with the same group since 2004, we have enjoyed great success in many streamlined lowman battles for over a decade. And they don't want to do Ambuscade. At all. Nobody on my LS or friend-list needs any of the Ambuscade armours. And they feel that grinding Ambuscade just for capes is a waste of time.

This means that I would be joining PUGs, with all the fun-and-laughter that we associate with PUG runs. That is assuming there even are any PUGs, and that other people are not just spamming VDmode with their tried-and-trusted static groups. Then we also have to assume that I have the job required by the PUG, which is quite an assumption as I have focused on specific jobs which are not currently "trending" in the mainstream game.

So the whole "join a group" is very nice and all, but it is actually far more complicated than that. And for me, soloing is simpler. I don't see the solo / party thing being an issue with Ambuscade, to me the issue is that the loot system is a "bundle offer" where you have to earn lots of points because you're getting full 119 armour sets bundled together with your pieces of cape thread. That system is great if you actually want the armours and the cape stuff, but if you only want the cape stuff - then no amount of partying is going to make you feel that the system is rewarding you. Every month I'm leaving the armour sets totally unclaimed at the NPC, even with 15k points built up. This means I'm earning a lot of stuff that I never wanted, and it is quite obvious to me that the cape augment items are not worth as much as lvl 119 armour sets, so I'm doing extra work for the "bundle deal" even though I just wanted some cape dyes lol.
:)

[Jile]

Nobody is going to pick up random strangers for VDmode fights if they can use their true and trusted friends instead.

So much this, in fact, that I'd rather solo runs than use pickup groups.

[Castanica]

People really need to drop the solo / teamup arguments, solo players are never going to stop wanting to solo. The game has a large number of gimpy / unskilled players who don't feel comfortable joining up. At the start of every month there will be congestion. You simply have to deal with this, it is never going to change.

Also I see people complaining about players soling in-game a lot, if people do this to you report them for harassment. I guarantee you they will get in trouble for it.

[Diavolo]

Really though, I was farming reives in 2013 because I quite enjoyed them, and getting capes all the time for free. It wasn't difficult. And the crystals were always easy to get too.

As for teaming up, nobody on my LS wants to do Ambuscade, because they don't need the Armour Sets, and the cape grind is excessive just for a cape. I think Ambuscade is totally worth grinding if you want the 119 Armour sets, then it totally makes sense to throw yourself into it. It just feels silly doing all that work for +10 STR on a cape.

I work odd hours, don't really have a normal log-in time, the server is usually quiet. For me it is just more convenient to solo, or duo, rather than try to organise my real life around steady group content.

So I wasn't really saying that soloing is the problem, its just that I found the amount of zoning and killing empty mobs and repeating it, was actually making me feel sadface.

I'm more excited about the upcoming Sunbreeze Festival than I am about further Ambuscade cape grinds. Maybe its just me, Lol.

Well, I personally far preferred Adoulin JSE cape farming to Ambuscade cape farming for the simple fact that it was open world content that could be done in a number of different zones. I loathe the idea of funneling the entire server into a town with a small number of available battlfields and forcing them to bounce back and forth between zones in a game poorly equipped to handle it - losing private/party/linkshell chat lines every time I or someone I'm talking to has to zone drives me a bit crazy. Still, I think it's unfair to compare how quickly you farmed up Adoulin capes with their Ambuscade counterparts, especially if you're choosing to go at this content alone. I made the case for server merges plenty of times, even now that I'm on Asura, so if you're going to tell me one of the reasons you're stuck going that route is because the server is quiet you probably know what I'm going to say.

That said, I joined the group of players that stopped taking part in Ambuscade a couple of months ago, and not for a lack of incentives. I still have plenty of gear/capes I'd like to obtain, I just won't keep throwing myself at that content this way every month. I'd far prefer it if the monthly time limit could be removed with the choice to work towards whichever set of gear we wanted and allowed us to reset the Hallmarks/Gallantry/gear set when we were ready. Maybe something to consider now that we've gone through all the gear sets at least once.

[Jile]

The game has a large number of gimpy / unskilled players who don't feel comfortable joining up.

Not to mention some of the best geared people in the game are setup specifically to solo, not because of their lack of social skills or inept gear but because they like to do things solo that normally takes a group of people to kill.

(I have to admit I wish Avesta still posted his solo videos or the videos of his alt account but thats another topic)

[Rooj]

You all need to come to terms with the fact that not playing with PUGs is a mistake. A big one. The positives far outweigh the negatives. I don't mean choosing PUGs over your friends. Basically any normal person is going to ask their LS for members first before shouting. Yes, you need to occasionally deal with either a rude player or a bad player. It's really not that big of a deal though. It's pretty simple to ignore someone and not say anything at all when someone's being a doofus in chat. A bad player is harder to deal with. I recently had to politely kick a THF from my VD Ambu group that was in sparks gear. There were no tears or drama. I simply stated that their gear/damage wasn't up to par and I was going to find a replacement. Nothing wrong with that and I don't think the THF thought so either (though they never said a word). You're only screwing yourself by being so sensitive and over exaggerative - no one actually believes that "every time" you join a group with PUGs, that it performs badly or there is some poophole in it that ruins the game for you.

Next, this "my gear isn't good enough" crap in regards to content with F I V E different difficulty levels. Lol. Having returned to the game a few months ago and having to walk up the gear treadmill myself, I had no problem getting i119 before attempting Ambuscade. However as a RDM, who needs more equipment sets than any other job in the game, I didn't yet feel comfortable doing the highest tiers of Ambuscade. So I shouted for Normal Ambuscade. And guess what? People were interested. The whole benefit of content like Ambuscade is that you can go for what ever difficulty you THINK you can beat, and then adjust accordingly. If your group seems weak, lower it. If it seems strong, raise it.

There are other people, who are also uncomfortable for any number of reasons of doing VD or even D Ambuscade. Some people are just naturally uncomfortable when performing in front of others. Some people want the best possible gear they can get before attempting content (I've made this POINTLESS mistake so many times in the last 18 years), and some people just want to do content that is a little easier. If you don't even attempt to reach out to these people, that's no one's fault but your own.

Oh and one last thing, @ "most people only play with their friends." Wrong. A lot, sure, but not most. Then again, I don't play on Zzzombie servers.

[Catmato]

But if you're doing Normal, why waste your time finding a group when you could do it solo? I don't mean you personally, Rooj, but in general. Is it common to find 5 people with the right jobs idling in Mhaura waiting for a Normal shout?

[Rooj]

That's the thing, Normal and below doesn't require "the right jobs." Pretty much any job in the game could main heal Normal and below with /WHM or /RDM or /SCH or /DNC. You could take a WAR/WHM in there and succeed.

That's how a lot of my Ambuscade got done when I first started doing it. We'd take whatever was LFG, and if we couldn't fill the party up, we'd use whatever trust would round the rest of the party out. We'd go and spam the buhjeezus out of it while watching another group shout for a GEO for VD for an hour.

You should still shout in between runs if your party isn't full. Shout once or twice, do the run. Shout once or twice, do the run. You can even shout while in queue now thanks to the newest update. Just let them know you'll invite them after the next kill.

[Rooj]

Just saw a shout in Mhaura (a shout not a yell, sadly) for "Normal or Difficult" Ambuscade. 3/6.

[detlef]

Form the biggest PT you can and tackle the hardest difficulty you can. This month is really, really easy. People need to give themselves more credit. Gallantry is a thing and you can get up to 5 dyes with it.

[Castanica]

FFXI is a solo game with optional multiplayer in 2016. If that makes you mad you just have to learn to deal with it, it is what it is.

As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. People who solo DO NOT WANT to group, it's just that simple.

Also people who are mad and solo players making them wait would be mad about gimped groups taking too long if solo play was stopped, there is no pleasing the kind of people who complain and will always find something to complain about if they can't get what they want when they want it. Anyone that has played this game long enough knows the mentality of the playerbase.

[Castanica]

1) All third party tools are illegal. How exactly is your friend tri boxing? You're also telling me he's not using those fancy multi box scripts with 3 chars? Bull.


Please be joking. I used to tri box back in the day, 2 computers (2 keyboards and 2 monitors side by side) & an xbox account with the controller on my lap.

Do people really think all these people who multi-box are using bots or something?

[Zeldar]

But if you're doing Normal, why waste your time finding a group when you could do it solo? I don't mean you personally, Rooj, but in general. Is it common to find 5 people with the right jobs idling in Mhaura waiting for a Normal shout?

Because with a group you will get it killed much faster and also get gallantry.

[Zeldar]

FFXI is a solo game with optional multiplayer in 2016. If that makes you mad you just have to learn to deal with it, it is what it is.

As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. People who solo DO NOT WANT to group, it's just that simple.

Also people who are mad and solo players making them wait would be mad about gimped groups taking too long if solo play was stopped, there is no pleasing the kind of people who complain and will always find something to complain about if they can't get what they want when they want it. Anyone that has played this game long enough knows the mentality of the playerbase.

The developers of the game disagree with you 100% . If you don't believe me, read the reddit AMA again. They flat out said they still design the game as multi-player and intend for you to team up. Its laughable how wrong you are in your first line of this post.

As for your last 2 lines, isn't it ironic that YOU are the one who started this thread, finding something to complain about?

