Dec. 10 Update Alliance Experience Adjustment

I already don't like this and feel like it could be implemented in a better way than it sounds like it is being.

The stated goal is to cut down on mercenary alliance activity to make things easier for small parties and soloers, but that's, like, the one thing that reducing alliance exp won't help. They'll either just go for longer, or break into parties and clutter up the zones just as much.

The ideal solution would be to introduce some kind of instanced experience/capacity/exemplar points camp, but failing that...

What would really help is encouraging people to band together and form pickup groups. This is a little difficult when Trust is for groups of five or less only, restricting access to a healer, but here's my take on how it might be doable.

1: Drop the alliance exp penalty entirely. In zones where players are intended to be working on master levels, maybe even give a slight bonus for being over 6 party members. This incentivizes forming larger groups, allowing the soloers and small parties to more easily join others, making monster scarcity less of an issue.

2: Widen experience point range. Let your groups spread out across a third of a zone or so and there will be less competition over the densest spawn areas; the party or alliance can just have three members in one camp, three members in another, and they don't have as much need to be able to grab a monster a minute.

3: Idle party member capacity/exemplar penalty. For every member of the party or alliance who has not actively generated any enmity on a monster, reduce the capacity and exemplar points (experience might be better not to change) that monster provides the group by five to seven percent. If you want a fast, efficient experience grind, you work for it. Mercenaries are going to be very quickly cut out of the picture if they can't offer "give me some gil and go watch a movie, you'll have master levels when you come back."

Thoughts from anyone else? What's the loose thread I missed here that'll unravel the whole thing?

The easiest thing they can do to stop merc exp parties and alliance or such, would be to implement what they use in Campaign battles: The less work you do to help kill the targets in a campaign battle gives you less reward points, experience points, and rewards from coffers, etc.... basically the less you do the less you get.
Implement this ability in ANY party set-up and it would kill exp merc parties that charge for it. Because they players would not be able to sit around afk doing nothing.
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Just a thought....

You are correct that this is the exact opposite of what they should do. They also couldn't care less, it's happening. They already decided and no amount of input is going to change it (for years, anyway)

I have a crazy idea......... How about, ban the damn bots. ban the shout bots that sell the exp faster than once a month. Crazy right? Actually enforce the rules, maybe?

This is good, <7 no impact >7 big loss of XP.

This only applies to certain monsters, it won't be in events.

If they are trying to make things easier for solo or small parties wouldn’t it be easier to simply create/convert like 20-30 new zones with apex camps like all over the world for example take [S] zones no one ever goes to the past aside from some very random campaign battles, why not make every zone into new apex zones or atleast increase the amount of apex around so if you have like 100 mobs don’t make 10 apex only …… per zone or the Aht Urhgan areas that a lot of people probably miss from the old days like make so many camps people have a tons of options other than dho/woh gates etc it should feel optional if you wanna go there not be like well those are the only zones we can go cause sih is too low level or inner raz is too high for new players etc I am sure no amount of rmt power can fill 20-30 new zones the way they have taken over dho so there is bound to be more than enough zones/mobs for everyone to go kick some mob butts :D I mean who knows maybe a new rmt wave will pop and like a wave take over haha but doubt it right now the zones just feel limited due to level of mobs or lack of mobs specially for people who kill really fast who have max aug oddly gear and r15, just a thought.

The trust system is the most fascinating thing players wouldn't want to let it go.

https://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/t...l=1#post617702

I'm not sure i see a path forward here that discourages botting without harming normal players. Basically tying EXP to effort is a good idea the difficulty is not all jobs contribute in a way that can be equally measured.

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The easiest thing they can do to stop merc exp parties and alliance or such, would be to implement what they use in Campaign battles: The less work you do to help kill the targets in a campaign battle gives you less reward points, experience points, and rewards from coffers, etc.... basically the less you do the less you get.
Implement this ability in ANY party set-up and it would kill exp merc parties that charge for it. Because they players would not be able to sit around afk doing nothing.

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I'm not sure i see a path forward here that discourages botting without harming normal players. Basically tying EXP to effort is a good idea the difficulty is not all jobs contribute in a way that can be equally measured.

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Right, you can kind of see this in Reives, I think; summoner can contribute a lot, but they don't get credit for their pet's actions, so they get rewarded with a big ol' pile of nothing, or at least that's how it worked at one point. Geomancer? Contributing more than most of the rest of the party by dropping two bubbles and making them stick. Unless your bard is pulling, they barely do anything for 95% of the time you're out there but those songs are doing a lot of heavy lifting.

