Ark Angel Merit cost

i think 20 merits to get into this fight is a bit too much and only counts for 1 fight, if possible i would like to see it reduced to 15 so with maxed merits would allow a 2nd fight and not have to go out to farm another 10 merits each time when people want to go again which is pretty rediculous waiting 30mins to an hour while people go their own seperate way to solo for more exp per chain. 15 merits per single AA and stick with the 30 for Divine Might seems more than fair.

Could agree, but i'd rather see the maximum merits raised from 30 to 40-100 (lol)

20 merits is totally fine. Only being able to hold 30 is not though.

20 merits is fine now, but once the double XP campaign ends, people are going to complain.

double exp has nothing to do with Morta Voidwatch.

30 minutes gets you 20 merits, snap your fingers and you're done.

Funny i was talking about wishing se would drop the cost to 15 merits in my shell earlier >.>

Considering there's only 3 battlefields for all 5 AAs + DM... I like that I don't have to wait in line.

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Originally Posted by Karah

double exp has nothing to do with Morta Voidwatch.

30 minutes gets you 20 merits, snap your fingers and you're done.

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You just need like 15minutes to get 30 merits in WoH gates (2k exp per mob... die in 5sec).

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Originally Posted by MarkovChain

You just need like 15minutes to get 30 merits in WoH gates (2k exp per mob... die in 5sec).

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Is that normally, or under Double XP?

It was waaaaaaaaaaaay faster to do morta, since we did it with a full lolalli of people wanting to do AA's

And for some strange reason double exp wore off after chain 100 in Woh Gates.

The fact that the battlefields are consistently crowded or queued suggests the cost is just fine.

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Originally Posted by Renaissance2K

The fact that the battlefields are consistently crowded or queued suggests the cost is just fine.

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For now. Let's see how people feel after the campaign ends.

Aside from that, since there are only three instances, it doesn't take much for them to be overcrowded. It's possible for the existing battlefields to be tied up by as few as three people.

Yeah... my problem isn't how many so much as how many compared to how many you can store. Same problem with merit ws. With as fast as you can get merits now having such a low cap with things that cost so high it's like go get merits then use them go back losing whatever chain you had. In this day of being able to warp pretty much everywhere this seems like a deliberate and unnecessary time waster.

And speaking of time wasters and crowding why do 12 seperate fights share a mere 3 instances between them? Sure 5 of those will probably never be done and even original DM isn't done that frequently. But cmon really having 6 fights containing the only way to get RF+1 synth items and best way to get the REM pages and only way to get a bunch new items only have 3 instances is rediculous. Especially when the entrance to them aren't even in the same spot so you can't even tell if there are others waiting or try to establish some order etc. Should be at least 2 per fight

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Originally Posted by dasva

Yeah... my problem isn't how many so much as how many compared to how many you can store.

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If you could hold more merits, you could make Abyssea a lot more attractive since you could farm up more than one trigger at a time. Really, why not let us store 40? 50? 100?

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Originally Posted by dasva

Yeah... my problem isn't how many so much as how many compared to how many you can store. Same problem with merit ws. With as fast as you can get merits now having such a low cap with things that cost so high it's like go get merits then use them go back losing whatever chain you had. In this day of being able to warp pretty much everywhere this seems like a deliberate and unnecessary time waster.

And speaking of time wasters and crowding why do 12 seperate fights share a mere 3 instances between them? Sure 5 of those will probably never be done and even original DM isn't done that frequently. But cmon really having 6 fights containing the only way to get RF+1 synth items and best way to get the REM pages and only way to get a bunch new items only have 3 instances is rediculous. Especially when the entrance to them aren't even in the same spot so you can't even tell if there are others waiting or try to establish some order etc. Should be at least 2 per fight

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^this, either reduce the merit cost for the KI items or up the cap on how many merits you can hold, its really bogus to not be able to go do 2-3 rounds of AAs without the need of haveing to go out again and recap on merits. I would suggest an uper merit cap of 100 for now, considering there is more on the way of such hard mode battles taht require entrance KIs.

