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

[Ramyrez]

This is something that seriously needs addressed. People who are talking about breezing through these in a matter of days apparently don't have to worry about work, family or any other responsibilities or they have their linkshells out converting for them. Even assuming you have 38 people with T3 pops ready to go (and insanely supposing you get 2 drops every mob!) you're looking at approximately 19 hours JUST to do the T3s. Forget the clear > colorful > T3 upgrade time and the fact upgrades aren't even close to 100%.

19 hours is about my available playtime in a given work week working a 40 hour job and taking care of your "standard" adult responsibilities. With another 12 or so hours on the weekends if I spend the majority of my free time on the weekends playing. And I don't even have kids and I don't have family that lives in the area to whom I have any responsibilities..

The bottom line is that this game is well past seven years old. Even if you assume people were 13 when they started playing this game they're getting to the age where they should be responsible adults playing in their free time. And if you expect people who are responsible adults to play your game, you've got to allow them the chance to access items without massive time sinks.

The advisory SE gives at the login screen about "be sure not to ingore your friends, family, work, etc." has become a giant joke. Dedicating nearly as much time to this game as you do to your job in a week should be MORE than enough to complete these things in a reasonable timeframe.

As it is, tonight alone between competition and poor convert rates my group has spent three and a half hours without a single T2 > T3 convert. And for the past hour that's been with zero competition and killing the mob mad fast.

In the same time frame we could have done 6+ of ANY other 85 Empyrean mob. Minimum. Probably like 15 Cirein-Croins or Ulhuadshis. And those are conservative estimates. The mobs themselves are a joke to kill with 2-3 decent players, short of random mishaps.

Bottlenecking people based on ability to claim vs. ability to actually defeat the mobs and do the true work is rubbish. You're not a better or more dedicated player for being finished in a very short time frame. You're lucky, have more time or more people willing to do things for you.

Edit: appologies, I finished this without a conclusion. That conclusion being thus:

Increase VNM spawn rate, increase the number of mobs that drop colorless souls or, if you think these are too "easy", add some other, more challenging way to obtain them that focuses on a group's ability to obtain pop items and defeat the mob.

Do not leave it up to competition and dumb luck. The developers saw the error of their ways (finally) getting rid of all the old 24 hour king-pop HNMs. Now they need to get rid of this step backward they've made with these VNM claiming nonsense.

[Ramyrez]

Also, unrelated, but why is it showing beastmaster as my main job? I haven't been on beastmaster in like three months.

[Rearden]

Maybe Ochain isn't your thing?

[blowfin]

Maybe Ochain isn't your thing?

It's beside the point what your interest in the VNM's is. I've only needed +2 items from them and I know exactly where they spawn without ever using a 3rd party App. Some effort is required, that's all. It's never *exactly* the same spot, but it's always in the same general area. Then they tend to roam to a fixed area too. What's really going to help you once you figure it out is having some movement speed gear and a good feel for distance.

Oh, and that's not all addressed at you.

[Ramyrez]

Some effort is required, that's all. It's never *exactly* the same spot, but it's always in the same general area. Then they tend to roam to a fixed area too. What's really going to help you once you figure it out is having some movement speed gear and a good feel for distance.

The problem coming when you've got 5-20 more people putting forth just as much effort with all the same knowledge and movement speed.

[blowfin]

The problem coming when you've got 5-20 more people putting forth just as much effort with all the same knowledge and movement speed.

I don't disagree that it's a major point of congestion, I put off T2 VNM hunting for a long time because it was such a pain. I'm actually still missing an item of BST +2, not that I've been playing much recently mind you. I've posted in several threads suggesting we need more T2 and/or T3 pops.

Just trying to offer some pointers. Widescan can help a lot too if you don't get claim, you can work back towards the spawn area eventually.

Oh and the profile thing with the jobs is backwards. Job on the far right in your preferences will show up I think.

[Zaknafein]

Yeah you know what else helps too? Speed hacks.

For everyone of you super cool "I found where they spawn on my own w/o 3rd party programs" types there are 15 who found the location b4 this supposed fix thru the use of cheats. That is the problem here.

The spawn points need to be randomized again (if they have truly fixed the ability to track them). Then everyone will start on a level playing field. Aside from the speedhacking crap.

I thought the days of providing a sweet place for cheaters to cheat it up ended when they nerfed HNM with abyssea. However this is every bit as annoying as DA ever was imo.

[Camate]

Howdy!

Though we won't be able to make it in time for the upcoming version update, we have decided to increase the rate in which the Clear Demilune Abyssite changes into a Colored Demilune Abyssite. This will be reflected on the test server a little after the version update takes place.

[Vagrua]

Howdy!

Though we won't be able to make it in time for the upcoming version update, we have decided to increase the rate in which the Clear Demilune Abyssite changes into a Colored Demilune Abyssite. This will be reflected on the test server a little after the version update takes place.

The real trouble is Tier II > Tier III change. Making Tier IIs easier to get will only cause more people to be camping the Tier II NMs making emp harp/shield trials MUCH harder with even more competition.

[Airget]

That's still not enough to help with the situation. You keep forgetting that with the last abyssea updated you turned one mob into three yet the VNM still remain 1 mob with at least a 15-30 min waiting in between killing each one.

So while in that same time frame you can kill a boss NM 3-5 times you'll be lucky if you can kill a top tier VNM 2 times. Even though you say "well it's easier cause you only need one item" you forget that in another update you allowed the KI needed for nearly every empyrean base mob to be dropped in gold chest cutting down the time to get those pops. Plus it made it even easier for groups of people to store the KI.

Meanwhile with the VNM you basically have to wait 15 mins between each one to get a pop item if it drops so while let's say you get a KI for one person every 30-hr for the other ??? NMs you can prolly get their whole set for 3 people in that same 30-hr time frame.