[Castanica]

The developers of the game disagree with you 100% . If you don't believe me, read the reddit AMA again. They flat out said they still design the game as multi-player and intend for you to team up. Its laughable how wrong you are in your first line of this post.

As for your last 2 lines, isn't it ironic that YOU are the one who started this thread, finding something to complain about?

I did, and I watched the videos interviews. What I came away from them with was that the developers want the game to be more group orientated but the producer thinks otherwise and he rules the house.

[Zeldar]

Please show me where the producers thinks otherwise.

[Zeldar]

Copied and pasted from the reddit summary;

Reaching the haste/delay cap is a major focus for melee, and aside from BLU it is very difficult to do this, which is why BLU is sought after so much. Are there any changes you can make to help the other jobs out in this regard?
A: If you’re asking if we can make it possible so other jobs reach the haste cap while solo, then the answer is “no.” The premise of FFXI is to join together with fellow players and party up, even if there’s more room for freedom now.


Yeah, the answer was from Matsui, our current producer. So you were saying......?

[Castanica]

FFXI producer quotes:

"since ffxi is an mmorpg, party play is important but there is a part where I think we over did it."
"some users were saying the party play was getting exhausting"
"about half way through adoulin, I talked with the staff and we started thinking users were wanting something else"
"the development staff always says they want the game to be solo-able but maintain the group aspect"
"we want you to enjoy the balance"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHMLvNquyAY
7:28 , 28.23

Your post was about min maxing, you don't need capped haste to do content in ffxi.

[Zeldar]

Ok, but where does that say "this is a solo game with some multi-player aspects" ? I see "party play is important" and "solo-able but maintain the group aspect." You like solo play, so you read in that what you want to read. On the flip side, I enjoy massive multiplayer action from my mmorpg, so I see the parts where they want to maintain group play. I guess the keyword we should both take away is "balance"

[Castanica]

Ok, but where does that say "this is a solo game with some multi-player aspects" ? I see "party play is important" and "solo-able but maintain the group aspect." You like solo play, so you read in that what you want to read. On the flip side, I enjoy massive multiplayer action from my mmorpg, so I see the parts where they want to maintain group play. I guess the keyword we should both take away is "balance"

Because you can solo almost everything in the game, that makes grouping optional.

The difference is that solo players aren't telling you not to group, they don't try to shame party players for spamming the content. Only the YOU MUST GROUP players do these things.

Enjoy the balance, live and let live.

[Zeldar]

I'm not saying that you must party, though I will admit , a solo person taking an ambuscade spot irks me a little. What I am saying is if you have a problem with the monotony of ambuscade, grouping up makes it a lot better, a lot more fun, a lot faster, and you get a lot more. If you want to solo it slowly fine, but don't complain that the rewards aren't coming fast enough or that you need to spend wayyyy too much time on it. I'm getting rewarded for playing a multi-player game with multiple players. Don't try to take that away from me because you're mad that I'm getting more done, faster, and better.

[OmnysValefor]

I never ever go into ambuscade with less than 5 people and that's really rare. Partly because I want the gallantry and partly because a human is usually better in these fights than a trust.

Most groups that I go with are through the zone in under 2-4 minutes (buff time and everything). This month, 3 minute clear times are easy.

The monotony is still terrible. Endured, not enjoyed.

[Seriha]

I'm not entirely convinced people want to party even though there are the Gallantry benefits. Either that, or I'm the most horribly unlucky person alive LFG for multiple hours straight over the past few days with only one real good party to show for it. And just to head off the "Make your own!" counter, that included routine searches and keeping an eye on what shouts I could understand. People are still coming and going, though, as evidenced by the tome flares.

Still say they should just put a solo only version in Selbina or something. If it turns out you see enough people going at that, they could possibly unite and head over to Mhaura. If not, well, they're not holding up the other groups.

[Numquam]

Thank you for making this months Regular Ambuscade VERY melee friendly. Fights take less than 4 minutes on the highest difficulty. The only problem is waiting to actually do the fight. This game has been out for over a decade. Many in the player base just don't have time to be waiting around. Also, there have been some other players that wander in to solo and stay in there creating an even longer wait. Its like they going in and just stay in there disengaged from battle. :(

[Castanica]

http://www.puppyleaks.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/t11.jpg

[Zeldar]

Just did my first ambuscade runs of the month. 3 blu just CDC spamming, a PLD, a GEO and a WHM... average kill under 1:40 on VD. This months is too easy, lol.

[Rooj]

Yeah, it's definitely the easiest. It's a shame that it's anti mage considering the reward though......

[detlef]

Just did my first ambuscade runs of the month. 3 blu just CDC spamming, a PLD, a GEO and a WHM... average kill under 1:40 on VD. This months is too easy, lol.You don't even need the PLD. And IIRC skillchains do crap damage so you don't even need to worry about that either. This month really is that easy. Group up people, you won't have it any better than this month.

[Castanica]

Just did my first ambuscade runs of the month. 3 blu just CDC spamming, a PLD, a GEO and a WHM... average kill under 1:40 on VD. This months is too easy, lol.

Considering how many times we have to do it, that's not a bad thing. If you want difficulty (which i doubt), the intense ambuscade awaits you.

[Fae]

I was, yeah. The guy was an elitist jerk and got under my skin.

You lashed out because someone told you they and other people they knew won and gave you some tips and stated their own view and are still lashing out. I'm seeing why you don't get invites to do intense there'd be no way to cooperate with you, your attitude is awful. It's actually trolling if you didn't mean it. This too is why we can't have nice things. Attacking people who are doing better than you is typical self destructive behavior. Maybe if you fixed that intense wouldn't seem so bad to you.

I've seen your attitude before both in and out of game, it never prospers, and is the sort of thing that leads to drama in end game ls which leads to kicks, followed by bad reputation and inability to join other endgame ls. What I'm saying is, you're the reason you're not doing intense, not the game and not "elitists" or "cheesy moves", you. Because you'd be antifun, defensive and threatened constantly by those around you. Which make things like fun, teamwork, and cooperation impossible. The people that give up congratulations easily but don't intensely seek them for themselves and have a helpful cooperative mindset are the ones who tend to do best. You used praise mockingly, when praise wasn't a purpose sought by the post. Basically a shining example of how not to be, in game or otherwise.

So take this advice or don't, but the fights can be farmed at a better rate per hour than normal as is and don't need to be made easier, given the player has the right temperament for difficult content in the first place. Skill and gear is even secondary to a good temperament, which you lack. You're being a intentionally hurtful and offensive on purpose and impossible to even have a real conversation with, my response was in no way deserving of yours as mine had no ill intent and yours are full of it. "Elitist" is usually thrown around by people like you to just insult people that make them feel bad about themselves, for the crime of someone else being successful and will find slight and cause drama simply because those other people make them feel inadequate about themselves not because those people are malicious or attack said people, but because they can do or have things they haven't or had trouble doing or don't have, in short jealousy. Not being able to be happy for others, or learn from others who have succeeded at something is the sort of attitude which is toxic to success. It is one reason I enjoy difficult content it lets me examine myself and free myself from things that would limit myself, things like your terrible attitude and hyper sensitivity and feeling threatened by others doing well. You're simply trolling, and namecalling, which is against site rules.

[Olor]

You don't even need the PLD. And IIRC skillchains do crap damage so you don't even need to worry about that either. This month really is that easy. Group up people, you won't have it any better than this month.

Thanks, this makes me willing to give it a try.

[Stompa]

You all need to come to terms with the fact that not playing with PUGs is a mistake. A big one. The positives far outweigh the negatives. I don't mean choosing PUGs over your friends. Basically any normal person is going to ask their LS for members first before shouting. Yes, you need to occasionally deal with either a rude player or a bad player. It's really not that big of a deal though. It's pretty simple to ignore someone and not say anything at all when someone's being a doofus in chat. A bad player is harder to deal with. I recently had to politely kick a THF from my VD Ambu group that was in sparks gear. There were no tears or drama. I simply stated that their gear/damage wasn't up to par and I was going to find a replacement. Nothing wrong with that and I don't think the THF thought so either (though they never said a word). You're only screwing yourself by being so sensitive and over exaggerative - no one actually believes that "every time" you join a group with PUGs, that it performs badly or there is some poophole in it that ruins the game for you.

Next, this "my gear isn't good enough" crap in regards to content with F I V E different difficulty levels. Lol. Having returned to the game a few months ago and having to walk up the gear treadmill myself, I had no problem getting i119 before attempting Ambuscade. However as a RDM, who needs more equipment sets than any other job in the game, I didn't yet feel comfortable doing the highest tiers of Ambuscade. So I shouted for Normal Ambuscade. And guess what? People were interested. The whole benefit of content like Ambuscade is that you can go for what ever difficulty you THINK you can beat, and then adjust accordingly. If your group seems weak, lower it. If it seems strong, raise it.

There are other people, who are also uncomfortable for any number of reasons of doing VD or even D Ambuscade. Some people are just naturally uncomfortable when performing in front of others. Some people want the best possible gear they can get before attempting content (I've made this POINTLESS mistake so many times in the last 18 years), and some people just want to do content that is a little easier. If you don't even attempt to reach out to these people, that's no one's fault but your own.

Oh and one last thing, @ "most people only play with their friends." Wrong. A lot, sure, but not most. Then again, I don't play on Zzzombie servers.

