Issues with Tier II battlefields

[Ulth]

I don't think it's good to lower entrance requirement though, or else ppl would spam it more often. They should allow players to sponsor KI for helpers by spending more merits though. So say if entering 1 BC needs 15 merit, it's probably better if one person can trade 15 merit for some kind of pop item and trade it to the helpers. It'd be a lot easier to get ppl to help if they don't need to spend any merit to enter the BC.

I'm either not understanding what you are saying or it just doesn't make any sense. It almost sounds like you just want to be able to pay the merits for the other people. That means if you wanted to do an elvaan and paid for it all, you would need 90 merits. You can only hold 45 merits at a time so you would have to get 45 merits, get the items, then have those items waste your inventory space while you get the rest of the merits. After that you have to hold onto all the items while you gather people together, and if you lose or the item you are after doesn't drop your still down 90 merits. Even worst is the other scenario where everyone wants to do mithra but you. Five people want to go, so which of the five is going to have to sponsor you? What's stopping them from just getting a sixth who will pay for themselves?

Could you imagine how less popular delve and incursion would be if everyone needed to get a KI every time for people to enter? Sure right now the price of rocks are low, but if the demand increased 6 fold the prices would shoot up with it. And so what if people spam merit fights. Everyone pretty much already have the chapters they need. The only thing of value that would change is the synthesis material, and they aren't even worth that much on my server already. If anything it would be good if those prices went down, then more people could skill up their crafting.

[Afania]

I'm either not understanding what you are saying or it just doesn't make any sense. It almost sounds like you just want to be able to pay the merits for the other people. That means if you wanted to do an elvaan and paid for it all, you would need 90 merits. You can only hold 45 merits at a time so you would have to get 45 merits, get the items, then have those items waste your inventory space while you get the rest of the merits. After that you have to hold onto all the items while you gather people together, and if you lose or the item you are after doesn't drop your still down 90 merits. Even worst is the other scenario where everyone wants to do mithra but you. Five people want to go, so which of the five is going to have to sponsor you? What's stopping them from just getting a sixth who will pay for themselves?

Could you imagine how less popular delve and incursion would be if everyone needed to get a KI every time for people to enter? Sure right now the price of rocks are low, but if the demand increased 6 fold the prices would shoot up with it. And so what if people spam merit fights. Everyone pretty much already have the chapters they need. The only thing of value that would change is the synthesis material, and they aren't even worth that much on my server already. If anything it would be good if those prices went down, then more people could skill up their crafting.

Atm if you do AA with 6 member you'd need 90 merit total, if you change the KI to leader only then you'd only need 15 merits. Which is a game longevity nerf because 90 merits can do 6 EV runs instead of just 1. You need a lot less time to farm merits for the BC and you can do more.

If you've been on this forum long enough, you'd know that I'm usually against game longevity nerf in MMORPG. I support more incentive in content to encourage players to help out, but I usually don't support stuff become easier and faster to get.

I don't think paying merits for other ppl isn't bad idea. Can also make paying gil an option as well.

[detlef]

Interest in these BCs is probably close to its nadir now so it's hard to make the argument that making fights more accessible and repeatable is hurting the content's lifespan.

[Malithar]

Interest in these BCs is probably close to its nadir now so it's hard to make the argument that making fights more accessible and repeatable is hurting the content's lifespan.

This. Either the BCs have gear (niche or otherwise) that some want, or it's got mostly trash. Interest could be solved simply by re-evaluating the gear that's added IMO. Spending too much time adding gear that's worse then what we already have. If it's bad outta the gate, it won't be sought after.

Personally, I don't really get where the argument comes concerning needing merits. If you're playing the game, you're prolly merit capped. RoE and massive exp gains in SoA (stop being Aby/VW only, you'll see the light) for sneezing on the weakest of mobs makes getting merits beyond silly.

Can get behind the KI only being needed by the leader though, this'd lead to many more possible organized runs among friends/LSs as well as foster a better quality of life experience for anyone relying on shouts for these fights. BC area congestion would be the major hiccup I'd think, and they've yet to announce a fix for that, beyond "add more BCs to spread people out!"

[Olor]

Personally, I don't really get where the argument comes concerning needing merits. If you're playing the game, you're prolly merit capped. RoE and massive exp gains in SoA (stop being Aby/VW only, you'll see the light) for sneezing on the weakest of mobs makes getting merits beyond silly.

Can get behind the KI only being needed by the leader though, this'd lead to many more possible organized runs among friends/LSs as well as foster a better quality of life experience for anyone relying on shouts for these fights. BC area congestion would be the major hiccup I'd think, and they've yet to announce a fix for that, beyond "add more BCs to spread people out!"

I have no problem with these battles requiring merits, I just don't like that it makes it harder to do the content with PUGs because you can't do something like "your pop your drop" which, frankly, is the best way of organizing for pickups for the most part, and it overall just really sucks that the way it is now you will inevitably spend more time getting people together than doing the content. That's never fun.

