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  1. #1
    Player Castanica's Avatar
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    Nov 2012
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    Suggestions to improve Ambuscade

    The Key item:
    This is honestly the most boring part of this whole process, going to get 10 kills on EP mobs every time is very tedious. I don't really have any suggestion on how to improve this without causing more congestion but it is annoying (for instance allowing 4 KI to be stored was an idea I had but that would cause issues with players spamming to enter over and over). Maybe changing the target mobs on a daily rotation might help the monotony, going to kill the same mobs over and over, day after day is part of the problem.

    The Ambuscade dungeon:
    The basic placeholder dungeon should change every month. I know it's classed as legion content and the devs like things to be kept ordered according to the lore but considering how much of this we are going to be doing this it's getting boring. mamook dungeon rooms, aydewa all exist.

    I guess this won't change due to them being incredibly strict with the lore and different tile sets not making sense but a change really would liven it up a bit. Maybe they could write a little text to explain how someone from another region wanted help too and came to get our help with it...or something.

    Jade sepulcher single dungeons tileset example:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLZWtOGYVLg


    The reward NPC:
    Can the NPC to trade items / get rewards from either be put away from the Ambuscade entrace NPC or clones put in starter cities? FFXI players love standing afk at these npcs and trading 20+ times in that situation is incredibly annoying.

    The rewards:
    The armor is great, pretty much all the rewards are.
    The capes however should have a way to rename them, maybe add an npc to +1, +2 capes so that you can actually have multiples and then be able to macro them in without using 3rd party programs. If I want a TP cape and a WS cape, I can't because they are all called the same thing and macros won't work in that situation.

    Abdhaljs Seal (triple reward boosters):
    Put these on login campaigns, make it a 2k (3k?) item that's sendable on the same account. It encourages people to get more alts, adds a greatly in-demand item to login-campaigns and lessens the very long grind a little.

    Feel free to add more if you can think of anything to improve it, I'm sure the devs are looking for suggestions on how to improve this content since they are going to be working on a it long time.
    (9)

  2. #2
    Player Zeldar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Posts
    328
    Character
    Zeldar
    World
    Sylph
    Main Class
    BLU Lv 99
    Nice post Castanica. I can get behind everything you said, some great ideas. With the interest in synergy finally being addressed, maybe cape naming could be a synergy recipe. Synergize your cape with a needle to get something on the cape to differentiate it from others with the same name. I'm not saying to give them additional stats, just something cosmetic to address the issue of macro usage. I REALLY love the log-in idea. It addresses 2 needs: the need for more hallmarks and the need to keep log-in campaigns useful. Some have really been bad lately. This 1 highly sought-after item would make any log-in campaign great.
    (0)

  3. #3
    Community Rep Camate's Avatar
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    Mar 2011
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    1,712
    Thanks for all of the ideas! We've passed on all your suggestions to the team.

    In terms of improvements that we are working on at the moment, to better reward you for your efforts in Intense Ambuscade, we are looking into increasing the amount of Hallmarks earned upon completion. (Gallantry will remain unchanged.)

    The team is currently in the process of making adjustments so you receive double the current amount, and we are hoping to get this implemented as early as next week. We hope that this creates more of an incentive to bump the challenge up a bit more and head into Intense Ambuscade!

    We'll follow up if we hear anything further about the suggestions listed in this thread.
    (8)
    Devin "Camate" Casadey - Community Team

  4. #4
    Player
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
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    60
    Quote Originally Posted by Camate View Post
    Thanks for all of the ideas! We've passed on all your suggestions to the team.

    In terms of improvements that we are working on at the moment, to better reward you for your efforts in Intense Ambuscade, we are looking into increasing the amount of Hallmarks earned upon completion. (Gallantry will remain unchanged.)

    The team is currently in the process of making adjustments so you receive double the current amount, and we are hoping to get this implemented as early as next week. We hope that this creates more of an incentive to bump the challenge up a bit more and head into Intense Ambuscade!

    We'll follow up if we hear anything further about the suggestions listed in this thread.
    Usually nobody does Intense Ambuscade because it is horrendously inefficient time wise and the difficulty is unreasonable due to cheesy mechanics. You guys still don't understand that mob enfeeble/TP spam is a major problem.

    I think only a very small part of the game pop could make IA efficient. Which means you're spending development time on changes that only affect an incredibly small part of the population. I'm not saying that you need to make it easier. I'm saying it needs to be less cheesy and less broken, because it's got the same problem the rest of end game has. I don't see people attempting the IA VD clear other than a few times to use their seals on it.

    It would be nice to have another way of getting the seals, considering most of us are forced to spam the regular fight. It's incredibly tedious between zone load times, que times, fighting with other people for the RoE mobs... I think it's time to consider some QoL improvements regarding this. It may even alleviate some congestion if you give people a way to farm them, maybe through HTBF. It would spread people out, doing different activities, so not everyone is in the same exact spots doing the same exact thing.

    Are you able to pull any statistics as to who is clearing what with regards to ambuscade? I'd be surprised if even 5% of the population is spamming IA for hallmarks/gallantry, monthly RoE aside.
    (7)
    Last edited by Mookies75; 08-05-2016 at 04:13 AM.