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Originally Posted by detlef

If you could hold more merits, you could make Abyssea a lot more attractive since you could farm up more than one trigger at a time. Really, why not let us store 40? 50? 100?

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Even just doubling it to 60 would make many people happy.

And I vaguely recall Matsui saying something about the cost of the AA2 pop being adjusted or something....
I think 20 merits is reasonable... this is almost delve level content... or is it actually delve content level... idr.
But I think it was in his little youtube streaming thing...
So if they are adjusting the merit cost... they might have just gone with 20 for the same reason why SKCs couldn't be converted for like the first month of RF1...
"we didn't want to overload the instanced servers"
...
Not that that really changes anything when everyone can just convert a month later... you just changed the "problem" to a month down the road and annoyed people a different way.

So they're gonna reduce the cost iirc... just no clue how far.
I would almost feel bad if they dropped it to 10 merit points in the next update....
But not really because the people who "wasted" their 20pt pops got what they wanted asap.
And with how easy it is to get 20 merit points nowadays.... and in multiple ways too... I don't find the 20 merit demand unreasonable.

Sacred Kindred Crests were initially hard to obtain to prevent congestion in each of the BC areas, but the following patch, they were an inexpensive Repeated Login Campaign reward, and they could be created from other seals.

I wouldn't be surprised if they reduced the cost of the key items following the next patch, or if they changed the battles so that only the leader loses their key item, similar to how orb battlefields work now. For now, while the double EXP is going on, however, the high cost makes sense.

this is working as intended.

its 20 merits because they want to manage how fast you progress thru this content.

they dont want the majority of the player base to be finished before the newer content is released.

when they have an major update happen again, there will be an adjustments made.
especally if this gear/content is relevant to the difficulty of the new content being released.

Well in future updates when/if they reduce the merit cost hopefully they will have added other higher tier battles (i think they said what some would be already) so it wont be everyone trying to do AA fights all the time, granted they will prolly have different equip drops but still chapters and hopefully the crafted materials for AF reforging.

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Originally Posted by Feary

this is working as intended.

its 20 merits because they want to manage how fast you progress thru this content.

they dont want the majority of the player base to be finished before the newer content is released.

when they have an major update happen again, there will be an adjustments made.
especally if this gear/content is relevant to the difficulty of the new content being released.

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I'm more inclined to think they are doing it this way to prevent people from congesting the BC itself, rather than slowing players down progression-wise. The reason I say this is because you can easily get enough merits for your next run in less than half an hour if you are fast about it, (probably more like an hour all things considered) which in turn will allow other people to enter the BC while you are getting more merits.

If we could hold 100 merits (which I'm actually hoping will happen eventually) people would just spam 5 runs in a row and bottleneck the fights. So this is a nice solution for congestion while interest slows down as people start getting their gear.

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Originally Posted by Raydeus

I'm more inclined to think they are doing it this way to prevent people from congesting the BC itself, rather than slowing players down progression-wise.

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i agree, they are one in the same. less ppl doing the content less strain on server. i.e a bottleneck.

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Originally Posted by Raydeus

The reason I say this is because you can easily get enough merits for your next run in less than half an hour if you are fast about it, (probably more like an hour all things considered) which in turn will allow other people to enter the BC while you are getting more merits.

If we could hold 100 merits (which I'm actually hoping will happen eventually) people would just spam 5 runs in a row and bottleneck the fights. So this is a nice solution for congestion while interest slows down as people start getting their gear.

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However i dont think is the answer. if they did anything it would be lower the entry cost because hold 100 merits changes alot most game content. which i dont even agree with. but i guess.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

15 merits per trigger would make more sense, so you can farm two pops at a time.

Re; congestion at the BC, I can confirm multiple instances of unscrupulous players doing Cut-Ins to the BC queue, most notable when our party was next to enter and we had waited over an hour for the previous parties to finish, a new party arrive, duo PLD and RDM, ran in and started doing the high-speed head-jerking at the BC-point which suggested they were using either extremely fast hand-speed / webconnection or some kind of popbot. In anycase they got in before us and they were on duo and took ages to clear it.

Hopefully when the AA craze dies down and new content arrives, the congestion and Ahole factor will disappear too.

