AA Fight instances

[AppropriateName5786]

The problems with the instance fights are layered so unless all of them are tackled nothing will change. They've all been mentioned already but I thought I'd just summarize and add some of my own.

1) Difficult setting is the actual normal since gear hardly ever drops on normal setting and people want a reasonable number of chapters per fight.
2) The number of instances is way below what it should be.
3) Grinding merits before every single fight. While it's cute the first time, it can't go on forever like it does currently. The KIs should have been a 1-time purchase that is non-consumable. No one wants to gamble with 20 merit points, so you'll never see a PuG experiment with new job setups for these fights.
4) AoE, one-shotting, hate resets, and more AoE. Job balance is innately tied to horrible fight design. BRD and WHM are guaranteed slots, which means 20 jobs fight for 4 spaces, while constant AoE means that RNG or high HP DD (MNK) are disproportionately preferred.
5) The location of the fights is a huge barrier to bringing newer players or those who have not done them before. The most memorable thing about The Celestial Nexus II is probably how it takes every party 1.5 hours to gather because of a certain yellow door. Monarch Linn is also annoying, though it doesn't take as long. Let Domenic in Lower Jeuno teleport us directly to the new fights. I assure you the game will not break.

[KingShez]

Specially, since I don't have the time anymore (I'm a new Daddy) to wait for parties to be setup. Basically, when I get on shouts are to a non-existent. Waiting over an hour to setup is just not feasible. Furthermore, if I do get lucky to join one and it fails leaves me so frustrated I want to throw my controller at matsui! (Kidding of course)

1. Individual ki pop would be nice instead of the whole party needing one.
2. AA solo fighting
3. Can you lower the cost of sparks to obtain rem tales 6-10....? Maybe 10k?

Just my opinion

[Calatilla]

I don't think only needing 1 person in a party to have the KI as being a good idea personally, so you have 6 people each with a KI and it only uses 1 of them when you enter. 1 party could do 6 fights back to back. This would only increase congestion not relieve it.

[AppropriateName5786]

I don't think only needing 1 person in a party to have the KI as being a good idea personally, so you have 6 people each with a KI and it only uses 1 of them when you enter. 1 party could do 6 fights back to back. This would only increase congestion not relieve it.

The only way to understand what you're saying here is that players doing the game's content is a problem. Does that make sense to you? What kind of company makes something that its clients enjoy and then spends no time accommodating them? That's not hunger marketing; that's shooting yourself in the foot. The lack of resources to support the gameplay that the devs themselves designed is the actual problem.

What exactly is wrong with using 6 KIs to do 6 runs? Should SKNM orbs and Skirmish KIs be changed as well just to make sure everyone gets the least amount of entertainment for the largest amount of time-sink in a game? The current system serves to discourage players from doing content and, so, SE needs to stop with the excuses and do whatever it takes to increase the number of instances as well as tackle the other problems outlined in this thread (and others).

[Afania]

3) Grinding merits before every single fight. While it's cute the first time, it can't go on forever like it does currently. The KIs should have been a 1-time purchase that is non-consumable. No one wants to gamble with 20 merit points, so you'll never see a PuG experiment with new job setups for these fights.

I don't agree with this, because:

1. Instead of seeing 70 ppl in AA zone, you'd see 100+ in zone because everyone and their mother spams the BC endlessly.

2. It makes AA gears require very little to no effort to get....you can just solo VE, get drop, enter again and solo another VE, instead of trying to make a group of 6 for VD and aim for higher drop rate, it'd be much faster and easier to just enter VE and solo repeatly. That also killed the entire purpose of having VD mode.

3. Doing a content should have some sort of risk/penalty for losing. AA content is easy as hell with difficulty setting, with a much higher PUG win rate than delve 1/2, if you get zero penalty for losing, what else do you do in this game?

4. PUG doesn't experiment with different setup never has anything to do with the risk/penalty for losing in a content. Delve 1 is only 3k~20k a pop, and it's much faster to farm a pop, do you ever see ppl use RNG setup for Yorcia, or 0 MNK in Tojil, or 0 piercing DD in Ceizak?

[Afania]

The only way to understand what you're saying here is that players doing the game's content is a problem. Does that make sense to you? What kind of company makes something that its clients enjoy and then spends no time accommodating them? That's not hunger marketing; that's shooting yourself in the foot. The lack of resources to support the gameplay that the devs themselves designed is the actual problem.

What exactly is wrong with using 6 KIs to do 6 runs? Should SKNM orbs and Skirmish KIs be changed as well just to make sure everyone gets the least amount of entertainment for the largest amount of time-sink in a game? The current system serves to discourage players from doing content and, so, SE needs to stop with the excuses and do whatever it takes to increase the number of instances as well as tackle the other problems outlined in this thread (and others).

What kind of comparison is that? I think AA is 10x more enjoyable than SKCNM. I seriously hate the fact that every SKCNM pt I joined need to do the BC for SIX times instead of just 1. Obviously you can choose to do only 1 orb instead of 6, but then the other 5 players would want to use their orb for their drop too.

So instead of doing 1 quick AA run and finish it in 15 min, you'd rather do 6 in a row for 90 min? If your pt is gimp and it takes 25 min to kill, it'd be 150 min for a run. Add that to the time you spend on organizing pt, you're looking at around 3hr of /shout and killing all 6 AA for everyone in the pt, more than 3hr if people go afk/wc/recharge ammo between runs as usual. I don't know you, but personally I think it's NOT enjoyable to play a video game for 3hr~4hr in one sitting AT ALL.

[Lithera]

Then you wouldn't have liked doing dynamis or sky or sea when they were end game events. Since they took 3hrs at a minimum including gathering time. Yet almost all other posts you say if not come close to saying that this game is a second job/life. That people should have to endure some form of a time sync to get something that they want. People are having to grind out merits just to get an item they want from this or that AA so why shouldn't they be able to so? Or is it not too long term goal for you?

