Adventuring fellow changes ~

[Eadieni]

I'm sure this was discussed somewhere but I didn't find what I was looking for via Search so I'll outline what I'd like.

Some players can't play during prime time, if you work during NA primetime and get home at 6AM there is virtually no one to play with (Lets say CST, GMT-6). There are a few JP parties, a few European, but for the most part it's empty. There isn't much Abyssea going on, or pickup groups, help for artifact armor, quests, bcnms, whatever. It's just not there. There is life, there are people playing, but it could be improved.

What I'd like to suggest is:
Allow Adventuring Fellow in Abyssea - and let them benefit from Time Extensions to potentially stay endlessly. Still following the party rules, maybe benefitting from Atma (Or making new Atma/Abyssite just for them).
They'll never be a true replacement for a real player, they can't spam stun, they can't Raise III you, they can't try to proc elements, they aren't a substitute for players but they can go a long way.

Removing the 20 hour time limit and replacing it with 1 hour, while allowing Time Extensions in the regular Vana`diel to come from the chests that drop everywhere. Like, you open a chest and it has a chance to grant extra time to your fellow, or hell remove the time limit all together.

Additionally, I'd like to suggest allowing your NPC anywhere, and zone with you if possible. This includes BCNMs and Instances - For the purpose of not having to wait for other players and spend countless hours in town waiting for your friends to log in, or a pickup group to happen.

Lastly, add a Second fellow - this allows a Single Player to have a Party of 3. Or two players to have a party of 6. Again, they aren't as good as real players, but they can let you get things accomplished in those hours you just can't find other people. Even grind EXP on lower level jobs.

This would allow you to balance your team out - Having a Tank, a Healer, and a DD, whenever you need one. With this setup, FFXI is always ready for you at any time of day.



At this point in FFXI theres no reason to have your NPC wear off so quickly and have to wait 20 hours for a new one. Perhaps in 2007 it made sense but with Abyssea, and level 90, let players have more control.

[Jalonis]

I'm okay with this.

[thefinalrune]

While I'd like the ability to take my fellow anywhere, even into town, I don't see any need to reduce the recast timer on the signal pearl when they've already given us the tactics pearl which has a measly 10 minute recast timer.

[Eadieni]

Because a tactics pearl has limited charges and isn't easily recharged, like a chocobo whistle.

[thefinalrune]

If your ability to find parties or groups is so bad you need your fellow more than 12 times a week you should consider a server change or petitioning for different work hours. Again, I'm all for some fellow updates, I love my fellow and how useful they can be, but I can't say I'd ever been unable to progress in game because of the recast timer on the signal pearl. Also, have you read the updates coming for fellows? They're going to stay out significantly longer and for lots more kills.

As much as the game has fallen into the grind of forced soloing lately I personally hate the idea of further increasing the ease of players to not group. The community aspect of the game has already taken a severe hit over the years and I could only see making soloing easier as a bad thing in the long run.

You've got some nice ideas. I would love to see a new fellow, especially if they fully incorporated it in with a new story line. I just can't see the need for a shorter recast on the pearl.

[Eadieni]

Well working as a night stocker pays really good money, but you get off work at 6am. It's not the inability to progress its the inconsistency of it. If you log into FFXI on a Wednesday at 6am, there ain't anything going on anywhere.

[Mirage]

After the may update, each fellow charge will give you like 180 minutes of fellow time. Along with the tactics pearl, I think this should be more than enough. You can basically use your fellow for 21 + 15 hours a week with this, or 1200 enemy kills, whichever comes first.

A nice change however, would be if the NPC would wait for you outside of areas they can't enter if you zoned in to them. Like if you were in buburimu and zoned in to mhaura to buy a new sword for the lv16 job you're leveling, the NPC would wait for you at the entrance in buburimu when you got back. Maybe to avoid exploits, let the NPCs active time still decrease while you're in town.

[Eadieni]

Having the NPC wait for you would be good, as would opening up the areas you can bring them in, as I mentioned earlier. I still want a 2nd one to use at the same time though >.> It worked great in Sword of the New World.

[Mirage]

Never really thought getting another would be too useful, not as useful as it would be to change their tactics during battle.

The tactics changes could just be a command you gave too, wouldn't require new menu options. Usually when you have the computer (in this case, the server) control one of your party members, you are given options to change their tactics on the fly, it would be great to have at least a few predefined AI patterns for each role that you could change like that.

[Rambus]

it has been talked about in the npc changes threads though i forget the number on it

they only listed adding npcs to past northland zones and such and i kept pressing in it that they need to acess abyssea zones.