You say a lot of things that I agree with, about being tolerant and open-minded and things like that.

But you talk about kicking a sparks THF politely, and he was okay with it, he just shuffled away. That's fair enough. But that isn't what we mean by "bad PUGs."

The problem with PUGs is that we will be philosophical and cheerful about them until we come across a nightmare PUG group, which will leave us shaken so badly that we never want to PUG again. It has happened to me several times, and it has made me want to only party with people I know and trust.

One of the most special PUGs in my memory was a YOYD, it was /random my Orb first, and we entered the BC and this guy pressed auto-run on his keyboard and ran into the main room with all the mobs, he died and the mobs party-hate charged the rest of us, before we could buff and even finish entering the zone properly. His explanation was that he didn't know about auto-run, he didn't know how to cancel it. These are things we should learn in Dunes at level thirteen, not at end-game when somebody else's hard-earned seals are on the line.

And the guy was like "lol oops." He did not say "omg I'm so sorry, I owe you a huge apology, I will make it up to you." So now I refer to these PUGs as "lol oops" groups.

None of my friends ever say "lol oops" they turn up for events all ship-shape and smart, and they play their jobs with professionalism like its their last day on God's clean Earth. Which is what I expect of them, and what they expect of me. "Lol oops" doesn't figure into our plans. If anyone is feeling tired or poorly, we cancel the run, and wait until everyone is on-form.

So it isn't snobbery or anything, I hope everyone has fun in the game and makes progress. But I don't want to waste my time with "lol oops" and infact I would rather solo. Or in the case of Ambuscade, just not bother doing it anymore since it makes me feel so old inside.
:rolleyes:

[Ketaru]

I'm not entirely convinced people want to party even though there are the Gallantry benefits. Either that, or I'm the most horribly unlucky person alive LFG for multiple hours straight over the past few days with only one real good party to show for it. And just to head off the "Make your own!" counter, that included routine searches and keeping an eye on what shouts I could understand. People are still coming and going, though, as evidenced by the tome flares.

Still say they should just put a solo only version in Selbina or something. If it turns out you see enough people going at that, they could possibly unite and head over to Mhaura. If not, well, they're not holding up the other groups.

No. That's my experience. Doing /sea Legion, the majority of people are soloing it this month.

It's craziness considering the benefits of doing it together and at higher difficulty levels. But unfortunately, I have gear to get. If nobody invites me by the time my turn comes up, I'm going in solo whether I take up the arena or not. It's a shame.

EDIT: I understand they probably do this to maintain the mystery and thus keep people playing. But it would be kind of nice to know what plan they have for the cycle of Ambuscade gear. Is it only going to be updated Salvage gear? If they simply put the Ares set back up again for September, Ambuscade's popularity will plummet.

On the other hand, if they keep on creating new gear, there will be longer and longer stretches of time where people who missed the gear the first time around will not be able to acquire it again until the distant future.

[Castanica]

To do ambuscade in a group you have to be well geared, very good at your job (especially for a tank or healer), spend time building the party, give 100% attention to what you're doing and worst of all, be locked into putting at least 30-60 mins uninterupted in or be denied a group next time. -This is stressfull.-

To do ambuscade solo you don't have to impress anyone, you can do as few or as many runs as you want, you can decide to do it in a moments notice and have nothing else to organize and most importantly you can watch a movie while you're doing it or even go afk for an hour after 1 run and take a nap. -This is comfy.-

My biggest gripe outside of the extremely elitist community is that I don't want to be locked into something, I don't want to have to give 100%. This is the same reason I don't like grouping for XP when someone asks, if I group and then decide to go afk after 10 mins to walk my dog they will get annoyed because they think I'm leeching. So it's better to not group at all, you feel forced to perform and give 100% when you group. It's exhausting and not fun unless that's the experience you want from the game.

[Catmato]

My biggest gripe outside of the extremely elitist community is that I don't want to be locked into something, I don't want to have to give 100%. This is the same reason I don't like grouping for XP when someone asks, if I group and then decide to go afk after 10 mins to walk my dog they will get annoyed because they think I'm leeching. So it's better to not group at all, you feel forced to perform and give 100% when you group. It's exhausting and not fun unless that's the experience you want from the game.

This is probably the one of the biggest and best excuse against partying. I have a similar issue personally. I don't have the will to sit down and play for many hours straight like I used to. I just get burned out doing the same thing over and over. Just yesterday, I did dynamis for the first time in a long time and got bored before the two hours were up.

[Seriha]

While perhaps related the elitist angle, PUGs also tend to suffer from the Catch 22 of demanding the gear to get the gear. Ambuscade stuff is decent, but not best of the best. During my earlier mentioned LFG time, I did have people examine me now and then, but I suspect that because I was melee whose ACC hovered around 1000 before food and job traits, I looked rather unappealing for VD fights. Could I get better augments on my Taeon and sword? Sure, but that gets difficult when the stones aren't even on the AH and the only Skirmish people even tend to consider is Yorcia, and that one doesn't drop the stones I need. This problem only gets worse when you step up the content latter.

As for the current set, the only piece that would actually be better for me to wear during the TP phase would be the +1 body, and I'm not quite there yet. Even then, it'd be a gain of maybe 15 ACC or so. To consider other pieces, I'd have to look into making the JSE cape with Haste to offset other losses, or somehow hope I could pay the excruciatingly high sum for that +1 haste belt they added with Ambuscade's launch. Neither of which seem particularly appealing since it means either spamming Dynamis for currency to sell or doing even more Ambuscades I'm already having issue getting groups for already.

I doubt I'm alone in this scenario, which is largely why I feel the alternative zone should be a thing. I don't mind putting effort forward, but it needs to be both within reason and at a reliable pacing. Barring weather shenanigans, making Magian weapons was probably one of my favorite times within XI as it satisfied this criteria. Be it killing 50 and taking a break or going full ham to knock out like 500 in a session, a few thousand kills later and I had something to show for it. There's not really a Plan B to Ambuscade at the moment, and Ambuscade itself is more like a Plan E relative to the gearing tier.

[OmnysValefor]

My biggest gripe outside of the extremely elitist community is that I don't want to be locked into something, I don't want to have to give 100%. This is the same reason I don't like grouping for XP when someone asks, if I group and then decide to go afk after 10 mins to walk my dog they will get annoyed because they think I'm leeching. So it's better to not group at all, you feel forced to perform and give 100% when you group. It's exhausting and not fun unless that's the experience you want from the game.

I applaud your honesty but simultaneously find frustration that you "don't want to give 100%" but yet choose to state how unfair the CP grind is/bonuses are [in other threads].

[Zeldar]

Hey Kalsena, just wait until next week and be on around 8:30 EST on linkshell event nights. We'll be doing ambuscade as a shell and get crazy points like we did last night. As for the earlier comments about preferring to solo, hey I get it... I really do. There are times when I feel the same way. However, if you are CHOOSING to play solo, please don't complain that people in groups are reaping far more rewards than you are. Thats the gripe I have . People are complaining that its too much of a grind and it takes too long to get the rewards, blah blah blah. Well, YOU are putting YOURSELF through that grind VOLUNTARILY by not teaming up. Seriha (Kalsena) did ambuscade with 5 of us as a linkshell yesterday and we were getting kills in 90 seconds. Thats not from time of engaging, thats from time of entering. Our warp rings weren't up by the time we got new KIs. Can you imagine how many hallmarks and gallantry we got in a short time? My point is, these things are only a horrible grind if you choose to make them so by trying to do it all alone.

[Rooj]

Your gear has never and will never be an excuse to not do Ambuscade. Ever. If you are trying to use this as an excuse, then you are trying to avoid the real problem, whatever that may be. This content was specifically designed so that your gear couldn't be an excuse in the first place. Sparks gear is perfectly fine for doing Ambuscade on Normal with other players.

Please stop making up imaginary problems like "elitism" and "my gear isn't good enough." Stop pretending that no one wants to do Normal or Difficult. Please figure out what the real problem is, and make posts about THAT instead, so we can actually put effort into fixing THAT, a REAL problem.

[OmnysValefor]

Rooj, I get where you're coming from but I'd say last month would have been the exception. The mechanics of last month wanted you to zerg through it and skip at least one wave of adds.

In the other months with adds, they die when the boss dies (thankfully).

The other problem is that most months have favored either melee OR mages. Dragon leaned melee but magic could work. Taurus/Demon leaned heavily melee. Anything could work on antlion, Roc was all about melee (the geo or magic ws's could take care of apkallu) and this month is all about melee.

[Rooj]

I don't see anyone complaining about their role not being useful in any Ambuscades though. All I see is "no one will invite me because of my gear because everyone is elitist."

[Seriha]

Your gear has never and will never be an excuse to not do Ambuscade. Ever. If you are trying to use this as an excuse, then you are trying to avoid the real problem, whatever that may be. This content was specifically designed so that your gear couldn't be an excuse in the first place. Sparks gear is perfectly fine for doing Ambuscade on Normal with other players.

Please stop making up imaginary problems like "elitism" and "my gear isn't good enough." Stop pretending that no one wants to do Normal or Difficult. Please figure out what the real problem is, and make posts about THAT instead, so we can actually put effort into fixing THAT, a REAL problem.

