Long Holding Times for Delve NMs

[Oddwaffle]

To my understanding the content has been A > B > C > D every since the level cap moved pass lv75. You need to finish A before you start B and you need C done before you can do D. It's still possible to do C without B and A but it will be extremely hard to do so and you might not get the full benefits.

The 'ladder' type of content is ok but it has a problem of finding people to do it with you when you are lagging behind everyone else. If 95% of the population is playing on D content then the remaining 5% will have a difficult time finding people to do A, B and C content so they can get to D like everyone else.

This make returning players very very reluctant to return to the game where everyone has done the things you want to do. You want to make some friends and join them on adventures but you will be too weak to do anything. Compound with the fact that the majority of linkshells have only 3-4 active members, you can't get enough people to help you on contents that require 18 players.

The solution is problematic to this type of content but the best way would be to ease off the 'abandoned' content automatically. Make it so that people who have done C and D content can help people who need A and B content with ease. For example, you need 18 people to beat A content at the beginning but only need 3-4 people with C and D content done to beat A content. Abyssea was working in a sense as you needed 18 lv80~90 players in the beginning but only need 2-3 players at lv99. A returning player will only need 2-3 friends to help him getting some of the abyssea content.

[Toioiz]

So, it's obvious that the ones in ceizak are opposites. You should use dia on the gnat to prevent the TP move that gives him -DT%, and the wamora you use dia/debuffs to *MAKE* it use the TP move that *removes* -DT%. Even with that, it still takes about 1 1/2 to 2 hours to fight these monsters.

[Demonmaniac]

Our Linkshell (Reborn) has had the opportunity to attempt all of the delve zones (which I'm sure most have). However, we have had a difficult time with even getting to the boss. We have farmed the hardest of the five DNM's outside of the Veil. Even with this significant bonus to time (killing each NM in 10-15minutes), we still had to search for the boss, which took another 5minutes, leaving us with max 20minutes left. If you honestly think anyone can kill these ridiculous WK+1 NM's, you are sadly mistaken. We do have a couple pieces of gear, and augmented decently. We even have a couple augmented weapons. However, this content is absolutely ridiculous. I wouldn't be posting if I didn't think it was possible. The fact is, it's not. We dropped the shark down 3% on 15minutes. With the aura up, it near-spams Marine Mayhem, and it unstunnable. With the aura down, its attacks do upwards of 1k, forcing us into DT gear, flooring out ACC and ATK even more. Now, we do not have a problem with wildskeeper reive. We do not have a problem with Skirmish. We don't have problems with Legion. We don't even have problems with the T1-5 NM's (excluding the butterflies and chapuli). How can you say that the new gear will help? Our damage still sucks, acc parsed 30-40% with rank3-5 acc path when not in DT gear. Our WHM's are awesome, so that's not the problem. We have 8 BRD rolls, 4 COR rolls, boost dex, pizza+1/sushi+1...what else can you get? If there is some sort of weakness (doubt it on the bosses), we haven't found it, and it will be ages before we do since we die too quickly. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but given FORTY-FIVE MINUTES to kill these NM's, I say it is impossible at this point.

[Fynlar]

My opinion:

If you absolutely have to have a time limit on these fights, make the fights more like Voidwatch. 30 minutes, but no rage. Give people more of a chance to actually fight these things at their normal stats before forcing them to resort to PLD and SAM/THF and SMN abuse, or whatever it is that people are beating the raged NMs with.

Rage was originally intended and implemented as a mechanism for preventing people from holding mobs on purpose to grief other players or stall out ToDs, not as a means of artificially time-restricting a fight. Honestly, these mobs don't need to be capable of raging; I think they are powerful enough as is, and 15 minutes is way too strict for it anyway.

IMO, outside the fractures should be more of a "trial" version of the NM fights anyway, where you have more of a chance to figure out how they work. Inside the fractures you already are on a time limit, so in there you already have to know how to fight them "properly" if you want to win anyway. Either way, I view rage as unnecessary.

[Venat]

Its its a problem just add more spawn points. Didn't you learn this quick fix in Abyssea....

[hiko]

Since Ryota Iwagami asked for which monsters the players are talking about, I'm going to list the ones I've fought.

Perdurable Raptor - This one is considered the easiest. Which it is. Assuming you have all acc songs/rolls/food/JAs up. And assuming you don't get zombie PLDs while its enraged.