I would be cool, however, if you could (at least) buy multiple KIs for a battle, or better yet, trade merits for some kind of orb(s) you can trade to the npc to buy a KI. That way you could do a shout for Tenzen X3 and maybe by some miracle get a group together and have a slightly better chance of actually getting something (since if someone in your group gets the drop they want, your chances of getting the drop go up)

[Draylo]

Practically every fight has an item that is worthwhile for various jobs. You guys just want Delve level of gear and it won't happen for a while and for good reason.

[Comeatmebro]

Practically every fight has an item that is worthwhile for various jobs. You guys just want Delve level of gear and it won't happen for a while and for good reason.

Almost every BC having one worthwhile drop isn't really a good reward model. Everything doesn't have to be good, but when some BCs have literally nothing worth owning then what's the point even adding them?

Kam'lanaut(4 drops, 2 of which are decent-good for multiple jobs, the other 2 are mostly junk) is a decent balance. Lancelord(5 drops, 1 of which is a marginal macro piece for 2 jobs, 4 of which are complete garbage) isn't. Avatars(6 BCs, 4 of which have 0 good drops, 2 of which have 1 good drop and 4 trash drops) are a complete failure. It doesn't need to drop amazing gear(mes haub is barely better in most of the situations it wins, but it's still an attractive piece for multiple jobs.. likewise for slacks), it just needs to drop something to make it worth doing.

Edit: I'm not saying the reward model is bad, the content is boring, or even that grouping is unreasonable. I'm just saying that most of the BC could do with an improvement to their drop pools. Out of 20 total BCs, only 10 are done for any reason besides chapters.

Useful:
AA Hume
AA Mithra
AA Elvaan
Divine Might
Kam'lanaut
Eald'narch
Tenzen
Ouryu
Shiva
Leviathan

The rest have at most one decent drop, and it's optimal for few-no jobs. This is as much a reason for nobody doing them as difficulty, especially considering how easy shadow lord and avatars are..

[Olor]

You guys just want Delve level of gear and it won't happen for a while and for good reason.

What's the good reason? For most of the rest of FFXI's history best-in-slot gear was spread over a great number of events. Why now make it so most of the best gear only comes from one event, an event that is VERY RESTRICTIVE in terms of what jobs can participate.

I miss abyssea era where there was plenty of really good gear you could get with a couple friends on any job they wanted to come on. This SAM BRD WHM MNK RNG only era is depressing and it's directly tied to the fact that the devs are releasing content with generally crummy rewards, and ALL the content is aimed at the same kind of party set up and job balance has never been worse.

[Draylo]

It's a model that has worked for them for quite some time. At least each one has an item that is worth doing it for a certain job. Even the avatars, practically each one drops something decent, where are you getting 4 have 0 good drops? Titan has Shuriken, Garuda has Occ quick cast+2% ring, Ramuh torque still has highest macc w/additional FC. People seem to expect skirmish/delve type of equipment enhancements and those won't be coming for a while. People were begging SE to go back to this model because they hated things getting outdated, and yet now they complain. This model is exactly how the old school stuff worked, you had tons of bcnms that only had one drop someone might have needed. To answer the second part, they might just want people to experience nostalgia fighting old bosses at high difficulties, maybe not even for the drops.

I'm sure they plan to add a ton more hard mode battles due to the amount they can pull from in the game. I doubt they can seriously make every single one drop an item that makes people go "OOOH that is amazing". If anything they should add cinders, heavy plates and linen pouches to some of these with lesser drops.

[Draylo]

What's the good reason? For most of the rest of FFXI's history best-in-slot gear was spread over a great number of events. Why now make it so most of the best gear only comes from one event, an event that is VERY RESTRICTIVE in terms of what jobs can participate.

I miss abyssea era where there was plenty of really good gear you could get with a couple friends on any job they wanted to come on. This SAM BRD WHM MNK RNG only era is depressing and it's directly tied to the fact that the devs are releasing content with generally crummy rewards, and ALL the content is aimed at the same kind of party set up and job balance has never been worse.

The reason is so that they don't invalidate all the content they just put out by increasing ilevel? Who would want to do any of these bc's or any delve content for gear if you can just get i120+ from the new content? They wanted to keep some longevity to the content.

I honestly don't remember that in Abyssea unless you were one of those bst that took 3 hours to solo a mob with your invincible pet. Everyone else did it more efficiently by bringing the correct jobs. There was a bandwagon at that time too if you didn't remember, most people wanted to bring NIN WHM MNK THF and BLM barely any other jobs were considered. Most people even soloed everything with mules during that era to keep all the drops to themselves. If you think Delve is restrictive then you are nuts... You can practically destroy any delve zone with any DD job as long as you have a conventional support line.