With VD being the preferred group run, yeah, gear is a concern. Advocating it isn't (because people could just solo or do lower difficulties) only further exacerbates congestion issues. Overall, one needs to be mindful of what's possible in an MMO and how players actually utilize those possibilities, which tends to defer to hyper-efficiency whenever possible. Since there's no way of getting around the fact that this is a grind, it's a no-brainer people might want sub-5m fights when they have to do like 50 of them or more before queues. All that time adds up.

And while the group I ran with Zeldar did pretty well, I'm humble enough to acknowledge that it wasn't really my contribution that was allowing such hasty clears, though Scummy's GEO bubbles did help me tremendously. With someone really good, it probably would've been even faster still. Otherwise, I'm hoping to right my sleep schedule a bit so I won't be out cold during event time(s). z.z

[Olor]

To do ambuscade in a group you have to be well geared, very good at your job (especially for a tank or healer), spend time building the party, give 100% attention to what you're doing and worst of all, be locked into putting at least 30-60 mins uninterupted in or be denied a group next time. -This is stressfull.-

To do ambuscade solo you don't have to impress anyone, you can do as few or as many runs as you want, you can decide to do it in a moments notice and have nothing else to organize and most importantly you can watch a movie while you're doing it or even go afk for an hour after 1 run and take a nap. -This is comfy.-

My biggest gripe outside of the extremely elitist community is that I don't want to be locked into something, I don't want to have to give 100%. This is the same reason I don't like grouping for XP when someone asks, if I group and then decide to go afk after 10 mins to walk my dog they will get annoyed because they think I'm leeching. So it's better to not group at all, you feel forced to perform and give 100% when you group. It's exhausting and not fun unless that's the experience you want from the game.

Wow you described my feelings exactly. I play FFXI to wind down. I have a really stressful job - high-level groups in XI more often than not make me feel like I am at work, not relaxing.

It's great when you can play with a couple other people and they aren't super uptight and demanding - I love grouping in those situations. Love it! But pick up groups are not about having fun. They are about winning in the most efficient way possible.

Like Stompa above talking about the "lol ooops" person. I get it, it is annoying, you feel like someone wasted your time. But as the person who has been the "lol ooops" - it really destroys the fun of the game when a mistake is treated like you kicked a puppy. Stuff happens. Often I'm playing after going out with friends, I've had a few bevies. I'm not really feeling like a commando. I just want to chill. This is why I mostly solo.

If I fail when I am by myself, I laugh, and I still have a good time. But when I am playing with others, I feel bad because I know that my failure has upset them. I'd rather not be the "lol ooops" in a group. I'd also rather not have to treat the game like a job.

This isn't meant to be blamey of folks who want ruthless efficiency - I get it. It's your way of having fun. I'd rather not screw up your way of having fun. But don't hate me for having my way of having fun. I know it sucks that ambuscade is congested - it totally does! But that's a dev problem not a player problem.

And if anyone wants to play in a totally chill way, and laugh when things go wrong, and drop when you feel like it, feel free to look me up, I'm often up for it.

Though I will probably be waiting till next week to do any more ambuscade. I duoed a couple with someone last night and the wait was too long.

[Seriha]

Silly confession: My first group back and they asked for Mighty Guard. I forgot to use Diffusion first. Oops~

[OmnysValefor]

With VD being the preferred group run, yeah, gear is a concern. Advocating it isn't (because people could just solo or do lower difficulties) only further exacerbates congestion issues. Overall, one needs to be mindful of what's possible in an MMO and how players actually utilize those possibilities, which tends to defer to hyper-efficiency whenever possible. Since there's no way of getting around the fact that this is a grind, it's a no-brainer people might want sub-5m fights when they have to do like 50 of them or more before queues. All that time adds up.

I agree with this.

I like to have fun, I really do. Last month, I tanked bird a few times as sword/shield warrior (0 JP but so much gear recyclable from PLD). I did my first RUN tanking in Ambuscade groups. At the same time, 20k points (to get all dyes) / 300 = 67 VD runs. Subtract the 4 "free" VD runs you get from acquiring both seals, and one more run because you had to do an Intense for one more seal and you'e still at 62 of the same fight.

Never has "ad nauseum" been such a fitting term.

[Fae]

With VD being the preferred group run, yeah, gear is a concern. Advocating it isn't (because people could just solo or do lower difficulties) only further exacerbates congestion issues. Overall, one needs to be mindful of what's possible in an MMO and how players actually utilize those possibilities, which tends to defer to hyper-efficiency whenever possible. Since there's no way of getting around the fact that this is a grind, it's a no-brainer people might want sub-5m fights when they have to do like 50 of them or more before queues. All that time adds up.


Gear is a concern only if you want to farm points quickly, what Rooj said is on point. You can do lower difficulty levels and that's what they're there for. The only problem comes when people who don't really want to give 100% and haven't spent the time on their gear or jobs to do VD or intense fights, want to do it anyway to farm points faster, essentially wanting the cake but to eat it too.


-This is stressfull.-
-This is comfy.-
It's exhausting and not fun unless that's the experience you want from the game.


To those that aren't just returning and don't want to give 100%, don't want to gear up, don't want to be attentive or focused, then the time it takes to farm is going to be very high anyway, and those sure as heck aren't focused on efficiency they value comfort and ease, the lower difficulties are there not only for returning players but people with those priorities toward the game, which there's nothing evil or rotten or bad about that but you also can't expect to farm tons of points an hour if that's how you feel and that's not what most people want (slow points that take hours and hours more to farm). If that's how you want to play just don't go into VD with others, go with like minded people on lower difficulties or solo slowly and increase wait times which also makes it go more slowly. It's hard to find people that are ok with -other- people randomly afking, though I find sooo many people are ok with it if it's them doing whatever they feel like and not having to respect others time. I feel that's why things like stompa's post about the joy of good groups are important. It's what makes the game fun for a lot of people. Taking 2 hours to do 2 runs isn't really anyones idea of a good time, and the more people that afk the longer it gets. It's pick and choose, not you get both. If you want lots of afk times, low gear requirements, being able to take a nap or walk the dog, then do lower difficulties and be prepared to spend a loooot of time grinding your points. You don't get to have that and also grind points quick nothing in life works like that except cheat codes (which at least for me feel hollow) and maybe winning the lottery (though studies show most people that won the lottery end up depressed, eventually burn through their money and their friends go figure).


Thank you for making this months Regular Ambuscade VERY melee friendly. Fights take less than 4 minutes on the highest difficulty. The only problem is waiting to actually do the fight. This game has been out for over a decade. Many in the player base just don't have time to be waiting around. Also, there have been some other players that wander in to solo and stay in there creating an even longer wait. Its like they going in and just stay in there disengaged from battle. :(
I agree it is a pretty straightforward and easy fight. I suggest killing the left add (your left) on entry, then the main NM, your kill speed will increase a lot. Last months was also very melee friendly, actually much quicker than this one if you had the setup for it but oh well :( (3 DNC or THF synchronized their stacked WS with a GEO it was a 30s fight and no adds spawned). Finding stuff like that out and doing it with friends is what is so fun about ambuscade to me :( I agree the KI's are a bit tedious to farm, but it's also been memory lane. Going to all these diff zones we haven't had reasons to revisit much reminds us all of the times we used to go there for old content and had some of us tearing up with nostalgia.

As far as the PUG discussion, my group has often picked up people with a party flag on, if we're not full. Might as well use them instead of a trust. Sometimes you get burned and wish you had the trust instead but it's rare, they have to be really bad to pull that off (like whm that don't cure for about 20s after you take dmg... yep they still exist).

[Zumi]

Returning player here.

Thoughts on this thing. Ok I did this Ambuscade because someone on a forum said I should do it for gear. I put it on very easy since I am solo use my 5 trusts it was pretty easy in that mobs did very little damage and it was just auto attack WS pretty much really no challenge or anything 3 mobs die in about 5 min. I get 50 hallmarks. Then I find the npc is only selling mage gear and I only play Paladin. I look up on the Wiki and it says the sets rotate every month. Which is not good game design at all.

Yea this is pretty dumb you can't get gear for the job you actually play. FFXIV is my main MMO now. This is basically the same thing as grinding tomes in FFXIV. Just imagine if you grind tomes in FF14 then can't buy the gear for your class. That would never happen people would rage. It's unacceptable to expect people to grind for a currency then make them wait 1-5 months until their jobs set comes up at the NPC to buy.

OK SE you want people to come back and sub to 11 but stuff like this really needs to change some of us only play 1 job and now you telling us we have to wait around 5+ months or something to even buy the gear?

I hope you take this feedback to the dev team. An event where you can only buy the gear you want once every 5 months just encourages people to un sub wait till the guy sells the gear you want then sub for that 1 month.

[Dale]

The only real problem with Ambuscade that I can see is that the rewards are so good it encourages people to spam it until they are sick of it.

Doing anything over and over and over and over again will get old.

I would suggest the obvious solution of putting a cap on the amount of times in a day people can do ambuscade while lowering the over-all amount of points required to purchase rewards. But then that would likely make it more difficult for others to find party members so this fix would probably do more harm than good. So I don't really had a good solution to offer at the moment.

After reading this thread there are few things I would like to add.