  5. #5
    Player Fae's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2015
    Posts
    76
    Character
    Flupplewolfe
    World
    Bahamut
    Main Class
    SCH Lv 99
    Quote Originally Posted by Mookies75 View Post
    Usually nobody does Intense Ambuscade because it is horrendously inefficient time wise and the difficulty is unreasonable due to cheesy mechanics. You guys still don't understand that mob enfeeble/TP spam is a major problem.

    I think only a very small part of the game pop could make IA efficient. Which means you're spending development time on changes that only affect an incredibly small part of the population. I'm not saying that you need to make it easier. I'm saying it needs to be less cheesy and less broken, because it's got the same problem the rest of end game has. I don't see people attempting the VD clear other than a few times to use their seals on it.

    It would be nice to have another way of getting the seals, considering most of us are forced to spam the regular fight. It's incredibly tedious between zone load times, que times, fighting with other people for the RoE mobs... I think it's time to consider some QoL improvements regarding this.

    Are you able to pull any statistics as to who is clearing what with regards to ambuscade? I'd be surprised if even 5% of the population is spamming IA for hallmarks/gallantry, monthly RoE aside.
    I know someone who would tribox the intense quadav, and lead a melee party with brd for the yagudo intense and used multiple tanks for the goblin intense. With the points as they are, they were already better points per hour over normal in most cases, especially if you used seals. In fact even if you do it slow, it's worth it for anyone to use the 2 seals a month on VD and farm it at least that much. The mechanics of a fight aren't cheesy or broken just because you don't like them. I feel the fights have been very well designed and exciting, a lot more than just enter and do damage till something is dead and get healed so you don't die which a lot of the game ends up being. Gimmicks can go too far, like delve goes too far with it in my opinion but some people like that better than anything else. It's good for the game to have variety like this. Intense doesn't imply it's for everyone, it takes work, other good players and game knowledge to tackle it, and gives those types of players something to work toward and have fun doing. Throwing conjecture numbers out there like 5% based off personal experience doesn't really help anyone, among some I play with at least 40% have farmed Intense with full groups for it, several times, and found it faster than normal. All this will do is make it so they farm points even faster, and further distance themselves from players doing normal. Even if they removed all the mechanics you don't like to let you win easily, they would still farm way faster because they have very good gear and attentive team mates to achieve quick farming, all that would really do is make the fights less dangerous and way more boring and way less entertaining. Farming can get a bit boring but at one point I had a group farming a KI having the mage sub blm and everyone zoned quickly and we'd sometimes be back into the fight itself in less than 1.5 mins. Having at least one person in your group use warp II and another that can one shot mobs aoe is essential to a great group.
    (2)

  6. 08-05-2016 04:39 AM

  7. #6
    Player
    Join Date
    Jun 2011
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    60
    Quote Originally Posted by Fae View Post
    I know someone who would tribox the intense quadav, and lead a melee party with brd for the yagudo intense and used multiple tanks for the goblin intense. With the points as they are, they were already better points per hour over normal in most cases, especially if you used seals. In fact even if you do it slow, it's worth it for anyone to use the 2 seals a month on VD and farm it at least that much. The mechanics of a fight aren't cheesy or broken just because you don't like them. I feel the fights have been very well designed and exciting, a lot more than just enter and do damage till something is dead and get healed so you don't die which a lot of the game ends up being. Gimmicks can go too far, like delve goes too far with it in my opinion but some people like that better than anything else. It's good for the game to have variety like this. Intense doesn't imply it's for everyone, it takes work, other good players and game knowledge to tackle it, and gives those types of players something to work toward and have fun doing. Throwing conjecture numbers out there like 5% based off personal experience doesn't really help anyone, among some I play with at least 40% have farmed Intense with full groups for it, several times, and found it faster than normal. All this will do is make it so they farm points even faster, and further distance themselves from players doing normal. Even if they removed all the mechanics you don't like to let you win easily, they would still farm way faster because they have very good gear and attentive team mates to achieve quick farming, all that would really do is make the fights less dangerous and way more boring and way less entertaining. Farming can get a bit boring but at one point I had a group farming a KI having the mage sub blm and everyone zoned quickly and we'd sometimes be back into the fight itself in less than 1.5 mins. Having at least one person in your group use warp II and another that can one shot mobs aoe is essential to a great group.
    1) Seals are not a renewable resource. I even addressed it saying that the only point to do IA VD would be to use your two seals.
    2) Congrats on knowing one person that thinks it's efficient using illegal 3rd party apps to "tri box" the content. Wonder what other 3rd party apps they use?
    3) Congrats on being in an endgame LS of capable players that want to take you with them. Not everyone is as fortunate, in fact most people are not.
    4) The passive aggressive personal attacks serve nobody but you and your ego.
    5) You're throwing as much conjecture out there as you claim I am. I actually asked if they had any way of tracking the actual numbers, read what you quoted, last lines. I didn't realize the prefix "I'd be surprised if," or "I think," meant the thing I'm about to say is 100% factual.
    6) Everyone knows about warp2, aoe'ing mobs, etc. It's clear speed and danger I was referring to. Kind of obvious.
    7) Read before responding. I didn't ask them to make it easier, I said TP spam and Enfeeble spam are a major cheesy difficulty increase issue in pretty much every part of end game, which is true. And it made IA an inefficient dangerous option for 90% of the game pop.
    8) I've seen two shouts in two months for IA, both were for the monthly clears. I'm on a high pop server as well with crazy high pug requirements. You may be sitting pretty in your glass house, but the rest of us rabble are having a tough time.
    (3)
    Last edited by Mookies75; 08-05-2016 at 05:37 AM.