This is why rather than any kind of ranked effort setup, I think it should just be a simple "has enmity/does not have enmity" switch. Tossed a cure at the tank? Fine, you get your full share of the exp. It's not asking a lot of active participants even if they're not able to contribute fully, but it's far more effort than anyone paying for their exp would be willing to put in (though they may just resort to botting to do it, but that's its own problem.)

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If they are trying to make things easier for solo or small parties wouldn’t it be easier to simply create/convert like 20-30 new zones with apex camps like all over the world for example take [S] zones no one ever goes to the past aside from some very random campaign battles, why not make every zone into new apex zones or atleast increase the amount of apex around so if you have like 100 mobs don’t make 10 apex only …… per zone or the Aht Urhgan areas that a lot of people probably miss from the old days like make so many camps people have a tons of options other than dho/woh gates etc it should feel optional if you wanna go there not be like well those are the only zones we can go cause sih is too low level or inner raz is too high for new players etc I am sure no amount of rmt power can fill 20-30 new zones the way they have taken over dho so there is bound to be more than enough zones/mobs for everyone to go kick some mob butts I mean who knows maybe a new rmt wave will pop and like a wave take over haha but doubt it right now the zones just feel limited due to level of mobs or lack of mobs specially for people who kill really fast who have max aug oddly gear and r15, just a thought.

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Just adding more apex camps is a tricky idea. The way they did it in Alzadaal was beautiful, take spaces that never had anything in them and just load 'em up full of new apex mobs. If you're not looking for them, you'll never know they're there. Perfect.

Then on the other hand, you get the level... 85, I want to say? Somewhere in the 76-99 range for sure anyway. Those guys, in Promyvion; you take one wrong turn and suddenly oh boy are you in the wrong neighborhood. That's the risk with updating older areas, if you don't do it carefully you're going to make old quests and missions much harder than they were ever intended to be, and with apex mobs especially that can push them from "easy solo stroll" to "maybe you should take a party just in case."

Of course, they couldn't just sprinkle around too many more apex camps now anyway, if they did where would they put the master level 50 super apex camps later?

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The trust system is the most fascinating thing players wouldn't want to let it go.

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Yeah, I can't even argue that. I have a white mage that I never use in content just because hey, why not use a trust healer instead. And of course nobody wants to actually play a healer when people can just have a trust for most content, so even in bigger groups you can't really count on there being one. I think the Trust system just needs an overhaul in general. Allow them in alliances at an exp penalty? Restrict them to content where people aren't supposed to be learning how to play jobs? Those could be their own post, and probably are somewhere around here.

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This is good, <7 no impact >7 big loss of XP.

This only applies to certain monsters, it won't be in events.

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... no. This is bad. It's a fix intended to disrupt mercenary alliances, which it might, but it's going to do nothing about mercenaries. You'll just see four times as many bots pulling mobs to support the same number of customers, if they don't just disregard the penalty and go longer instead. It's the solution you get from someone who is only half listening to your concern, catches one word, and says "ah, yes yes, alliances, harumph. We'll see those are dealt with right away, quite right."

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Originally Posted by Alhanelem

I'm not sure i see a path forward here that discourages botting without harming normal players. Basically tying EXP to effort is a good idea the difficulty is not all jobs contribute in a way that can be equally measured.

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I have seen several bots solo w/ trusts for years in escha zones. One way to combat bots could be to make trusts gimp exp/cp/ep same as other players will.
Or to adjust the pentalty for additional players such that there is no penalty in a party of up to 6 regardless of if it's with trusts or other players.

SE: please do not do the alliance xp nerf in Incursion & delve. My friends and I like to spam delve during campaign for merits then burn merits on HTMB, then back to delve.

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... no. This is bad. It's a fix intended to disrupt mercenary alliances, which it might, but it's going to do nothing about mercenaries. You'll just see four times as many bots pulling mobs to support the same number of customers, if they don't just disregard the penalty and go longer instead. It's the solution you get from someone who is only half listening to your concern, catches one word, and says "ah, yes yes, alliances, harumph. We'll see those are dealt with right away, quite right."

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No, because it will become non-profitable to run that many bots.

RMT only want to make money, if this is no longer profitable they will find other ways to make it.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

No, because it will become non-profitable to run that many bots.

RMT only want to make money, if this is no longer profitable they will find other ways to make it.

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Yeah, no kiddo, this is far from the mark. To make a bot not profitable is essentially impossible, short of banning the account on day one. No 3 day, no "investigation", instant action.

Was there more to that post or were you just saying "nuhuh!"

RMT pay subs for the bots, if they are not making enough gil to warrant that payment they will do something else.

The only time the answer is just more bots is on f2p games.

Quote grrr didn’t add that the way I wanted it but anyway haha

Just adding more apex camps is a tricky idea. The way they did it in Alzadaal was beautiful, take spaces that never had anything in them and just load 'em up full of new apex mobs. If you're not looking for them, you'll never know they're there. Perfect.

