Vagary Woes - Increasingly More Difficult To Run. Lack Of Incentive.

Wow, after many months of nothing but Codex, today we finally saw a double Platemail drop during the campaign! A fellow DRK friend of mine got one. And the other? My dad, Quilly. He's been doing Vagary with my LS for over a year, so to finally get him it is huge for us. We had to be persistent to get it, and I've done extra Vagary events the past two weeks. I'm really tired of leading the event, but it was worth it to see his reaction, and Vellens.

The linkshell has been running for over a year, and so far we've had 7 platemails drop to the following players: Overlordandy & Calabria, Rituck, Rusch, Nekdal, Vellen and Quilly.

It has never dropped from Plouton. It has never dropped outside a Vagary Campaign. All 7 platemails dropped during a Vagary Campaign. Tidis and I continue to wait patiently. Hopefully it doesn't take another year for one of us to get.

https://scontent-lhr3-1.xx.fbcdn.net...54858040_o.jpg

Grats on the drops! Sorry you're still waiting for yours.

just my thrupence half penny, it would, kind of made more sense to introduce ambuscade as a more difficult event and weaken vagary, but it all depends on resources and how many new events they intend to introduce in the future

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Originally Posted by Stuzey

...as a more difficult event and weaken vagary, but it all depends on resources and how many new events they intend to introduce in the future

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Well I was gifted when a very awesome player from Fenrir server took pity on my character and invited me to be "carried" through all 5 NMs wins... I was amazed at how "3" star master nukers perform--cause there were only 9 of us total... and we breezed through vagary... I say breezed... don't take it lightly. Vagary is vicious and unrelenting content. It took 8 mastered jobs, all nukers and plds, to breeze through this content. I would dare say that 5 of them had REM.

This allowed me to upgrade my empy gears on SMN and PUP to max... however it also showed me, how gated this content really is. Without their help, I would not have my maxed out empy gear. So I feel your concerns about this--this is content that casuals will NEVER enjoy, unless they are carried through, by a group who had run this to the point they could do it with their eyes closed, nukes going as high as 85k... 65k.... 55k repeatedly... I was floored.

I can't imagine all things being equal, any other "type of job" non-nuker would be capable...

See? Vagary is easy !

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Originally Posted by Zeldar

See? Vagary is easy !

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Uh, no that wasn't the point of his post - his post basically said "thank god this super geared team carried me" - which is not something most players have access to and it is a really crummy way to gate basic content that should be open to anyone. Reforged Empy +1 is macro gear for the most part and gating it this way is just ultra frustrating for NQ players who would otherwise have a fun goal to work on to gear their characters a bit better.

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Vagary is vicious and unrelenting content. It took 8 mastered jobs, all nukers and plds, to breeze through this content. I would dare say that 5 of them had REM.

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What part of that says "easy?"

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Originally Posted by Olor

Uh, no that wasn't the point of his post - his post basically said "thank god this super geared team carried me" - which is not something most players have access to and it is a really crummy way to gate basic content that should be open to anyone.

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Fairly sure he was being (Sarcastic +1) :3

Aye, sarcasm, you can have this......

Wow, der... sorry about missing the point there.

:)

New crafts require vagary mats.
I guess there's incentive for people to run vagary now.

Well... for the statics that continue to run vagary to keep running vagary. 8D

Here's another funny part...
Since the new crafts require vagary mats, upgrading to 119 Empyrean Armor just got more expensive.

:/

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Originally Posted by Mithlas

Here's another funny part...
Since the new crafts require vagary mats, upgrading to 119 Empyrean Armor just got more expensive.

:/

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On the plus side Empy +1 is so not worth the hassle and expense that it makes it much easier to forget about it.

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Originally Posted by Raydeus

On the plus side Empy +1 is so not worth the hassle and expense that it makes it much easier to forget about it.

