Ambuscade! 1 NPC, 100 players

[Hyrist]

What you say, and what happens, are entirely two different realities, Savelle.

Efficiency above enjoyment is the edict of parties and has been the same tune for a over twelve years - a tune I don't play to.

This is the situation:

I play Red Mage to play a variant role, and I've been gone a long time and am still gearing a lot of my sets.
The party Meta in Ambuscade for Red Mage is main healer - the role I despise above all others and will be gearing last.

So I don't party, not on those terms anyways.
Now people go as far as to say 'don't play the game at all unless you play my way'? Because of congestion on new and popular content?
That's just downright insulting.

And this situation repeats, to various degrees, with the majority of the soloists you're dealing with. People dejected by the meta and sick of people in general, who would rather deal with the congestion than the stigmata.

So my policy stands: Don't mind me playing my way, I don't mind partying with you. Till then, enjoy the F8 spam. It's not my fault SE bottle-necked the content.

Edit: Something to keep in mind though, which I found to be pretty intelligent design on their part reward wise. On the path of getting my cape upgraded, I'm going to be receiving an entry-level set of 119 heavy gear, pretty much for free as I'm only really in there for the cape. It won't be the +1 version, but it may be enough to convince me to level and use Paladin for groups, giving you that tank in the meta you're talking about.

That won't be accessible to me if I don't go solo or find groups that don't mind spamming normal with me in the front lines, and it will still be a long ways before it's party-competent. But I wanted to chime that in because by being solo-friendly, it's also encouraging at least one player to pick up a more party-friendly job and method.

Something to consider before being harsh on the soloists for a design that was meant to be accessible to them but failed to avoid botlenecking?

[dmuller30]

I think they are working on a solution right? I mean when new content comes in any other game I don't have to wait. For example FFXIV new content = faster que times on DF because more people are playing. I think maybe just allowing more instances would fix the problem which is what the GM said the other day that they are doing. Maybe just give them the benefit of the doubt that they didn't know so many people were going to join, although over half of the community is pretty much done with the last content introduced so to me it's no surprise this thing is packed.

[Camate]

The development team is currently working on addressing the congestion issue further as outlined in my previous post, but unfortunately it seems like it will not be possible to complete the work this week due to incidental network issues. There is maintenance scheduled for Sunday, April 10 (JST), and the team is planning to implement the fixes during this maintenance.

Once again, we apologize for the inconveniences the congestion is causing.

[Olor]

Have folks considered upping the points gained for lower tiers? I am going to need to spam this a lot on easy to get any gear at only 75 points per win. I asked folks if they wanted to group up but people only want to group with folks who are already super geared... so can we stop punishing soloists? Please? For the sake of everyone?

[detlef]

Have folks considered upping the points gained for lower tiers? I am going to need to spam this a lot on easy to get any gear at only 75 points per win. I asked folks if they wanted to group up but people only want to group with folks who are already super geared... so can we stop punishing soloists? Please? For the sake of everyone?

A typical search of Legion yesterday revealed like 6 soloers and 2 PTs of 3-6. If those soloers considered teaming up with each other you'd at least be able to clear your chosen difficulty faster but may even be able to tackle something worth more hallmarks. Please try searching Mhaura, Legion, and even Zi'tah for like-minded people. It will make everybody's day a little easier. Keep trying to group up.

As an aside, a returning player I pearled was apparently able to get into a group without a problem. I did see him on his hilariously geared Facio Bliaut WHM later but he was getting 300 hallmarks a fight like everybody else who grouped up.

[Hyrist]

As an aside, a returning player I pearled was apparently able to get into a group without a problem.

*peers*

BRD Lv 99

I... think I might have found the reason.

That said. I need to stress, I don't go out of my way to avoid parties. But nobody shouts for 'a warm body' (or a melee rdm) to occupy a group. I do keep eye out for whomever wants to just join up for whatever. Maybe I'll toss a /say before I start spamming the book to see if there are any takers.

For me personally it's less of me being averse to groups as assuming they're averse to me.

[detlef]

Please reread what I wrote. It wasn't me. This guy I'm talking about had MNK and, apparently, a patched-together WHM that got the job done.

[Hyrist]

Please reread what I wrote. It wasn't me. This guy I'm talking about had MNK and, apparently, a patched-together WHM that got the job done.

Yep. I missed that. My bad. Good for the monk though!

Cept he went WHM in the end. I'd assume accuracy troubles? That or the spikes kept eating away at him.

Fun thing. I'm not sure how D and VD measures up, but the Thornsong spikes are completely negated by my Phalanx on Normal. If it wasn't for the profound lack of Stona on /sch I'd join parties to spread that around. (No, I don't have Phalanx II merited, /sch kinda killed the point of that IMO.) That, and I despise main healing with the white hot passion of a 1000 supernovas.

[Olor]

A typical search of Legion yesterday revealed like 6 soloers and 2 PTs of 3-6. If those soloers considered teaming up with each other you'd at least be able to clear your chosen difficulty faster but may even be able to tackle something worth more hallmarks. Please try searching Mhaura, Legion, and even Zi'tah for like-minded people. It will make everybody's day a little easier. Keep trying to group up.

As an aside, a returning player I pearled was apparently able to get into a group without a problem. I did see him on his hilariously geared Facio Bliaut WHM later but he was getting 300 hallmarks a fight like everybody else who grouped up.

I stood where everyone was standing around and asked if anyone wanted to group up, someone made fun of me for being gimp, then asked for other players to join them and no one else said anything *shrugs* I am totally 100% into grouping up. I just don't find many folks into it.

Judging from the number of glowing people with stars over their heads gathered around there are lots of players that could afford to adopt a gimp and speed everything up for everyone. I get that they have the choice not to, of course, but seems a little sad that folks don't want to give back to the community.

[Diavolo]

How have you come to that conclusion?

That's just the way the game handles the "instanced" fights, Ambuscade included - only a few players/parties can enter the same battlefield at any given time, after which everyone else is left waiting for those players to exit. So the problem outlined here would have sprung up regardless of how populated your server is.

I am hoping any further content created for FFXI plays to its strengths, the open world, and not to its weaknesses. There are plenty of wide open zones with practically no activity whatsoever that are screaming for a little attention, might be nice if they got a little of that before it was all said and done, especially now that mounts have become a thing.