Was Ambuscade too popular?

[Vanfrano]

The problem is that they presented Ambuscade as content aimed at everyone, from soloers to top-geared players.

The Gallantry system is perfectly fine because, indeed, party play should be rewarded but we can't deny the fact that a lot of players are now playing solo in FFXI for different reasons, the dev team itself keeps adding ways to make soloing a possibility. I am not saying that the whole game should be soloable, it is not anyway but they should really be more careful with how they handle content, especially when they themselves say that a type of content is aimed at all players.

The choice of monsters for this month Ambuscade is clearly saying "we don't want you to solo" so they should either remove the possibility to enter solo altogether or change what they added. Gallantry was enough of an addition, if you party you get rewarded more, simple as that. Gallantry and the Tauri is more of : if you party you get rewarded more but if you solo you get punished.

Soloers are a non-negligible part of today's FFXI, whether we like it or not, they pay their fees just like everyone else and should be able to play the way they want to -again, especially when SE says "this content is for everyone"-. It takes 145 Volume 2 runs on Normal to get the whole set, that is work, it should be difficult and I don't think most soloers don't enjoy difficulty, on the contrary, but out of all the monsters in the game, chosing ones with mechanics such as Doom and Hundred Fists is punishing and it is clear it is not an innocent choice, even more so knowing how unreliable Cursna is.

[xiozen]

The problem is that they presented Ambuscade as content aimed at everyone, from soloers to top-geared players.

The Gallantry system is perfectly fine because, indeed, party play should be rewarded but we can't deny the fact that a lot of players are now playing solo in FFXI for different reasons, the dev team itself keeps adding ways to make soloing a possibility. I am not saying that the whole game should be soloable, it is not anyway but they should really be more careful with how they handle content, especially when they themselves say that a type of content is aimed at all players.

The choice of monsters for this month Ambuscade is clearly saying "we don't want you to solo" so they should either remove the possibility to enter solo altogether or change what they added. Gallantry was enough of an addition, if you party you get rewarded more, simple as that. Gallantry and the Tauri is more of : if you party you get rewarded more but if you solo you get punished.

Soloers are a non-negligible part of today's FFXI, whether we like it or not, they pay their fees just like everyone else and should be able to play the way they want to -again, especially when SE says "this content is for everyone"-. It takes 145 Volume 2 runs on Normal to get the whole set, that is work, it should be difficult and I don't think most soloers don't enjoy difficulty, on the contrary, but out of all the monsters in the game, chosing ones with mechanics such as Doom and Hundred Fists is punishing and it is clear it is not an innocent choice, even more so knowing how unreliable Cursna is.

Completely agree with this sentiment... luckily I'm in two linkshells and was able to party for this month's ambuscade; but last month I solo'd it... not everyone would be so fortunate. Perhaps some clearer definition of the intention behind this content should be presented instead of wrapping it in sparkly foil and claiming its cotton candy...

[OmnysValefor]

You wrote several paragraphs about people only being interested in themselves ("wanting faster queues") in defense of soloers, lol.

Soloers are quite clearly only interested in themselves.

[Dale]

I'm assuming it was far too popular because I can see no other reason why the first month offered a set of monsters to fight and a solo monster fight yet this month offers 2 group monsters to fight. What's the point of having 2 tombs with 4 difficulty levels?

The first month the content was aimed at everyone, better geared players could do the more difficult fights for better rewards and everyone else could do the 2nd tomb on a fairly decent difficulty.

This month the "easy 2nd tomb" is 2 monsters, killing one makes the other monster enrage. The taur can use mortal ray and kill you or your pet/trust tank with a pretty good chance of success (cause cursna sucks) and they have party based aggro, so whether you hit the other or not it's going to go and kill your healer.

You really have to make your mind up what you want here, are you offering content for everyone or are you offering content where they have to be carried?

This feels like a bit of a bait and switch.

I would try stocking up on holy waters and spamming those. I had a lot better luck doing that than trying to rely on cursna (which sucks just as you say). I guess the spell requires a gear set to be effective at removing doom. And apparently a pretty good one - because my +15 to Cursna wasn't doing much.

[Pixela]

I would try stocking up on holy waters and spamming those. I had a lot better luck doing that than trying to rely on cursna (which sucks just as you say). I guess the spell requires a gear set to be effective at removing doom. And apparently a pretty good one - because my +15 to Cursna wasn't doing much.