  8. #7
    Player Stompa's Avatar
    Join Date
    Aug 2012
    Location
    Remora
    Posts
    655
    Character
    Nebula
    World
    Leviathan
    Main Class
    PUP Lv 99
    The KI farming is a bad system, any system that makes half the server go hunting for the same handful of mobs every ten minutes is a bad system, and goes against the whole ethos of recent QOL Statements, about making the game less competition-based.

    Ergo, we stopped developing the incredibly popular NM system which made FFXI so very popular in the beginning, where players could go into the wilderness and hunt rare NMs by slaying placeholders. We felt it was making people compete for the same mobs and causing friction in the community. But here's Ambuscade, where instead of staying in one zone killing placeholders for a NM you really want to spawn, with maybe five other people competing for the same NM and placeholders,you will be warping back-and-forth every ten minutes to kill endless placeholder-type mobs, with half the server doing the same thing.

    I loved farming NMs, I enjoyed hanging around a camp chatting to my friends while we killed placeholders. NM camping meant you could stay in one zone and farm, just like Dynamis and Abyssea farming. It was somewhere you could go and spend time, without warping every five minutes. I didn't mind killing placeholders, because the excitement element of "will the NM pop at any moment" made it worthwhile. Also, if the NM dropped your item it was over. You didn't have to get hundreds of items from the NM, it was one NM, one piece of treasure. It worked for me. I'm currently farming Dyes for my 80% completed cape, and as I'm solo, I'm looking at 100~ Easy/Normal fights, with 700~ placeholder type mobs to be killed (which the rest of the server is also trying to kill) and zoning 500x~. All this just for STR+10 on my cape. This does not work for me.

    I think the KI is a big issue. But more fundamental is the fact that they tied Cape Augmenting Difficulty to "Free armours". I don't want the Ambuscade armours, I like my Delve2, Alluvion, Escha armours. They were fine with me, I spent ages earning them and I like them. So I genuinely don't want Ambuscade armours. I just wanted the cape. And since the capes are tied to the armours, this means that I have to farm the battles a lot just for dyes, for STR+10 augment. This unreasonable amount of graft for STR+10, is due to the Ambuscade system of giving out HQ armours for free, while farming capes. Armours that I do not even claim with my points.

    So I think it would have been better to make two separate Ambuscades for people who want the 119 armour sets, with all the current grind which exists because of them being HQ 119 armour sets. And a lower-grind system for people who just wanted the capes, they are after all just capes. This could be two battle systems, in two locations, reducing congestion. Similar to how I didn't block up alluvion skirmish Armour battlefields when I wanted my Reive JSE cape.
    (3)

  9. #8
    Player OmnysValefor's Avatar
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    Oct 2012
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    1,186
    Stompa, I agree wholeheartedly with the points about key item and disagree about the armors. Since the armors (as well as some dyes) are part of total hallmarks, they aren't doing you any harm by being present and aren't affecting the prices of what you choose to spend points on.

    I'm extremely grateful for most of these sets in both their capability to help returning players and capability to fill weaker slots on other jobs, like Megha... being a great -pdt set for thf/dnc/bst etc lacking pdt gear.

    Any event where you spend more time acquiring the entry requirement/fee than actually participating in the event is a bad design.

    And they really really need to improve the cape trading... 50 (60 with dyes, right?) trades for a cape is an awful waste of time.
    (2)

  10. 08-05-2016 08:21 AM

  11. #9
    Player Olor's Avatar
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    Mar 2011
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    2,134
    It's not just STR +10... it is STR +10 on a cape with a whole lot of other nice stats on it tho.
    (1)
    http://photobucket.com/gallery/http://s19.photobucket.com/user/soulchld4/media/Olorinus-Signature.jpg.html

  12. #10
    Player Zeldar's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2013
    Posts
    328
    Character
    Zeldar
    World
    Sylph
    Main Class
    BLU Lv 99
    The system to get the KI intentionally draws you away from Mhaura for a time to free up congestion. It was a well planned mechanic of the battle system . More time getting the KI = less people trying to enter at once. It serves a needed purpose

    As for intense ambuscade, like you said people don't do it because it is inefficient. That is why they are looking into raising the reward for it. if you can do intense on normal as easily as regular on VD and get more rewards, its wort it to do both. It will be much more efficient to do intense then regular every time . Intense is not un-winnable at all. There are plenty of people willing to do it for the challenge and to break the monotony of spamming regular.
    (0)

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