1. If you are using trusts then you are not technically soloing. I see this blanket term soloing used way too frequently. If you are using trusts then I believe you need to clarify that and describe which trusts you are using. To just say you can solo this or solo that is not particularly accurate, nor is it helpful. Because not all trusts are created equal.

2. I agree with those who say the focal point of this game should remain focused on group activities. Playing with trusts should be there as option when other players are not available. But it should never become this game's center of attention. Final Fantasy's XI's emphasis on group-style combat is really the only thing this game has going for it in the current market. To give that up would be a huge mistake.

3. To those who say ambuscade is too difficult or hard to get a group for: it's not really. Any modest effort should suffice. The event is extremely group-friendly. Try putting a successful group together to do something like Vagary if you think doing Ambuscade is difficult. That should give you some much needed perspective.

[Sicycre]

Greetings, everyone!

I’d like to pass on some comments from the development team in response to the suggestions in this thread.


Key items
Currently no plans to change the way key items are obtained, and system-wise it would not be possible to make it so the monster targets change each day. Also, in regards to preparing various ways to obtain the key item, when repeating runs as a party, you’ll ultimately all be doing the same method to obtain it, and would likely choose the most efficient option. We'd like to hear additional feedback on what everyone feels would be an appropriate method to obtaining the key item.


Area appearance
Unfortunately we aren’t able to change the maps for Ambuscade. While it might be possible for us to place objects or add some variation inside of the instance, this would not be a proper solution. If you feel you are getting worn out while doing it, we recommend taking a break from Ambuscade to do something else, then come back when you are reinvigorated!


Adding a reward NPC to other areas
Since it’s not as simple as using the same exact NPC data, it would take a bit of work to do, but this might just be possible. We’ll take a look and see if we can accomplish this!


Method to swap in differently augments capes
Unfortunately from a technical perspective, renaming capes so that they can be macroed in is not possible. While it may be possible to create the same exact item with a different name, which can then be augmented, this would reduce the amount of space available for other new items. However, if you use your inventory and wardrobes, you can actually successfully swap in different types of capes.


Purchasing Abdhaljs Seals with login points
We can look into this; however, it would not be possible to transfer these between characters under the same account.


We’re happy to see all the feedback on Ambuscade and hope you continue to suggest ways to improve this content moving forward! :D

[Minikom]

Would really be good if you could add a roe quest which give a bonus on hallmarks when you are doing daily for example 50% extra hallmarks based on which difficult you are doing.


Add old gear to total gallantry because if ppl miss the 5 pieces they need to farm like 50k hallmarks 25k gallantry to cap on old gear.

[pancakesandsx]

Actually I think adding some seasonal or themed objects inside the arena would be amusing like it is in the Mog Garden. Themed wall hangings or other sillyness that the battle planner comes up with etc. As long as it's not a time consuming change it could be a nice touch.

[OmnysValefor]

Key items
Currently no plans to change the way key items are obtained, and system-wise it would not be possible to make it so the monster targets change each day. Also, in regards to preparing various ways to obtain the key item, when repeating runs as a party, you’ll ultimately all be doing the same method to obtain it, and would likely choose the most efficient option. We'd like to hear additional feedback on what everyone feels would be an appropriate method to obtaining the key item.

[...]

We’re happy to see all the feedback on Ambuscade and hope you continue to suggest ways to improve this content moving forward! :D

I don't understand this. The constant need to go reacquire the key item is part of the drain on the fun. This is one of the parts that really needs to be improved. As I've said before, it takes longer to get the key item than to lose it.

You're right that whatever you make the most efficient option is the method we're going to use because beating up 10 mobs that are no danger in the slightest isn't any sort of fun.

Right now it's Set HP in Mhaura > Zone to obscure location noone would otherwise be in > Fight other groups for the same mobs (which admittedly isn't as bad this month since Ru'aun has so many arcana > kill 10 of these > zone back > zone in > prep for fight > kill in two minutes > zone back to mhaura. Repeat.

Each and every time.

[Mithlas]

Is there any way we could have an expiring KI?
You do the RoE to get the KI, then have it until JP Midnight or something.

I don't know if that would work.

[Seriha]

Could pull a page from the Manaclipper's KI and let certain quests refresh X amount of attempts. Though, if I'm being honest, that hasn't really felt like the hassle of the process. Rather, the sheer number of runs you need to do, even on VD, to get the gear at a decent pace. The other consumables and perhaps new stuff can help keep people coming even when they're done with that phase.

I do feel like they should try to incorporate some kind of bonus for groups who include individuals with a small amount of total hallmarks. Right now, there's that whole MMO Catch 22 going on where people want you to have the gear (or better) just to participate. Some of this is because earlier difficulties reward diddly for the time, but more because better gear will translate to higher success rates. If the total average of the group is under some certain threshold, granting a bonus to everyone wouldn't be a terrible idea. The daily quest rewarding the consumable that doubles your reward for the next run wouldn't be a bad thing, either.

[Nyarlko]

Adding a hallmark bonus to the daily might just be enough to reduce the grind to bearable levels for most. Ambuscade feels like an event that we should be running 1-2x per day in order to get the full gear. For the most part, it's basically starter gear that will end up getting replaced rather soonish. In the begininning, it was positioned as something that would be rewarding to smaller groups and even soloists, so why has that turned out to not be the case? A lot of players who this gear would be upgrades for are in the position that no group wants to take them and it's quite unlikely that they are going to be able to solo anything above Normal.

Normal Ambuscade, Normal difficulty: 100hm/0gal per run... the body+1 is what, roughly 15000 total hm? That's roughly 150 runs per month. It's unreasonable to expect anyone to be happy with that large of a monthly grind. Perhaps add a daily ROE quest for your first Ambuscade completion per day that rewards 200hm/50gal, regardless of difficulty/volume completed. That would reduce the workload down to a somewhat more reasonable 90 runs of N/N per month to get the total hallmarks gear (provided you do it 3x per day, which might still be a bit much for some.. but that is assuming N/N for all runs.)

edit: I don't believe I've seen anyone else toss out this suggestion, so...

How about changing the entry system from KI > currency? Instead of giving us a single/unique Key Item, the RoE could instead add 1 to "Ambuscade Vol. 1" or "Ambuscade Vol.2" currencies, maybe capped ~10? (Higher might be nice to know for sure that you have enough for an hour's worth of Ambuscading, but 10 should be about right for that for most groups in my experience.)

This would allow the game-flow to shift from where it is now :
find group > get KI > beat Vol.2 > farm 10x mobs > repeat
into: kill lots of mobs > find group > beat Vol.2 x10 > repeat

Basically would shift the prep work of farming KIs from "during" to "before". Same number of mobs to kill overall, lots less zoning involved, and gives me a feeling closer to the old BCNM/orb days vs this annoying back<>forth between NM<>trashmobs which is oddly stressful/draining on a lot of us.

[Jin_Uzuki]

I don't understand this. The constant need to go reacquire the key item is part of the drain on the fun. This is one of the parts that really needs to be improved. As I've said before, it takes longer to get the key item than to lose it.

You're right that whatever you make the most efficient option is the method we're going to use because beating up 10 mobs that are no danger in the slightest isn't any sort of fun.

Right now it's Set HP in Mhaura > Zone to obscure location noone would otherwise be in > Fight other groups for the same mobs (which admittedly isn't as bad this month since Ru'aun has so many arcana > kill 10 of these > zone back > zone in > prep for fight > kill in two minutes > zone back to mhaura. Repeat.

Each and every time.

My guess, to ease congestion? To make the content last longer?

I mean, Abmu feel intentionally designed to make long-lasting content with least efforts.

[Olor]

Please please please please add a daily ROE quest that gives a half decent amount of hallmarks for completing an ambuscade volume 2. It's simply not realistic for soloists/lesser geared folks to get a set of +1 armor in a month when groups pretty much universally just do VD. Either that or allow some ability to carry hallmarks over each month. I don't mind working for the gear. I don't even mind working harder to do it solo - but with the points getting deleted every month it makes it impossible/demoralizing. Most of us don't have the playtime to do 150 runs in a month.

Seriously, I'd be fine with trading in hallmarks to get half back in something I could carry over for the month so it would take double the amount of hallmarks to get any item if I could just do it at my pace. Having to play a ridiculous amount of time in one month to get any armor is just not on for me. I really can't emphasize enough that deleting the currency every month is a huge negative for folks with more limited playtime.

At this point it feels pretty pointless to sub as I can't make any progress at my own pace, really.

[Catmato]

Most of us don't have the playtime to do 150 runs in a month.

I'm finding it hard to do the 11 runs for the NQ armor, but I do make sure to get it done every month.

[detlef]

Are you guys still having trouble with this month? I don't think you even need a tank, just a couple of DDs standing together and cure bomb your way through the fight.

[Catmato]

It's not the difficulty of the fight, it's the motivation to play.

[Diavolo]

Ambuscade was practically designed to burn players out and I challenge anyone to argue against it.

[Ketaru]

Ambuscade was practically designed to burn players out and I challenge anyone to argue against it.

While I, for one, see no shame in just going for the NQ set if you're just a casual player (or doing it just enough every month to get a A. Seal, and hoard them until a set you want comes along), this does seem rather accurate. And bodes poorly for the future of the game if this is really what we have to look forward to forever into the future.

EDIT: Stupid smartphone touchscreen sensitivity!

