[dev1015] Still no Abyssea VNM adjustments still a major point of congestion

[Alhanelem]

Unnecessary rude behavior reported.

[Juilan]

Sorry for the late response on this topic! I know there have been quite a few threads about this, but we got a chance to speak to the development team and they provided some feedback.

Currently the development team is looking into making adjustments to the rate in which the demilune abyssite changes color (no plans to make these adjustments to VNMs outside of Abyssea). However, they currently have no plans of increasing the number of VNM spawns. Since the degree of difficulty between Empyrean Weapon related monsters and VNMs is so different, even if we simply increase the amount of VNM spawns like we increased the amount of “???,” the results of the adjustments will not be the same. To be a bit more concrete, for Empyrean +2 items and Empyrean weapons you need to spend time gathering multiple trigger or key items and likewise for VNMs you need to spend time changing the abyssite.

does your time equation include waiting for a bunch of people spamming pops in a JP alliance to get the empyrean weapon triggers for the boss? i think if they're 3 spawns for one thing, every pop under it should have three pops....

[blowfin]

The last major update broke all of the ways to cheat for VNM (probably permanently) so cheating isn't an issue and while I cant remember dealing with 4 parties 3 parties isn't so bad. Unless it's a t3 it's really not that tough and t3 is only hard due to the respawn time.
PS this entire make more spawns in heroes zone tack people are going on is stupid. It would be easier/better to just make the other abyssea zone vnm drop souls. I'd honestly expected them to do that during the last major patch.

It's not just souls people want from the VNM's though. Ketea is still the best way to get Voyage Cards, as an example. I've put this off for a few weeks now (at least) because I have better things to do than compete with several different groups for a mob that I've already put a lot of work into. In short: I'm ignoring the content at the moment because it sucks royally and is a major time sink for little to no reward.

Increasing the upgrade rate isn't going to make a huge difference, really it's just going to delay the bottlenecking further. More T3 spawns or letting us pop the T3 unconditionally (i.e. from a ???) seem like the best solutions IMHO.

It does seem to me that someone considers the VNM system quite sacred at the SE offices. They've never addressed the multitude of issues that made the outside system terrible (and encouraged cheating) and appear to be taking the same sort of stance with Abyssea VNM.

Camate: this part of the game really does stick out as a very bad bottleneck at the moment. I'm sorry for being harsh, but It's terrible game design, and not very fun to play. Empryean weapons and +2 items became much easier to get with the recent updates. Why won't they give VNM the same treatment for the +2 items and Empyrean shield/harp that they are involved with? The battles might be easier (all Abyssea is very easy really) but as it stands the problem is actually doing these battles, you either have to be masochistic or have far too much time to waste. A little bit of both helps though.

As someone has stated, maybe the Dev team don't understand. You can waste several hours and make no progress at all with the current system.

[Francisco]

If we have to choose between one or the other to keep balance, then don't adjust the upgrade rate of the key item, but make more spawns.

Adjusting the upgrade rate of the key items will just create more congestion on T2 and T3 NMs... I'd bet a week's pay not a single T2 or T3 is up in any of Abyssea-Grauberg, Altepa or Uleguerand. And if any of them ARE up, there's probably 2-3 groups minimum frantically trying to pop them this instant.

People who complain about the upgrade rate of abyssites are probably more complaining about the lack of NMs available to pop... If I kill a T2 VNM and it doesn't upgrade - I'm more upset because it could be another hour... or two... or twelve... or a week... before I manage to pop another VNM with all the competition for limited spawns. This is multiplied immensely by the sheer amount of items needed per upgrade.

While we're on the topic of things needing to be fixed, Fistule. There is, at any given time... one-three groups holding all three amorph NMs... all standing by at Fistule waiting for it to spawn, so they can rush to it with their held NMs and race to claim it. Meanwhile, there are others waiting by the ???'s spot for the Leech and Slug NMs - so they can pop them again as soon as Fistule absorbs it or the NM dies. Terrible bottleneck.