Mastop - this one is TERRIBLE. You cannot debuff it (except with GEO) and it's evasive as hell already from being a gnat; not even counting the fact it's a delve NM. My group did SMNx3 timed Odin each doing 10k Zantensuken at the start. Only took it down to 95%. Fought it raged well enough but then random back-to-back triple attacks were killing our PLDs.

If there is one thing I DO like about these NMs is the loot system for the armor/weapons. Beating them once, then being able to buy the gear from an NPC with points? That's the best loot system in this game so far. Keep that. Change NOTHING about it. Ever. >:

raptor can be killed, its a shardII NM:"

shard I-III can be killed without delve item

=> working as intended

gnat is too hard, it' a shardIV NM

shard IV-V need item from delveI-III to be defeated

=> again working as intended

Our Linkshell (Reborn) has had the opportunity to attempt all of the delve zones (which I'm sure most have). However, we have had a difficult time with even getting to the boss. We have farmed the hardest of the five DNM's outside of the Veil. Even with this significant bonus to time (killing each NM in 10-15minutes), we still had to search for the boss, which took another 5minutes, leaving us with max 20minutes left. If you honestly think anyone can kill these ridiculous WK+1 NM's, you are sadly mistaken. We do have a couple pieces of gear, and augmented decently. We even have a couple augmented weapons. However, this content is absolutely ridiculous. I wouldn't be posting if I didn't think it was possible. The fact is, it's not. We dropped the shark down 3% on 15minutes. With the aura up, it near-spams Marine Mayhem, and it unstunnable. With the aura down, its attacks do upwards of 1k, forcing us into DT gear, flooring out ACC and ATK even more. Now, we do not have a problem with wildskeeper reive. We do not have a problem with Skirmish. We don't have problems with Legion. We don't even have problems with the T1-5 NM's (excluding the butterflies and chapuli). How can you say that the new gear will help? Our damage still sucks, acc parsed 30-40% with rank3-5 acc path when not in DT gear. Our WHM's are awesome, so that's not the problem. We have 8 BRD rolls, 4 COR rolls, boost dex, pizza+1/sushi+1...what else can you get? If there is some sort of weakness (doubt it on the bosses), we haven't found it, and it will be ages before we do since we die too quickly. Please, correct me if I'm wrong, but given FORTY-FIVE MINUTES to kill these NM's, I say it is impossible at this point.

has everyone in your LS got all relevent item from shard I-V NMs and augmented it? I bet no, then it's once again working as intended.

as for everything else being irrelevant, if you can't defeat tierI-III NMs you should do those "irrelevant" content to get better gear till you can defeat those monster (that's what I plan to do since i don't think my group is able to defeat them now)

[Demonmaniac]

has everyone in your LS got all relevent item from shard I-V NMs and augmented it? I bet no, then it's once again working as intended.

I suppose I should have been more clear. EACH OF US has a couple pieces of gear. So, yes, in essence, we all do. Still floored. How is this working as intended?

[Stan64]

I suppose I should have been more clear. EACH OF US has a couple pieces of gear. So, yes, in essence, we all do. Still floored. How is this working as intended?

It's hard to say. If they truly tested the bosses out in full ranked Delve gear and the tier IV-V weapons and finished it, then it's probably working as intended. We have no way of knowing that however, it seems like their focus groups are non existant for the most parts. But we can only hope.

[HimuraKenshyn]

Please just make it super easy so we can have the best gear in game at release of the expansion. Is what I mostly read kind of sad nobody wants to work to earn it anymore. The expansion hasn't been out long enough for any one to have geared up for this content yet. They have given us a challenge again without crazy temps, atmas or atamacites. Mobs that you actually have to put some work into learning how to kill I hate to see gaming in the future if this is to hard its how it used to be and I for one like it. Back in my day I recall how long it took for us to build up to take on the sky gods and don't even get me started on the COP horror stories but we did it and for the most part fond memories of the days. Now a days its zerg kill loot repeat without the fear of losing meh at best before this update.

[Stan64]

I'm just sayin. In certain other games. Top guilds spend 8 hours a day getting hundreds of tries on the hardest bosses just to get the experience down and to farm those extra gear pieces who can make all the difference between a 1% wipe and a win. And they don't complain.

The content was released four days ago. No one have the best gear available, maybe some pieces here and there. No one knows all the gimmicks and characteristics of the bosses. Don't expect to beat it in a couple of days.

You don't like to grind and train for hard content? Then don't do that. They will nerf this content when the top players have mastered it and new content is introduced.