Well the point was that it's been updated with a direct design decision to stop solo players more than anything else, you can't use holy waters on a trust tank or pet. They added Galantry, then they added a mob that can doom and as an added kick they put another mob in there.

I know you can turn or use holy waters, that wasn't the point I was making though. Point was that Square went 10x over what was needed to dissuade people from soloing and directly punish them instead now, probably because the content was more popular than they expected. Instead of just limiting how many times you can enter per day they decided to punish players for doing the content outside of groups. Considering the majority of content available to group players they are really not being very smart here.

Even Blizzard said the secret to their success was making content for everyone and not just the raiders or pvp players.

I guess the truth is the leadership of the game is changing so much they don't know what they want lately though.

[Dale]

Well the point was that it's been updated with a direct design decision to stop solo players more than anything else, you can't use holy waters on a trust tank or pet. They added Galantry, then they added a mob that can doom and as an added kick they put another mob in there.

I know you can turn or use holy waters, that wasn't the point I was making though. Point was that Square went 10x over what was needed to dissuade people from soloing and directly punish them instead now, probably because the content was more popular than they expected. Instead of just limiting how many times you can enter per day they decided to punish players for doing the content outside of groups. Considering the majority of content available to group players they are really not being very smart here.

Even Blizzard said the secret to their success was making content for everyone and not just the raiders or pvp players.

I guess the truth is the leadership of the game is changing so much they don't know what they want lately though.

That doom crap is a pain whether you are in a group or not. So I'm not sure why that mechanic punishes solo players in particular. It's just miserable to deal with all around. So it's likely to dissuade both soloists and groups alike.

I was just letting you know I had more success at getting the doom off by spamming holy waters instead of trying to get it off with that Cursna Spell, which I agreed sucks.

I'll try soloing it on normal later and see how difficult it is. Then I'll have a better idea as to how hard SE is making this new content for soloists using trusts. You may be right on all your points.

I'll add a comment to this thread once I try it out and see.

[detlef]

Pretty much you should be focusing on Escha gear. Especially with the extra drops campaign this month, that's probably something you should prioritize.

Question: do you have friends in-game? 2-3 people can get so much done.

[Olor]

Pretty much you should be focusing on Escha gear. Especially with the extra drops campaign this month, that's probably something you should prioritize.

Question: do you have friends in-game? 2-3 people can get so much done.

No, unfortunately everyone I used to play with has quit. They are either playing single player games or FFXIV. One friend will come back during the free play time to help me out with finding my way to a couple of homepoints but other than that I am on my own.

I used to have a half decent LS but I had to move and I came back to an empty linkshell.

Escha NMs are not soloable by someone in my gear, I don't feel comfortable leading on content I've never done (even after reading the wikis I am not even sure how to pop Escha NMs) and I don't have the playtime to sit in town for 3 hours shouting for a group, regardless.

Ambuscade was perfect. I could solo it. I could do a couple runs in the morning before work, and a couple before bed and make progress. The gear was actually good.

They didn't need to ruin it.

[Diavolo]

Escha NMs are not soloable by someone in my gear

Actually, many of them are. If your item level is 119 and you have spent at least a minimum amount of time getting merit/job points and completing quests/missions to unlock vorseals you'll have have an easy time with Tier 1 NMs in Escha Zitah using a balanced party of trusts, especially now that their stats appear to have been given a significant boost post-update (I just spent an hour soloing Apex mobs with trusts and they had higher accuracy than I did before food). You can get some decent, augmentable gear there and then use that to work your way up to Ru'Aunn NMs.

[Olor]

Actually, many of them are. If your item level is 119 and you have spent at least a minimum amount of time getting merit/job points and completing quests/missions to unlock vorseals you'll have have an easy time with Tier 1 NMs in Escha Zitah using a balanced party of trusts, especially now that their stats appear to have been given a significant boost post-update (I just spent an hour soloing Apex mobs with trusts and they had higher accuracy than I did before food). You can get some decent, augmentable gear there and then use that to work your way up to Ru'Aunn NMs.

Not on my jobs. I've read up on them. I only have BLU/THF/BRD no PLD and no BLM... I have BST but I don't play it since they ruined it.

None of the NMs that drop anything useful for me look soloable on my jobs with my gear and my trusts.

I've read the BG threads - if folks there with trusts like August are struggling to solo things like Vidala my BLU is not going to cut it.