[Afania]

Then you wouldn't have liked doing dynamis or sky or sea when they were end game events. Since they took 3hrs at a minimum including gathering time. Yet almost all other posts you say if not come close to saying that this game is a second job/life. That people should have to endure some form of a time sync to get something that they want. People are having to grind out merits just to get an item they want from this or that AA so why shouldn't they be able to so? Or is it not too long term goal for you?

Maybe you should read what I mean in previous post.

What I was asking, is to make AA gear more of a long term goal, that every member farm KI casually and do 1 run at once. Instead of a short term goal that entire pt are forced to spend 3.5hr a run so they can finish everything in a day. Basically I think current AA requirement is fine.

I fail to see the connection between "wanting items take a while to get in MMORPG" and "hate to play the game for 3hr+ in one sitting". "Long term goal" is also very different from "playing for 3.5hr in one sitting".

"Long term goal" is something you do that's gonna take a while, but satisfying after you're done. You don't necessary spend 3.5hr in one sitting doing it everyday, but you can't finish it in a day or 2 either.

Yes, I think players in MMO shouldn't get items in 1 day or a few days of playing, or else everyone gonna quit after they're done, and that's bad for MMORPG. But that has nothing to do with "playing for 3hr+ in one sitting".

It took me around 3 years to finish my Mythic. Most of the time, I play only 1.5hr or less a day. I log on, enter dyna, farmed 1hr~1.5hr and log off. Doing assault doesn't take 3hr, doing Einherjar doesn't need 3hr. Besides Dyna and a few CoP missions in 75 era, I honestly can't think of ANY event I've done in my life in FFXI that took me 3.5hr a run. Most of the time, if I spend more than 3.5hr a run in FFXI, I probably wasted too much time doing inefficient stuff and I should fix that. I also don't recall sky/sea takes more than 3.5hr, unless the LS leader being retarded.

Grind merit then do AA isn't 3.5hr a run. You can do it casually solo, maybe spend 30 min a day to grind merit, and do 1 AA run a week. I'd rather spend 30 min a day to grind merit on my own time, and do 1 AA run(which takes 25 min) a week, so everyday I only play less than 1hr, instead of playing 3.5hr a day because the party demand all 6 member to sit in the party for 3.5hr a run.

"I wanna do 6 runs at once so I can finish my gear in a day and sit in town looking pretty or quit FFXI" is probably what OP means.

[Malithar]

I honestly can't think of ANY event I've done in my life in FFXI that took me 3.5hr a run.

Someone never did a last window ground king. :P God, kings were so soul shattering at times.

[AppropriateName5786]

1. Instead of seeing 70 ppl in AA zone, you'd see 100+ in zone because everyone and their mother spams the BC endlessly.

As mentioned above, the problem is not the players, it's the lack of developer foresight and game infrastructure (i.e. number of instances).

2. It makes AA gears require very little to no effort to get....you can just solo VE, get drop, enter again and solo another VE, instead of trying to make a group of 6 for VD and aim for higher drop rate, it'd be much faster and easier to just enter VE and solo repeatly. That also killed the entire purpose of having VD mode.

Gear barely even drops in N setting, and you think soloing VE will require very little effort? Wow, this wasn't even worth responding to.

And the purpose of any D to VD content should be to challenge "elite" players, not make it so that everyone NOT doing D/VD will take ~500 merits to upgrade one set of armor for one job to 119. That's 25 fights on normal if you don't comment Rem's Tales and/or have competition for them. Do you only play one job? Did you know that there are both Relic and Artifact sets that you can upgrade? And you're saying that soloing something repeatedly (in your own words) means that the player doesn't deserve the gear he's working towards? I guess you don't deserve your Mythic either because you soloed and took 3 years to make it. Seriously, your logic never fails to leave me speechless.

3. Doing a content should have some sort of risk/penalty for losing. AA content is easy as hell with difficulty setting, with a much higher PUG win rate than delve 1/2, if you get zero penalty for losing, what else do you do in this game?

Even if you didn't have to farm merits for a KI, even if the fights had enough instances for everyone, even if you had a group of skilled players in your back pocket that you can summon at a moment's notice, even if you didn't have to explain the fight before entering, even if they all set their seacoms quickly, even if all of them could gear their jobs/get food/gather at HP within 10 mins, failing a fight will still cause you to lose 40+ minutes of your life. I don't know how lost time isn't considered a penalty for losing. Maybe SE should add $1 to your subscription every month if you wipe in a BCNM so you can feel penalized enough?

4. PUG doesn't experiment with different setup never has anything to do with the risk/penalty for losing in a content. Delve 1 is only 3k~20k a pop, and it's much faster to farm a pop, do you ever see ppl use RNG setup for Yorcia, or 0 MNK in Tojil, or 0 piercing DD in Ceizak?

Of course not, because there are close to 0 Delve shouts on my server. And yes, PuG's not experimenting with setups has everything to do with the risk and penalty of losing. Just as an example, no one let nukers into Yorcia Skirmish when it was released. That's because Yorcia Visages were hard to come by and no one wanted to risk losing. People began to care less and less when the content was understood and Yorcia KIs were everywhere, so people experimented and let nukers join. After that, no one brought anything but nukers. This is just one in a sea of examples.

So instead of doing 1 quick AA run and finish it in 15 min, you'd rather do 6 in a row for 90 min?

Because everyone is hurrying to get back to Adoulin and Jeuno to afk, right? Because the game is literally gushing with fun content for people who have been playing it for a decade that we must rush through new stuff in 15 minutes to get back to the old stuff, right? Because 1 chance at getting the drop you want is better than 6 chances right?