Fed up

[Tsukino_Kaji]

Abyssea saved FFxi from being cancelled

I think you mean SE ruined FFXI.

Perhaps a little of both.

[Vicious]

Let's talk about Voidwatch for a moment.

>Drops the current best equipment in the game.
>Who gets what is taken out of the player's hands; i.e. there's no nepotism, DKP, hoarding, etc.
>Zero competition, zero respawn times.
>Pickup friendly. (Assuming the person in charge is smart and limits melee to those with temps, etc.)
>Rewards for every single fight; guaranteed synthesis materials, a decent chance at a gil drop, and a small chance at the best equipment available.

Now, let's talk about what used to drop the best equipment, HNM.

>Dropped the best gear at the time.
>Items go to loot pool, meaning leaders had to keep detailed spreadsheets of points and deal with all the attendant drama.
>Enormous respawn times; anywhere from 1~3 RL days, HQ kings even longer.
>Batshit insane competition over every single pop, to the point where botting was the only sure way to make any kind of steady progress for your group, which is necessary to keep said group going.
>If you haven't waited in line for months/years, even when what you want drops, it's not going to you; and you get absolutely nothing from every fight until then.

I understand that Voidwatch is a step back towards how FFXI used to be compared to the smash and grab that is Abyssea, but if you think Voidwatch compares anything but favorably to the endgame of old, you're out of your mind.

Case in point; I spent a day off this week doing nothing but Kaggen via /shouts. Out of ~30 Kaggens, I saw 5 bodies and 8 belts drop. That's at least 6 months of old endgame in 1 day, with no LS, no drama, no competition, no standing around for 3 to 6 hours and waiting to maybe get to fight the NM if we manage to claim it this time. Stop your bitching already.

[Luvbunny]

Voidwatch is not too bad at all - it is fair, easy to do, and rather quick - great for people who do not have the time to do hours and hours of craps. The main problems that players have voiced about is the drop share - something that they refuse to fix. SE can easily add points on top of the normal cruors/exp rewards so you can redeem those points for the actual gears, this give people some hope - even if they do not succeed in their 50th tries, all those points can be redeemed for the gears of their choosing. That one simple addition will silenced all these complaints about voidwatch - if you are lucky, you and your 10th mules get the same gears 10 times. All others who are not so lucky can kill another 20 of these for the points so they can redeem it for the gears. Simple really and extremely fair.

[Vicious]

You do realize that what you're asking for is already in place? What do you think Mirrors/Plates are? Do you realize that it's actually an improvement over the Einherjar system that everyone is always going on about, in that they are easily redeemable for gil, for those that don't wish to upgrade?

[Tamoa]

Mirrors? Silver Mirrors? Are you joking, lol. They are currently selling for 10-15k on my server, that hardly counts as a gil reward in any way, shape or form. The market for those is extremely limited. And heavy metal plates? Ok they sell for 100k+ each but the drop rate is atrocious. You can easily do 10 T3 fights and end up with one single plate only. Or none at all.

30 Kaggens, you say? And assuming full alliance, that's 540 reward chests. 5 bodies from those 540 chests - oh hey look, a 1% drop rate. Isn't that amazing?... And those 5 bodies could easily have gone to the same person even, which is the most retarded aspect about voidwatch. I know people who have done 250ish Kaggen fights and STILL doesn't have the body. And the worst thing is, they can do another 250+ fights and still not get one. At least if we were rewarded points per successful fight in the same way as with Einherjar, we'd know that eventually we could get the item we really want. Even if the point cost for a body piece was made extremely high, you'd still get it in the end if you work for it. As it is, it is completely random - paired with a ridiculously low drop rate - and totally out of our control.

[Quetzacoatl]

JP ONRY

This is all I've seen from you posting here... >_>

[Vicious]

The droprate on Metal is not atrocious; 3 fights, 6 loot pools, i average 2~3 each round. As for the 1% droprate, hey it's the current top-tier endgame, every single event that's been implemented in the history of FFXI has started off with low droprates, which are then adjusted later on once new, shinier things are released. If you have such a huge problem with this, you haven't been paying attention for the last 8 years, or are simply playing the wrong game.

As for your further argument concerning Einherjar, can you purchase abjurations with Ichor? Helm? Breastplate? Hrm no, I didn't think so. It was a split system just like Voidwatch is.

I understand that it sucks watching a body drop to someone that doesn't want it, or already has it; but as I already mentioned, the only viable alternative is for it to go to the loot pool, which would completely kill the event. Honestly, why do you think it's designed as such? SE realizes that the playerbase is smaller than it once was, that Abyssea killed off most of the major Linkshells that had the manpower to camp HNMs, and that the playerbase at large does not want to go back to that status quo. Look at the shouts in Jeuno sometime, how many people do you see offering to help others farm Empyreans for others? Yeah, no, it's all "Bukhis: Wings X +2 Freelot /tell". I can see it now.. "Kaggen: Body/Belt/Plates locked, Eye/Scrolls Freelot, @4/18 /tell."