I agree that, if the future of the content is the old gear cycled monthly, there should be no more perceived need to wipe your hallmarks every month. Or, a separate set of points that don't reset monthly should be used exclusively for older gear.

[Olor]

Ambuscade was practically designed to burn players out and I challenge anyone to argue against it.


It's not the difficulty of the fight, it's the motivation to play.

These things.

I am just about done the NQ set and I will push myself to login and finish it, but the event is a real drag at this point.

I am glad this month's battle is solo friendly but yeah I just get so tired of having my progress wiped every month it is demoralizing.

I really liked the event at first but the lustre has worn off as it becomes more and more of a naked grind. Once I have all NQ sets it will be even harder to find the motivation to try to super grind out HQ.

And stopping at NQ is mostly pointless for me because outside of a few slots/macro bits I have stuff that is better than the NQ of most of the sets (not the PLD/WAR/SAM etc set, but I don't play any of those jobs so I didn't have any armor for them really)

But I am doing it because I don't have a ton of 119 armor and some of it may be useful for jobs I don't really play and am not paying attention to.

Dunno... love the game but they need to step up.

[Mxsx]

Maybe not everyone should get everything??? Like casual is casual, why should you get the same as someone who put in way more time? Isn't that the point of being casual?

Everyone sure complains a lot, for content that is easy prey...

I know it isn't the popular opinion... but lets be real... casual's don't deserve the same gear as a hardcore player...

[Olor]

Maybe not everyone should get everything??? Like casual is casual, why should you get the same as someone who put in way more time? Isn't that the point of being casual?

Everyone sure complains a lot, for content that is easy prey...

I know it isn't the popular opinion... but lets be real... casual's don't deserve the same gear as a hardcore player...

I am not asking to "get the same as someone who put in more time" - and I don't see why I shouldn't get the gear if I spend as much (or more time) to get it. Just because I can't spend it all in one month I shouldn't be punished.

I am asking for my progress not to be wiped so I can put in the time in a way that is more sensible for my schedule and in a way that keeps the game fun for me.

I'd even be happy with having to spend twice as many hallmarks to get the item if I can gather those hallmarks at my own pace, as I have stated above.

Like if I could buy an item for 1000 hallmarks that I could trade in for 500 total hallmarks I'd be fine slowly working up to buying pieces.

Or they could stop deleting our spendable hallmarks and let us buy stuff with them - continuing to roll over total hallmarks earned each month? There has to be a way to do it.

I don't think it's particularly unreasonable to wish to have a way to complete the armor set on my own time. I'm not asking for a way to earn gear from 130 level fights here, just a way to slowly pick away at super easy grindy content at my own pace.

The current way would be like having your ancient currency for a relic disappear every month so if you couldn't finish your whole relic in a month you could never get one. It's bad design.

And it makes the game less fun because I don't feel like I can reasonably spend my playtime doing anything BUT ambuscade.

[Dale]

I am not asking to "get the same as someone who put in more time" - and I don't see why I shouldn't get the gear if I spend as much (or more time) to get it. Just because I can't spend it all in one month I shouldn't be punished.

I am asking for my progress not to be wiped so I can put in the time in a way that is more sensible for my schedule and in a way that keeps the game fun for me.

I'd even be happy with having to spend twice as many hallmarks to get the item if I can gather those hallmarks at my own pace, as I have stated above.

Like if I could buy an item for 1000 hallmarks that I could trade in for 500 total hallmarks I'd be fine slowly working up to buying pieces.

Or they could stop deleting our spendable hallmarks and let us buy stuff with them - continuing to roll over total hallmarks earned each month? There has to be a way to do it.

I don't think it's particularly unreasonable to wish to have a way to complete the armor set on my own time. I'm not asking for a way to earn gear from 130 level fights here, just a way to slowly pick away at super easy grindy content at my own pace.

The current way would be like having your ancient currency for a relic disappear every month so if you couldn't finish your whole relic in a month you could never get one. It's bad design.

And it makes the game less fun because I don't feel like I can reasonably spend my playtime doing anything BUT ambuscade.

You don't have to burn yourself out. Just do it consistently - something like 3 ~ 5 fights a day - and you should easily have enough for your entire +1 set before the month is out. Comparing ambuscade to the relic grind is like comparing apples to oranges because the two are on different planets in terms of grinding.

I'll admit it can get repetitive - especially if you try to bang it all out at once. But in all honesty, it's not that much of a grind considering the quality of the gear or items you can buy. That being said: I don't really object to your idea. I would have no problems with SE giving players the option to carry over their points from month to month.

[Olor]

I appreciate you not dismissing my suggestion out of hand. The issue is I tend to play maybe 3-5 times a month for a few hours at a time, so I either make my eyes bleed by grinding as much ambuscade as I can stand or I just can't get any HQ items. Doing 5 fights per day would necessitate setting aside time for the game on days I don't really have it.

I don't want them to make it any easier - just to give folks with different playstyles the ability to access this stuff - as I said above I'd even be willing to pay 2X the cost or more. Just would like to have a shot at it.

[Seriha]

Maybe not everyone should get everything??? Like casual is casual, why should you get the same as someone who put in way more time? Isn't that the point of being casual?

Everyone sure complains a lot, for content that is easy prey...

I know it isn't the popular opinion... but lets be real... casual's don't deserve the same gear as a hardcore player...

And there's always more to the equation than whether or not someone put in the proper amount of time. Server conditions vary. When you log on matters. What job(s) you play matter. Who else is looking to do a particular piece of content at the time matters. Realistically, if something can be soloed in this game, there's a good chance that person actually worked harder for it than someone taking advantage of group benefits.

Ambuscade is a good example of how not to do casual friendly content. And I will assert it is such due to the gear being lesser than other options you can find elsewhere. If this stuff was unquestionably the best of the best, then sure, I'd possibly budge some on the "only the hardcore deserve it!" side of the spectrum, but I'm also not so quick to lock something between 18-man content or 200+ million gil grinds. The more people can readily gear up, the better the PUG scene potentially gets. And if you don't actually PUG, instead consistently running with a group of friends/shellmates, then consider yourself lucky and that the issues some bring up don't really apply to you. Random people getting a full +1 set here isn't gonna ruin your day.

[OmnysValefor]

As someone who is 5/5 +1 on 5/5 sets of gear, someone who logs in for at least a little while almost every day,

It's got some nice macro pieces, but ambuscade is largely stopgap gear. If you're killing Ru'aun t2-t3 and Rei t1-t2, you won't be full-timing Ambuscade gear. You might not even be using most of the pieces. It's meant for people gearing up and alt-jobs.

A WAR/PLD/DRK/DRG can -50% DT cap in Sulevia's, but the set has terrible HP, no magic evasion (or nearly none), no enmity (for the Paladins) and very little magic defense bonus. You'll be taking the full brunt of every nuke and every enfeeble. Still, I'm excited for my SAM/NIN/PLD friend who came back last month to get it. It's a sick upgrade for WS macros and filler pieces til he gets better.

He and two others came back last month (gosh, dragging them through the roc was terrible, with the -dt mechanics). I don't feel superior to them that I got 5/5 Ambuskadi +1 and they only got 4/5. I'm rather frustrated by it.

I'll be the first to call out people complaining about how difficult the JP grind is, how unfair HP scaling is, but Ambuscade is not a very enjoyable system.

[Dale]

As someone who is 5/5 +1 on 5/5 sets of gear, someone who logs in for at least a little while almost every day,

It's got some nice macro pieces, but ambuscade is largely stopgap gear. If you're killing Ru'aun t2-t3 and Rei t1-t2, you won't be full-timing Ambuscade gear. You might not even be using most of the pieces. It's meant for people gearing up and alt-jobs.

A WAR/PLD/DRK/DRG can -50% DT cap in Sulevia's, but the set has terrible HP, no magic evasion (or nearly none), no enmity (for the Paladins) and very little magic defense bonus. You'll be taking the full brunt of every nuke and every enfeeble. Still, I'm excited for my SAM/NIN/PLD friend who came back last month to get it. It's a sick upgrade for WS macros and filler pieces til he gets better.

He and two others came back last month (gosh, dragging them through the roc was terrible, with the -dt mechanics). I don't feel superior to them that I got 5/5 Ambuskadi +1 and they only got 4/5. I'm rather frustrated by it.

I'll be the first to call out people complaining about how difficult the JP grind is, how unfair HP scaling is, but Ambuscade is not a very enjoyable system.

Magic evasion has never impressed me. Spells and enfeebles still hit me even when I put on gear that has it. I've never noticed magic defense bonus doing much for me either. -MDT or -Damage seems to work better.

Enmity is alright I guess. But I'd rather have more accuracy and -damage in most situations.

More HP? I prefer more - damage. Extra HP is always nice - especially against hard-hitting NMs. But it's mostly a situational stat that's only a must-have against against a few high-tier notorious monsters.

You can get some better gear than Ambuscade (depending on what you want to do) by obtaining abjurations from Escha or getting good augments on Reisinjima gear - especially if you can afford the +1 sets. So I'm not disagreeing with you. But even then the ambuscade stuff compares well in my opinion. And let's not forget, you have to kill t2-t3 and Rei t1-t2 notorious monsters to get this better gear to begin with. So unless you plan on doing this naked you are going to have to wear something and Ambuscade gear certainly qualifies for that.