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All 5 BCs share the same 3 instances, so a line for one AA doesn't really matter because someone will can enter at one of the other 4 anyway and lock you out.

We're sitting at the mithra waiting to enter now, been over an hour. :<

Imagine what It would be if they allowed 15 merit per bc. The Arkangel BCs should not be soloable to begin with, they should let soloers collect theirs rem chapters from record of eminence only. Leaving easy and very easy mode as is is fine, but they should put a minimum limit of 6 to enter the bc (and they should also prevent external buffs, but that's a different issue).

I laughed a little inside when someone from another forum claimed that gil was raining from the bc because they could farm boxes at will.

The merit cost is fine where it's at.

Greetings,

Below is a comment from Akihiko Matsui regarding the merit point cost for accessing high-tier mission battlefields.

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Originally Posted by Akihiko_Matsui

Matsui here.

In regards to the amount of merit points required for entering high-tier mission battlefields, we had originally planned to decrease the amount needed as new battlefields are added; however, considering that congestion is continuously occurring, we have decided to hold off on the cost reduction for now.

As a way to disperse players a bit more, in the January version update we will be adding artifact armor reforging materials to other battlefields, and once we see how this goes we will look into the proper timing to reduce the merit point cost.

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while I think this is the right call (the congestion really IS attrocious, especially considering the number of dirtbags who won't wait their turn when there are several parties waiting), considering the fact you can accumulate the necessary merits for reentry in .5-1 hour it isn't much of a way to alleviate the congestion. However, considering the old practice of gilsellers in Dynamis could be applied here of just using multiple accounts to keep up a constant spam I don't know what else you can do.

I think you're going to need to spread the love to more battlefields than just Stellar Fulcrum and The Celestial Nexus. I assume that's 3 more instances each. Yeah 9 is better than 3, but I wager it's still not going to be enough. Even with the populations as they are you can't funnel all your top-end players into a single "raid" (essentially what the new AA and DM fights amount to) in this day and age without the technology to support dynamic instancing.

You either need to start co-opting the cloisters and battlefields from other expansions even if it doesn't make sense, or you need to give us alternative content like more Delve. Ideally you'd do both and have the players spread out as far and wide as possible. If your servers and game engine can't be made smarter, then you're just going to have to work harder. Sorry, but that's just how it is.

Also, it would help immensely if battlefields were searchable from the search menu. I don't know why they were ever excluded. I'm sure you had some reason for it, but I have a feeling those reasons are no longer relevant if they ever were.

Skirmish is being updated in Feb, I hear Delve is as well but I have seen no word from SE saying so, so I leave that as questionable, either way it should help congestion, though to an extent it would be better if they were all implemented at once rather than spread out in this way if the goal is to help congestion issues.

Until you add other battlefields that make it easy to obtain pluton boxes/cases en masse, don't expect congestion to be relieved anytime soon

Well they did say that these new ones would be distributing those rewards the same way, so people who currently farm them via Ark Angels should likely find themselves doing the new fights in a similar way all the same.

Ha! I knew I wasn't crazy! (completely anyways...)
Matsui DID say that the cost would be reduced at some point.
Though he mentioned it so offhandedly that I was never sure it was a real thing to do or just an idle fancy.

And tbh, having them at 20 merits has done multiple worthwhile things.
For a while there, at least on Odin, aby-xp pts were basically dead. They'd only happen once in a blue moon.
Which if you already have 99s, you don't really care.... which is selfish BS if you ask me.
But for those newbies who aren't 99 and for those new people just starting FFXI... the return of the XP parties is great.

So... I kinda don't want them to lower the cost now that I've seen what having them be 20 and 30 has wrought.
On the other hand, due to the nature of "you need 8pgs for 1 RF1+1"... even halving the cost should still maintain the xp parties.... because you need more than one KI. (and chances are ppl have more than one RF they want to +1)
So, half away I guess.
I dunno.
I just don't want to shaft the new people who still need stuff. (merits, 75>>>99, AA KIs lol, etc)

And on the OTHER hand... (I'm Shiva. I have more than one other hand)
Increasing the cap for stored merits from 30 to.... w/e... 60? Could also "solve the problem".
At least I think so.
Cause if you can hold 60 merits... the pops costing 20 and 30 would be the same as if you could hold 30 merits and the pops costing 10 and 15.