Then on the other hand, you get the level... 85, I want to say? Somewhere in the 76-99 range for sure anyway. Those guys, in Promyvion; you take one wrong turn and suddenly oh boy are you in the wrong neighborhood. That's the risk with updating older areas, if you don't do it carefully you're going to make old quests and missions much harder than they were ever intended to be, and with apex mobs especially that can push them from "easy solo stroll" to "maybe you should take a party just in case."

Of course, they couldn't just sprinkle around too many more apex camps now anyway, if they did where would they put the master level 50 super apex camps later?

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Well think about, isn’t that what they did the first time around? People can easily adjust to where to and where not to go, it might take them a death or two but like I mention before very few players go to the past, not many quests either, to solve that problem it would be quite easy they could just add mobs with the no aggro/link mechanic they already have in some areas like dho gates apex pupils which do no aggro so the mobs are there but you can safely walk past complete whatever and done without affecting quests but if your looking for apex you can find plenty of camps, but if boring you could add a mechanics where apex only aggro job master players in those peony zones so regular lower level players need not fear, add more mobs to those areas too like Meriphataud Mountains area are huge mostly empty zones with so much potential make most of [S] and ignore present day if you want a mix of apex levels and make Aht Urhgan zones mega apex for job masters, it would bring much life to the [S] zones and if you also think about it unless your in a real hurry I’ve gotten 5 rank levels just farming job points on regular apex too so eventually you can reach max by just doing any apex so it’s not like a job master camp is the only to way to get them. Obvi slower rate but with so many zones I really doubt they had any issues catering to both.

I really dont see how this affects the avg player?? When was the last time you EVER exp'd with more than 6 players? Abyssea exp parties? We are way past that now.

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Originally Posted by Immortal

I really dont see how this affects the avg player?? When was the last time you EVER exp'd with more than 6 players? Abyssea exp parties? We are way past that now.

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I had a feeling... Third party developers put us under control. lol

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Originally Posted by Immortal

I really dont see how this affects the avg player?? When was the last time you EVER exp'd with more than 6 players? Abyssea exp parties? We are way past that now.

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A lot of regular players sell XP, they are mad.

Here is the problem with people who make money from this game, they lack common sense (and I'm not talking about the chiinese groups, I'm talking about the NA/EU players that run bots).

They will always take anything to 10, which sets up a position where the developers have to deal with it and then nerf it.

If these people (and it's often one person running 3-4 bot groups on multiple computers) had just left some space for legit players at the start of zones, the developers would of left you alone. You traded a short term increase in profits for the total destruction of your business long term.

Most players and the developers were fine with XP sellers, however you took every camp and so instigated mass reports and that lead to this.

You have to ask yourself; why would they.

Get money, nothing else matters. That's the only truth in life. (the way it is right now) It's the prisoner's dilema. it would be better to not, except if you don't someone else will, and you lost out. So obviously it's the best TO maximize exploitation while it's available, not the other way around.

I just want it to not affect the mobs in Delve, Incursion, Omen, vagary, & Dynamis Divergence. Because this is all content for alliances, and doing it nets merit points so I don't have to go out of my way to farm merits for HTMBs.

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Originally Posted by Immortal

I really dont see how this affects the avg player?? When was the last time you EVER exp'd with more than 6 players? Abyssea exp parties? We are way past that now.

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Well why would anyone exp with more than six players? There's an exp penalty for that! I've heard rumors that job point alliances used to be a thing when gear was lighter and it was harder to chew through apex mobs low-man.

It would be kind of nice to shift back to a meta that runs more on getting a huge swarm of players together to just chew through monsters at top speed, rather than running an exp party on the work of one to three characters. Make FFXI feel more like the big team-based game it keeps trying to be. If solo is just going to be the default way to do everything, it's time to shift to a single-player version and mothball the servers.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

Was there more to that post or were you just saying "nuhuh!"

RMT pay subs for the bots, if they are not making enough gil to warrant that payment they will do something else.

The only time the answer is just more bots is on f2p games.

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... Galka armies in South Gustaberg. RMT seem to have no problem with lining up a whole bunch of accounts to do their farming. Granted, it takes more resources to get a grind capable character up and running, but once they pass that hurdle, they only have to start over if they get busted specifically for botting. Not sure how hard it is to prove that one, but I hear a lot more grumbling about people reporting bots and nothing happening than cheering about a reported bot getting banned.

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Originally Posted by Pixela

No, because it will become non-profitable to run that many bots.

RMT only want to make money, if this is no longer profitable they will find other ways to make it.

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Well there are others games out there i'm sure they could ruin.