I guess what I'm trying to say is I believe Ambuscade gear is high-end gear. It may not be the very best, but it's definitely good - especially considering how easy it is to get (at least for those of us who have the time to play consistently through-out the month).

[Dale]

I appreciate you not dismissing my suggestion out of hand. The issue is I tend to play maybe 3-5 times a month for a few hours at a time, so I either make my eyes bleed by grinding as much ambuscade as I can stand or I just can't get any HQ items. Doing 5 fights per day would necessitate setting aside time for the game on days I don't really have it.

I don't want them to make it any easier - just to give folks with different playstyles the ability to access this stuff - as I said above I'd even be willing to pay 2X the cost or more. Just would like to have a shot at it.

Yeah I tend to agree with you you. The point reset every month is needless and shuts out players like you who may only be able to play a few times a month. If you can't play consistently and are trying to rack up enough points for the whole +1 set in just a couple of days.... that would be mind-numbing for sure. And I don't see the big harm in letting players keep their points from month to month anyway. I lost over 8k gallantry and 20k hallmarks one time because my PC monitor burned out right before the update and I wasn't able to spend my points in time.

[OmnysValefor]

Magic evasion has never impressed me. Spells and enfeebles still hit me even when I put on gear that has it. I've never noticed magic defense bonus doing much for me either. -MDT or -Damage seems to work better.

Enmity is alright I guess. But I'd rather have more accuracy and -damage in most situations.

More HP? I prefer more - damage. Extra HP is always nice - especially against hard-hitting NMs. But it's mostly a situational stat that's only a must-have against against a few high-tier notorious monsters.

... what? Of course a PLD PDT/MDT caps first (Hard MDT or BDT depending on fight). I have sets that can do any of it and sets that can do all of it. It's nice that Sulevia's can but Paladins should want better.

Magic evasion on its own usually don't cause a resist or a partial resist unless you significantly outgear the content you're fighting, but neither will a barspell when stacked on gear without magic evasion, it's the combined effect of both that is usually what helps.

I have 3k HP (no buffs) in simultaneously PDT and MDT capped gear (my HP set is 3200). While enmity is not a stat I prioritize in my engaged set, I have plenty of it. Thanks to enmity on gear affecting the decay of enmity, as well as plentiful HP, I lose far less enmity from every swing than someone in Sulevia's. When you are MDT capped, the only real way to diminish the effects of magic anymore is Magic Defense Bonus. (int works, but is impractical to gear towards, lol. Although boost-int is frequently the best boost for tanks)

[Ketaru]

Maybe not everyone should get everything??? Like casual is casual, why should you get the same as someone who put in way more time? Isn't that the point of being casual?

Everyone sure complains a lot, for content that is easy prey...

I know it isn't the popular opinion... but lets be real... casual's don't deserve the same gear as a hardcore player...

While I'd be the first to normally agree with this sort of attitude, we already have plenty of gear that is well out of reach of much of the player population.

Ambuscade is actively thwarts players from going at their own pace. And if we want to say it should take at least 20 hours to get a piece of gear, what should it matter whether it's 20 hours over two days or 20 hours over two months? The former already has the benefit of having more of the gear.

[Dale]

... what? Of course a PLD PDT/MDT caps first (Hard MDT or BDT depending on fight). I have sets that can do any of it and sets that can do all of it. It's nice that Sulevia's can but Paladins should want better.

Magic evasion on its own usually don't cause a resist or a partial resist unless you significantly outgear the content you're fighting, but neither will a barspell when stacked on gear without magic evasion, it's the combined effect of both that is usually what helps.

I have 3k HP (no buffs) in simultaneously PDT and MDT capped gear (my HP set is 3200). While enmity is not a stat I prioritize in my engaged set, I have plenty of it. Thanks to enmity on gear affecting the decay of enmity, as well as plentiful HP, I lose far less enmity from every swing than someone in Sulevia's. When you are MDT capped, the only real way to diminish the effects of magic anymore is Magic Defense Bonus. (int works, but is impractical to gear towards, lol. Although boost-int is frequently the best boost for tanks)

I think you're missing my point.

My point was Ambuscade gear has really good stats on it. Stats even you are suggesting you should prioritize.

In a previous post you seemed to be making light of Ambuscade gear because it did not have Magic Evasion or Magic Defense Boost stats on it. MaybeI misunderstood you. I was trying to point out that these stats really aren't that great anyway, so their absence really doesn't diminish the value of the gear that much. They're still very nice pieces. And if a player is prevented from obtaining them due to time constraints they are at a significant loss.

[detlef]

Let's not argue over this. Magic evasion is a very important stat and that's much closer to fact than opinion.

[Seriha]

Yeah, seems more like people think it "sucks" because they're not quite understanding its purpose. MEVA on most ilvl items is mean to translate to a passive gain we'd get if we were actually leveling, and in terms of skill ranking, I think that's long been established everyone's a C rating regardless of job. Now, when fighting actually difficult things, no, you're probably not going to see frequent resists if you're not adding additional sources like barspells, carols, runes, and so on, as that C rating will be grossly deficient to the mob's (magic) accuracy values. If one wants to make the argument that SE doesn't quite give us the tools to really make this shine, especially as non-tanks, I won't disagree, but the stats aren't useless.

As for the faults of the Jhakri set, no HP/MP doesn't help and the Haste values aren't enough on their own to win it a spot as a melee set despite all the ACC/ATK. I guess you could technically make a Haste cape for your job of choice, but the sacrifice there is pretty high. Otherwise, my PUG experience on Sylph still commonly reflects that being at Ambuscade gear tier or lower doesn't make you very desirable in any flavor of DPS role. It's Escha Ru/Rei augmented or uncursed stuff if you even want to get looked at. Pretty sure I touched on Skirmish gear augments being out of reach these days in an earlier post here, and those compete more with Ambuscade stuff than the other 2 categories.

[OmnysValefor]

Seriha, the bits about magic evasion are as best said as it can be. Good job.

[elqplau]

ambuscade should be more user freindly(solo wise) i won one battle and have not won again everytime ive tried ive failed on top of that i lost the HR i did get because of reset....i have not been a party player for a very long time sence b4 75 cap was lifted and 50 cap fights where lifted so i dont play party im old gaurde rdm and tend to do my own thing while helping new players or returning players.... acc gear for rdm is almost nonexistant .... trusts take cues from my Igear and hit accordingly unfortunatley they hit harder than i do and for everything to work right i shouldnt have to over work to get hate from trusts and then not able to survive hate once i get it... was once told "you cant get hate from me" my responce was "you called a timeout to apply Utesenmi?"

[Afania]

While I'd be the first to normally agree with this sort of attitude, we already have plenty of gear that is well out of reach of much of the player population.

Ambuscade is actively thwarts players from going at their own pace. And if we want to say it should take at least 20 hours to get a piece of gear, what should it matter whether it's 20 hours over two days or 20 hours over two months? The former already has the benefit of having more of the gear.

Because the design like this rewards people does higher difficulty, such as intense or VD. From game design's POV, higher difficulty should yield better reward.

If someone doesn't have a lot of playtime within a month, a good way is to do intense which gives way more points.

[Ketaru]

Because the design like this rewards people does higher difficulty, such as intense or VD. From game design's POV, higher difficulty should yield better reward.

If someone doesn't have a lot of playtime within a month, a good way is to do intense which gives way more points.

So getting it sooner, and with less dedicates hours isn't good enough for you?

[OmnysValefor]

How about also letting players trade +1 vouchers to an npc for Abdhaljis Thread/Dust/Sap/Dye?

If each +1 voucher gave 5, 5, 2, and 2, it would take trading full +1 vouchers for a complete augmentation set.

Also, please consider the request made in the past, put an NPC in other areas, like Selbina and Kazam?

[Dale]

Let's not argue over this. Magic evasion is a very important stat and that's much closer to fact than opinion.

You're right. Very important stat. I really don't know what I would do without Magic Evasion on my gear. Clearly all of that ambuscade armor is crap because it lacks it. Who needs Accuracy/Attack and - Damage Taken when you can get + to magic evasion.

I don't know what I was thinking earlier to even begin to argue otherwise. Thanks for setting me straight.

[Dale]

Yeah, seems more like people think it "sucks" because they're not quite understanding its purpose. MEVA on most ilvl items is mean to translate to a passive gain we'd get if we were actually leveling, and in terms of skill ranking, I think that's long been established everyone's a C rating regardless of job. Now, when fighting actually difficult things, no, you're probably not going to see frequent resists if you're not adding additional sources like barspells, carols, runes, and so on, as that C rating will be grossly deficient to the mob's (magic) accuracy values. If one wants to make the argument that SE doesn't quite give us the tools to really make this shine, especially as non-tanks, I won't disagree, but the stats aren't useless.


I rarely see any resist even when fighting easy things. I've combined magic evasion with bar spells as well. I still don't see any resist. Maybe once in a blue moon. If I'm lucky.

It's an unreliable crappy stat. At least in my opinion. I'll take Accuracy/Attack and - damage taken any day of the week. Those stats actually have noticeable results.

[detlef]

You're right. Very important stat. I really don't know what I would do without Magic Evasion on my gear. Clearly all of that ambuscade armor is crap because it lacks it. Who needs Accuracy/Attack and - Damage Taken when you can get + to magic evasion.