Halving the merit cost will trigger a disaster, and they will do it. People will still solo the laloff bcnm because it's a lot easier to farm 10 merits than get 20 sacred kindred crests (exp campaign is over and even during exp campaign exp is by definition faster). I don't remember seing conggestion at SKC even though only one person only was required 20 skc. So what will happen is that instead of having 6 parties and 6 soloer competing for three slots you will see double of that.

I think should required 15 merits for each member as well as something else for the party leader to limit abuse (gil ? skc ? time limit ? minimal number of players ?)

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Originally Posted by MarkovChain

I think should required 15 merits for each member as well as something else for the party leader to limit abuse (gil ? skc ? time limit ? minimal number of players ?)

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Totally agree, however unfortunately;

As we all know, gil is of zero consequence as a limiting factor, as the materials are (-/+) 100% on normal and sell to morons for north of 5m... (disgusting btw but i digress).
SKC could possibly work... but they aren't all that much harder to obtain, with log-ins.
They do have a time limit.... (you want to shorten it to like 5 minutes??) or you mean, once per day/jpmidnight etc?
And we've (most) have been arguing against arbitrary minimum party requirements for years... no backward steps, please.

So, viable options are very limited, but indeed needed.

It took over an hour of spamming for my group to enter One BC the night before last. We had FOUR instances where we got into the menu and our screens blackened, only to be kicked out.

Ridiculous.

I think they should release another tier of difficulties for normal SKC and let them drop boxes so that only people actually farming seals do laloff.

I wonder if it would be possible to have the dev team look at some of the old content ,that not many people are doing now, and transfer some of those resources to open up more availability for newer content. Don't know if it would take slot of time to move those server resources, maybe that's why they haven't done it?

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Originally Posted by MarkovChain

I think they should release another tier of difficulties for normal SKC and let them drop boxes so that only people actually farming seals do laloff.

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Seeing as it is so insanely easy to get 20 Merits vs 20 SKCs, that would change nothing. Only real solution that is not detrimental to us and only beneficial is to simply make more instances so that its a cap of 3 each rather than 3 overall between all 6 fights, which is how it should have been.

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Originally Posted by Demonjustin

Seeing as it is so insanely easy to get 20 Merits vs 20 SKCs, that would change nothing. Only real solution that is not detrimental to us and only beneficial is to simply make more instances so that its a cap of 3 each rather than 3 overall between all 6 fights, which is how it should have been.

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I agree on this one. Bottlenecking isnt gonna "solve" the problem, it will just frustrate people that WANT to play the game. They should have just really added 3 instances per AA fight instead of 3 instances only for all 6 (DM included).

Dear SE.

Making AF upgrade materials and equipements drop more with Treasure Hunter (apparently?) can only increase congestion in Laloff amphitheater.

The initial impression on the new battlefields is that the equipement is mediocre (compared to AA equipement), and also the type of seal you get is random,
so people will still do their AA fights for the seals they actually need.

20 SKC is insane to farm outside of double exp/multiple seal/etc campaign (and even then EXP is insanely easy to get during double exp campaign so yeah...), so the only real way to get them is login campaign/ exchange NPC. Personnaly I used all my SKC on novembre update to get AF109 upgrades, i used all my login points to get SKC, and got only ~100 SKC, thats 5 SKC20 BCNM fights. Initiall repoprts claim the BCNMs have less than 20% drop rate on AF upgrade mats.

I garrantee you that the congestion in Laloff will be even worse.

A good solution would be to make a minimum number of PT member requirement to enter.

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Originally Posted by Monchat

A good solution would be to make a minimum number of PT member requirement to enter.

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I will say again, this, is a bad solution, its a solution that only serves to create another issue down the road when/if this becomes less popular and people still want to participate in it, I much rather a solution that is good in all ways and bad in none such as increasing the instance amount or giving them separate instance caps.