As for a point system towards Voidwatch bodies and such, are you out of your mind? Have you noticed the numerous threads lambasting the 1500 Plate requirement for 95 Empyreans? How many Voidwatch wins do you think they would require to gain enough points to purchase a body? Given that a group that has their shit together can do 5-6 NMs per hour, I assure you that the devs wouldn't find a number less than 300 to be feasible, and that's lowballing it; if they left the random drops in place in addition to that system, expect 500+.

I'm not saying it's perfect as is, but it's a whole lot better than things used to be, and you have no idea how much worse you'd have it if you got what you wished for.

[Concerned4FFxi]

I think if you have said item in your inventory it shouldn't drop to you again unless you tossed the first one, also, I would like to see the opinion of a point system, but I don't feel that the best drops should be attainable from points. Items like mirrors and plates should be from the points and from the chests, and the synth items to make the synth armors, but keep the best gear rare/ex chest only, and keep the shitty drop rate because it makes it that much more awesome if you do get it. The idea is not to have everyone running around with the best, then that gear just becomes the best average gear. That said, if your chest loads with a rare/ex, you should be able to say no to that item and get alot of points for refusing it, similiar to how you can trade conquest npc's at the outposts for conquest points and advance your nation in the conquest tally. This way you can get ride of rare/ex drops you don't want, but still get something from it like alot of points to redeem heavy metal plates, mirrors, synth items for the AH gear, etc.

[Tamoa]

The droprate on Metal is not atrocious; 3 fights, 6 loot pools, i average 2~3 each round.

If that's your average, you're damn lucky. Then again, basing your average on 3 fights isn't really representative. I have done 4 Qilins in a row and got a pouch from 3 of them. I also did over 30 zilart T3 fights before I saw my first pouch. I've lost count on how many zilart T3s I've done by now, but I'm still at a total of 4 only pouches.

As for the 1% droprate, hey it's the current top-tier endgame, every single event that's been implemented in the history of FFXI has started off with low droprates, which are then adjusted later on once new, shinier things are released. If you have such a huge problem with this, you haven't been paying attention for the last 8 years, or are simply playing the wrong game.

So that makes it ok? Having terrible drop rates and only increasing them when the item is outdated? And you're right, I haven't been paying attention for the last 8 years, I've only been playing for 6.

As for your further argument concerning Einherjar, can you purchase abjurations with Ichor? Helm? Breastplate? Hrm no, I didn't think so. It was a split system just like Voidwatch is.

But at least Odin never dropped nothing at all. And you could decide one way or another who got what - you didn't see the same person get his 4th Ebody while you still hadn't gotten yours. And you got ichor for each chamber successfully cleared, which you could spend on useful items.

As for a point system towards Voidwatch bodies and such, are you out of your mind? Have you noticed the numerous threads lambasting the 1500 Plate requirement for 95 Empyreans? How many Voidwatch wins do you think they would require to gain enough points to purchase a body? Given that a group that has their shit together can do 5-6 NMs per hour, I assure you that the devs wouldn't find a number less than 300 to be feasible, and that's lowballing it; if they left the random drops in place in addition to that system, expect 500+.

I'm not saying it's perfect as is, but it's a whole lot better than things used to be, and you have no idea how much worse you'd have it if you got what you wished for.

Yes, I have noticed the numerous threads regarding the 1500 plates requirement for 95 empyrean weapon. I have voiced my opinion too. But guess what, I'm still working on taking my GA to 95. Because I know for sure if I keep at it, I will finish it. How can what I wish for, possibly be worse than it is now? Worst case scenario, as it is now I can end up never getting that voidwatch body I want, no matter how many fights I do.

[Vicious]

If that's your average, you're damn lucky. Then again, basing your average on 3 fights isn't really representative. I have done 4 Qilins in a row and got a pouch from 3 of them. I also did over 30 zilart T3 fights before I saw my first pouch. I've lost count on how many zilart T3s I've done by now, but I'm still at a total of 4 only pouches.

You'll notice that I was referring to Heavy Metal Plates, not Pouches. Who does Zilart t3s?

So that makes it ok?

Irrelevant. It is the way things are, complaining about it is akin to paying someone to kick you in the balls, then bitching incessantly afterwards because you just didn't think it should hurt.

But at least Odin never dropped nothing at all. And you could decide one way or another who got what - you didn't see the same person get his 4th Ebody while you still hadn't gotten yours. And you got ichor for each chamber successfully cleared, which you could spend on useful items.

..and you could only fight Odin twice a month at absolute most. How many Voidwatch fights do you think you could do in two weeks? This is what I'm talking about, you're talking without thinking.

Worst case scenario, as it is now I can end up never getting that voidwatch body I want, no matter how many fights I do.

Welcome to FFXI. I'll ask again, are you sure you're playing the right game?