Availability of HMPs, Riftcinders, Riftdross

[Rydal]

Ambuscade did not help the HMP situation much at all. 1. HMP collecting is still a ridiculous grind and/or money pit even with the changes/additions. 2. Ambuscade limits the amount of currency you can obtain so even if you were able to spam it consistently, it'd take you 7+ months to get your Empyrean to 95 on Ambuscade alone.

Please help make these weapons more obtainable. At least make them guaranteed drops from the NMs via proc or normal drop. All other weapons have their currency guaranteed, why is Empyrean so much more difficult?

[detlef]

You're missing the point. Ambuscade isn't great, and yet it's still roughly as good as VW during a campaign intended to make VW as easy and quick as possible which also coincides with new improvements that make VW even easier to spam.

Voidwatch needs serious adjustments.

[Rydal]

I don't see what my post said that "missed" anything your post said. The fact that Ambuscade is about the same as grinding VW during the campaign (which isn't necessarily true but for argument's sake, let's say that it is), doesn't take away from the fact that the entire empyrean 95/99 system is ridiculously more difficult, expensive and time-consuming than both mythic and relic base to 119. My point still stands that Ambuscade limits you on how many of each item you can get so you'd still need to buy the rest or go back to the jacked up VW system until the next month, effectively negating the reason for doing VW for HMP/rift. Also, considering that Ambuscade offers unique prizes (capes at the moment) to spend Hallmarks on, there's an even bigger grind to get the maximum amount of HMP/rift for the month.

[Catmato]

Also, considering that Ambuscade offers unique prizes (capes at the moment) to spend Hallmarks on

Capes are not the unique reward; they're the permanent reward. See: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...292#post576288

[Rydal]

Capes are not the unique reward; they're the permanent reward. See: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...292#post576288

Unique meaning you can't obtain them outside of Ambuscade, not unique as in they are a temporary reward. We also don't know if or when there will be other unique rewards that we can obtain from Ambuscade so spending Hallmarks on HMP and rift items, while consistent and about equal to VW during the campaign, it isn't a fix to the issue.

[detlef]

You totally missed the point. Both of Voidwatch and Ambuscade suck for generating HMP. The point is that it's particularly obvious that Voidwatch is broken because right now, under the very best circumstances, its HMP generation is still only on par with Ambuscade (which, as we both agree, also sucks at generating HMP).

[BurnNotice]

I would like to share some other feedback. I spoke with at least 4 people yesterday that spent the entire day ( they fought Qillin, Uptala, and Aello at minimum 400 times) farming HMPs. The results varied but for these people to fight these NMs well over 400 times and can account for only 150 HMPs or less. Talk about a big disappointment.

[BurnNotice]

I was reminded to ask this question or two: Why not permanently make HMP pouches give 15? Even better, why not make pouches give between 15~50?

[Diavolo]

To quote Byrth's posts from another forum:

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With 9 Heavy Metal Plates per pouch average, 6% chance of pouch drops, that works out to 0.54 plates per Zilart VW T3 kill.
Kaggen/Pil/Akvan are 0.35 plates/kill and drop crafting materials for armor upgrades.
Morta/Bismarck are 0.13 plates/kill but also drop Rift items 6% of the time and crafting materials

It takes roughly 3500 Voidstones to farm a 99 Empyrean. At 2 voidstone recharges/day, that's 4.8 years worth of voidstones on one character. Clears (before the voidwatch time reducing KIs), a little squandering here and there, and you're up near 5 years worth of voidstone recharges.

Voidwatch has been out since May of 2011. Congrats to anyone who has been saving up stones since then because you can finally solo a level 99 Empyrean without buying anything or making a second account.
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How can you look at those numbers, then look at the state of the game today, and not see how ridiculously unbalanced the quest for 99 Empyrean weapons is?

[BurnNotice]

Tonight, killed Aello 36 times and not a single HMP pouch. So much time wasted.