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It really depends on your job.
It's extremely valuable for BST for the hands. The head is also extremely valuable for SMN now that avatar's favor affects BP recast... so that's not necessarily a true statement. :}

I'm fairly sure there are a couple of +1 pieces on each set that would be really nice to have, like RDM feet due to increased Enhancing duration +5% and +5 skill, and Legs due to Refresh potency +1. But looking at the stats:

Def +26
HP +15
STR +3
DEX +12
VIT +12
Att +10
Eva +13
M.Eva +11
Haste +1%
M.Def +1
Sic TP bonus +50
Ready TP bonus +50

This is the difference between 109 and 119 BST hands. Now I don't play BST, but it doesn't seem very valuable to me, same as with the RDM pieces. Or at least nothing that would be worth the hassle if I'm not in a group that does Vagary regularly already or have a good way to unlock the KIs. And if you add increased costs into the mix I just couldn't be bothered to look at them again. But that's just me. ( •̀ᄇ• ́)ﻭ✧

The important thing here is that the community asked for a fix to make vagary more appealing, and SE answered. Vagary is now a must for some crafters, and even more appealing to people there to make gil. On sylph, the vagary drop prices are sky high now. I could buy Mache earring mats for 100k total last week. I would need to spend over a million today. And the stinky ring....forget about it...

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Originally Posted by Zeldar

The important thing here is that the community asked for a fix to make vagary more appealing, and SE answered. Vagary is now a must for some crafters, and even more appealing to people there to make gil. On sylph, the vagary drop prices are sky high now. I could buy Mache earring mats for 100k total last week. I would need to spend over a million today. And the stinky ring....forget about it...

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They went about it the wrong way in my opinion in that case. Vagary boss drops that had a use were all expensive already, there was no reason to add additional load on a already limited supply.

The idea that the new recipes will get more ppl inside so the supply will increase is flawed too.. They are boss drops from group content + everyone now has a significant profit at stake regardless of which bosses go down + bosses are not loot pinatas dropping 2+ of each item per kill = More people fighting over each and every drop now + PUGs will be far more inclined to turn away players who need the clears to unlock Empy upgrades.

Any increase in supply caused by more people running it will be heavily outweighed by the much increased demand as synth materials. I find it very irritating that SE used Vagary boss drops for all of the new recipes, in some cases even multiples per synth. It's going to be a lot harder to make the choice to upgrade Empy armor now given the rarity, gil cost and opportunity cost.

Things are NEVER good enough for certain types in this community. I can't imagine how aggravating that gets. The fix is inventive enough for me. I applaud you dev team. And I disagree with the last post. The fix forces you to earn your upgrade. Earn you say?????? Noooo, we want everything easy !!!! Sissies.

Seems like the only wanted fix for the small percentage of this community that actually posts on this forum is " just give it to me free already, or at least make it super easy for me and my trusts to get"

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Originally Posted by Zeldar

Things are NEVER good enough for certain types in this community. I can't imagine how aggravating that gets. The fix is inventive enough for me. I applaud you dev team. And I disagree with the last post. The fix forces you to earn your upgrade. Earn you say?????? Noooo, we want everything easy !!!! Sissies.

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I said nothing about "free" or "easy". The new recipes do nothing but raise the difficulty of upgrading gear due to the increased competition/demand for the mats and have heftily raised prices on my server which may put them out of reach of newish players. It was already quite difficult just to get clears checked off for most players. The upgrade mats are the same as they've always been. New recipes lower the chances of timing out trying to pop Rancibus by somewhere between "zero" and "zilch". It will be just as hard now as it was before to actually get the clear. The difference now is that the odds are good that a lot more people are going to be lotting against for the drops, which means the odds of getting one you need for an upgrade went down.

I would be pleasantly surprised if most of the groups who start doing this (who were not already going regularly) actually don't reject people because they still need their clears. "The stakes are higher so why should we take the risk of the new guy dying and ruining our boss pops?" :/ You can't say it's unlikely to happen since most players look at the risk/reward before spending a lot of time on something. There aren't exactly a ton of altruistic people running around you know? Have a feeling most of them run Vagary/event shells to begin with though :3 Thumbs up to the OP for sticking it out in the spirit of goodwill.