My suggestions are:

VNM System / Colorless Souls
1: Add additional Tier 2 and Tier 3 NMs. Do not adjust upgrade rate of the abyssites. I would suggest 6-8 per zone, each roaming a certain region.
2: Lower repop of NMs to 10 minutes.
3: Keep in mind, Tier 3 Abyssites **BREAK** upon popping the NM, in which case you need to start all over.

Fistule
1: My BEST suggestion is to remove Fistule as an Empyrean NM, and change the requirement to Kukulkan Fangs... which is currently only used for ONE Empyrean... Staff - which is probably the most unpopular Empyrean anyway...
2: Either way - the idea of using NMs to pop a NM has to go - at least in this case. Increasing the number of Fistules won't mean much if you still need to use limited NMs to claim them.
3: Make Fistule a ??? NM, spawned by key items from the Empyrean NMs. I'm a little reluctant on this one since there are already so many Key Items in Gold Boxes in this zone. You could leave these NMs out of gold boxes entirely **IF** you make the Pudding NM a ??? spawn.

[Alaik]

Instant respawns. You can take an hour just to get the T2 abyssite upgrade. There's no reason you can't have 3 NMs with an instant repop. Yeah, I'll see the guy next to me go 1/1 and pop his NM within 5 minutes, but at least it won't take 2 days to pop it once.

[Babekeke]

Sorry for the late response on this topic! I know there have been quite a few threads about this, but we got a chance to speak to the development team and they provided some feedback.

Currently the development team is looking into making adjustments to the rate in which the demilune abyssite changes color (no plans to make these adjustments to VNMs outside of Abyssea). However, they currently have no plans of increasing the number of VNM spawns. Since the degree of difficulty between Empyrean Weapon related monsters and VNMs is so different, even if we simply increase the amount of VNM spawns like we increased the amount of “???,” the results of the adjustments will not be the same. To be a bit more concrete, for Empyrean +2 items and Empyrean weapons you need to spend time gathering multiple trigger or key items and likewise for VNMs you need to spend time changing the abyssite.

No more seal farming on Gamayun if chance to upgrade to tier 3 is higher ><

Although, anyone know what happens if you pop a tier 2 when you already have the tier 3 KI?

[Sparthos]

No more seal farming on Gamayun if chance to upgrade to tier 3 is higher ><

Although, anyone know what happens if you pop a tier 2 when you already have the tier 3 KI?

You'll never lose the colorful but you will get readouts for T3 though.

softly = tracking t2
solidly = tracking t3

[Korpg]

No more seal farming on Gamayun if chance to upgrade to tier 3 is higher ><

Although, anyone know what happens if you pop a tier 2 when you already have the tier 3 KI?

Game divides by zero and everything implodes.

Seriously, you can pop infinite number of T2s if you have the T3 of that zone.

[Zumi]

After thinking about it T2 should be 1 min respawns like T1. T2 are similar to the key item nms of other paths. The ??? for those monsters respawns every 1 min so there isn't as much congestion on them as there is with T2 VNM.

[detlef]

T1 are not 1 minute respawns. There are a set number of them and it varies depending on zone. For example, my experience with Visions T1's is 6 spawns with a 5 minute respawn. Whereas Scars zones appear to have something like a 10 minute respawn. I have no idea with T1's in Heroes zones because they're annoying to kill.

Having completed a Daurdabla myself, I can certainly relate to the frustration. I would say the best solution would be to keep respawn rate the same but to increase the upgrade rate. I've observed approximately 1/10 rate for T1 > T2 and maybe 1/3 for T2 > T3. To compare to something like Gukumatz, you're looking at essentially one Sobek pop every 20 minutes or so. At the very least, T2s should convert to T3 at a 50% rate or higher.

Also, since we're talking about Colorless Souls, Brulo and Maere have a terrible drop rate, leaving Ogopogo as the only T3 Heroes VNM that has a decent chance of double dropping. For all the work it takes to obtain a T3 pop, it a slap in the face when Brulo and Maere drop a single soul 80-90% of the time even with TH.