I don't know what I was thinking earlier to even begin to argue otherwise. Thanks for setting me straight.You're welcome. Happy to help.

By the by, did I say that Accuracy/Attack/-Damage Taken were bad stats? I could have sworn that all I said was that Magic Evasion was an important stat (which it is). Also, I'm not certain anybody said the gear was crap (certainly I didn't). Did somebody actually say this? I feel like you're arguing against statements that were never made.

We don't idle in ilvl gear anymore because it's dangerous. We use Vex because it's awesome. We use bar spells because they help. Magic evasion probably isn't something that you gear around but you shouldn't forget about it.

[Dale]

You're welcome. Happy to help.

By the by, did I say that Accuracy/Attack/-Damage Taken were bad stats? I could have sworn that all I said was that Magic Evasion was an important stat (which it is). Also, I'm not certain anybody said the gear was crap (certainly I didn't). Did somebody actually say this? I feel like you're arguing against statements that were never made.

We don't idle in ilvl gear anymore because it's dangerous. We use Vex because it's awesome. We use bar spells because they help. Magic evasion probably isn't something that you gear around but you shouldn't forget about it.

It was implied.

Sarcasm aside, we just disagree. I don't think it helps - at least not enough to matter. It's a crap stat in my opinion and not something I would describe as a very important stat. So not only do I forget it, but I would urge everyone else to as well. It's just not worth any consideration at all when determining gear in my opinion. But hey, it's a free country and we are allowed to disagree with one another. I got no problem with that.

The initial point of my post was that I don't believe a lack of magic evasion on some of the ambuscade sets do anything toward diminishing their value. They are still excellent sets irregardless of a useless stat being absent on them. That was the context of my comments.

[Diavolo]

Sarcasm aside, we just disagree. I don't think it helps - at least not enough to matter. It's a crap stat in my opinion and not something I would describe as a very important stat. But that's ok - it's a free country and we are allowed to disagree with one another.

If you're fighting monsters that aren't challenging to you or have much in the way of magic attacks then I can see why you might say that, but I'd imagine you aren't doing much at end game to believe it. Either that or you just aren't stacking enough of it to make a difference where it's needed.

[Dale]

If you're fighting monsters that aren't challenging to you or have much in the way of magic attacks then I can see why you might say that, but I'd imagine you aren't doing much at end game to believe it. Either that or you just aren't stacking enough of it to make a difference where it's needed.

I've tried stacking it before. It made no difference - especially against high level notorious monsters. Their enfeebles still hit me. Their nukes still hit me. It did nothing. So I have nothing but contempt for this stat.

You're much better off stacking - magic damage if you want to defend against spells - which ambuscade gear can provide.

[detlef]

The thing about magic evasion is that it's not pass-fail like physical evasion is. Instead, it's about partial credit. Magic damage can be resisted by 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8. Obviously, even a partial resist can be huge. Likewise, while it is possible to resist enfeebles outright, there is a significant benefit to getting getting a partial resist and having a shorter duration enfeeble. This is important because almost everything has an AoE that causes magical damage and/or enfeebles you.

Magic evasion works for all magic which is why Vex and Attunement are pretty ubiquitous against difficult content. On a more casual level, it means not getting hit in Herald's Gaiters or Serpentes Cuffs. I will grant you it's more prudent to improve magic evasion with support rather than gear but the stat itself is very important.

[OmnysValefor]

Yes, magic evasion (gear, barelement, barstatus) is what aids in causing things like petrifies, terrors, paralyzes to break early. Magic evasion is what causes shock spikes not to always stun the player.

I'd much rather be -dt capped in my Souveran +1 (or even nq) and have 1000 (or 600 in nq?) more hp, more magic evasion, +30% cure potency received, and more stats tanks should care about. You're not there to kill the thing, you're there to make sure it's trying to kill you. I swap for WS's,. I WS when my WS's are useful to the content.

Sulevia's has its place, and I'm glad it's there, but it's shouldn't be your goal for tank gear.

Edit: Lastly, it can be nice to hit less (rarely). Hitting less can mean less enfeebles from spike spells. If your phalanx can crunch hits down to 0, a paladin can really really slow down the boss' tp feed. Shield Mastery, at least with ochain/priwen, typically providing enough TP to close scholar skillchains where appropriate.

[Alhanelem]

I think the argument , because I've seen partial resists on enemies, goes something like this:

DT-/MDEF+ :
Oh shit, this 2600 damage magic nuke is about to hit me! But my DT- knocked it down so I survived
vs.
MEVA+:

Oh shit this 2600 damage magic nuke is about to hit me! Will I get a partial resist? Maybe? Possibly?

One produces certain results, the other is a gamble in the best of cases. Meva is s uperior in the case that a partial resist procs because of it, but that's not a sure thing or even a highly likely thing. If you have to give up your first line of defense to get more magic evasion, it doesn't seem like a good idea to me. magic evasion is RNG based and may or may not happen when you really need it, and it might mean needing to retry the fight until it works at the right time.

[OmnysValefor]

My first Sovereign Behemoths, I was on GEO with 3 BST, PLD and a WHM. My job was vex/attune.

The WHM was one of the BST's abyssea-geared mules (ilvl weapon and that was it). Meteors did pathetic damage to each of us, except for the WHM. She took the full brunt of every single one. Every single aoe-stun.

Yes -MDT/+MDB are absolutely wonderful stats. I much prefer "I'm going to take no more than X damage than this" than "I'm going to tank between Y/8 and Y damage from this". The thing I actually do is "I'm going to take no more than X damage from this and might even take less because we have all this resist." but forget about the perspective of a tank, it's hard to kill a solid tank. If it causes the damage dealers and everyone else to take less damage, that's a great great thing.

More importantly: Enfeebles/charm/etc, can frequently be the problem and no amount of -MDT or MDB changes that. A tank who is stunned or petrified can't parry, block, use abilities, or cure themselves. Bosses with paralyzes frequently have paralyzes so potent that they might as well be petrified (as far as ability to take action). Sometimes the paralyze is wide and the healer gets hit with it and has a hard time getting it off themselves.

You're simply undervaluing magic evasion's value on certain fights. No single source of it is usually enough (vex/attune stacked on undergeared people or gear with no barspells or vex/attune) but the cumulative effect can be is really fantastic.

[Garota]

Personally I'd like more than two Volume options throughout the month. So far there have been 12 distinct battles, 6 intense and 6 regular, next month will introduce 2 more. Why not be able to choose from those 14 different battles during any given month?

[Alhanelem]

Personally I'd like more than two Volume options throughout the month. So far there have been 12 distinct battles, 6 intense and 6 regular, next month will introduce 2 more. Why not be able to choose from those 14 different battles during any given month?
The rotating rewards and battles is one of the ceterpoints of the system. If you could pick any of them, everyone would just pick whichever one is easiest and farm that. The idea is that it's a piece of content that doesn't get too stale over time by virtue of the fact that it changes periodically.

[Diavolo]

I think the argument , because I've seen partial resists on enemies, goes something like this:

DT-/MDEF+ :
Oh shit, this 2600 damage magic nuke is about to hit me! But my DT- knocked it down so I survived
vs.
MEVA+:

Oh shit this 2600 damage magic nuke is about to hit me! Will I get a partial resist? Maybe? Possibly?

One produces certain results, the other is a gamble in the best of cases. Meva is s uperior in the case that a partial resist procs because of it, but that's not a sure thing or even a highly likely thing. If you have to give up your first line of defense to get more magic evasion, it doesn't seem like a good idea to me. magic evasion is RNG based and may or may not happen when you really need it, and it might mean needing to retry the fight until it works at the right time.

Well, it's your first line of defense for a reason, you're not going to sacrifice that for a less important defensive stat. The argument, as I saw it, was not whether m. eva is worth prioritizing over one stat or another so much as whether or not it has any value at all, which it obviously does, but of course even that depends on what you're fighting and your role in that fight.

[Catmato]

The idea is that it's a piece of content that doesn't get too stale over time

It fails spectacularly at that.

[Eckamus]

Not sure if it was mentioned before, but a increase in number of Hallmarks and Gallantry rewarded for completing Normal ambuscade would be something welcome. Intense ambuscade has received a double increase in points rewarded as such Normal should receive the same bonus. This would greatly help more casual, solo, lower play time or people who are returning to obtain gears without spending excessive amounts of time spamming ambuscade. As it stands, it feels like a lot of time is spent just doing ambuscade and nothing else. When there is so much else players can or need to do on their preferred job(s), for events etc... An example is a player with minimal play time or only able to play on weekends would have a hard time completing ambuscade every month and most of their playtime would consist of this event if they wanted cap it out every month. The problem is compounded even more if they are unable to complete Very Difficult or lower difficulties in a timely manner. Personally, i think a increase is justified and would help a large portion of players obtain what they need without spending a large majority of their time spamming Ambuscade.

[Selindrile]

Another problem is, even though the rewards for intense ambuscade are much higher, still, almost nobody does it, the simple effort/reward ratio is still too low, most of the groups I'm in can complete normal ambuscade on VD in 3-5 minutes, intense ambuscade though, if we can even reliably do it on any of the non-easy difficulties, take way too long to be worthwhile.