In no way should new recipes be considered to be a "fix" to any of the problems I've heard people complaining about regarding Vagary (or any other event) which were pretty eloquently explained in the OP. Perhaps I should have been clearer in the point that my dissatisfaction with the recipes is that SE is overloading the uses for certain Vagary boss drops when there are surely other mats they could have chosen that have fewer uses to begin with and wouldn't interfere with reforging. Using drops like Plovid Flesh or Defiant Scarf was a good idea since they had no other relevant uses. Using drops like Dark Matter and Defiant Sweat was not.

The point to putting these items in the recipes was to increase INTEREST in an already dead event. I am on one of the lowest population servers and have already seen a HUGE increase in the number of Vagary pick-up group shouts every single day. You are on the most populated server in the game , so I can only imagine that the number of pick-ups are greater. In the original post, the main gripe wasn't difficulty. It wasn't drop rate for anything except Tatarus Platemail. It was about the lack of interest in the event itself. I would say that they amount of interest in vagary has greatly increased, wouldn't you? Sooooo....problem solved...interest in the event is back. This should make it easier for everyone to get the clears they so desperately need. So yes, I am failing to see any logic at all in people griping. Rancibus is difficult to pop, yes. What exactly is the issue with difficult? There are so many other events in this game that are far beyond the difficulty of Vagary.

The complaint was that there ARE issues with the event itself that demotivates experienced people from running the event. A single random death locking out TWO bosses (and even depopping them instantaneously if one is up) and the pain of losing to the clock rather than the boss itself(Rancibus) due only to unlucky pillars are both good examples of problems with the event itself that would be wonderful if they were adjusted. I wholeheartedly support the idea of reducing the number of pillars with each successive wave since that would address one of the most frustrating aspects of Vagary. "Difficult" does not mean the same thing as "frustrating". A full alliance of experienced and appropriately geared players should not regularly fail an event due to spawn mechanics only. When I was actively doing Vagary, we got a "bad run" there 1/4-1/3 of our runs. Downing the boss was not our issue, we just had problems finding the stupid thing. -_-;;

The drop rate on T.Mail is amazingly/painfully lousy and could probably stand to be raised a bit, to at least 3-5% maybe? Enough so that groups that run twice a week for 6mon straight don't become convinced that the thing simply doesn't exist. :-/ The OP suggested some ideas using alternate routes to encourage grinding repeatedly so that people would not feel like that it was pointless to continue doing it once they had their clears and whatever non-T.Plate drops they were hoping for, which would directly increase benefit to everyone who runs it. I like this idea. ^^

The new crafted gear is not a "fix" to any of the actual issues about Vagary and should not be treated as such. It is a good thing that traffic has increased. I am not arguing against that. As I said earlier, I object to the overloading of uses that they are doing with some of the boss drops..

I've been thinking about it though, and I can't think of too many other high-level content drops that would be appropriate for highest-end crafting tbh. There really isn't much that could be used out of Escha (other than ore, which is already used for all the cursed gear, so please no ._.) so Vagary would be the highest mats around, generally speaking. >_<;; Unless they are willing to start using the likes of Ashweed and Eschalixir for crafting that is.

The thing about the vagary mats is that they will eventually balance out. Defiant Sweat has already seen a drastic decrease in price since about a week after the update. So many people are doing Vagary that the auction house is flooded with these mats. If you look at the accessories themselves, most are well worth the couple of mil you will spend getting them. Sadly to say, the +1 will be crazy: the ones for goldsmithing are level 115 recipes so not too much getting high qualitied there. As for the earlier post about groups excluding people new to the event, don't be so sure. If you need the clear, offer to come along as whichever of your jobs they find most helpful, make it clear that you will follow all directions, and toss them a bone by saying you just want the clear so you won't even lot the mats. I personally wouldn't make you pass anything, but it may give more selfish leaders a reason to invite you. There is not perfect solution. They offered one that has greatly increased interest in the event, therefore greatly increasing peoples chances of getting clears. The two main gripes about the event have been addressed.