WoEs

[Gallus]

inb4 2 and everyone starts bitchin

[Francisco]

I think the best system to start with is #1 - to allow players to continue to do this solo or in small groups.

I suggest the following changes:

1: The player who first initiates the battlefield can select loot distribution rules and combat rules.

- The player can select to allow public lotting or lotting only by people in the alliance who defeated the monster. (This will prevent uninvited people from entering and casting lots without helping in any way.)

- The player can select to allow or disallow people outside of an alliance to assist on a claimed enemy. (This will prevent uninvited people from "tagging" a mob or "kill-stealing" to obtain lotting rights.)

2: Adjust the battlefields to encourage both "organized group" and "solo" play.

I will use Crabs as an example...

- Crabs will appear in six groups of 4-5.

» Damask Crab x2, Cyanic Crab x2, Caldera Crab x1
» Damask Crab x4, Caldera Crab x1
» Cyanic Crab x4, Caldera Crab x1
» Damask Crab x2, Cyanic Crab x2
» Damask Crab x4
» Cyanic Crab x4

- Pulling a Caldera Crab will cause the lesser mobs of it's group to assist it, but pulling smaller crabs will not cause the Caldera Crab to attack.

- Cyanic and Damask Crabs will occasionally repop if they are killed and assist the corresponding Caldera Crab if it is being attacked

- Cyanic and Damask Crabs become susceptible to Sleep, Bind and Gravity.

- Cyanic and Damask Crabs become able to be staggered. Staggering one of these enemies gives a small chance for everyone in the battlefield to receive a time extension, temporary items or a boost to attributes.

- Bosses will no longer "investigate" defeated enemies. Up to two Cyanic or Damask Crabs may still exhibit this behavior. Monsters exhibiting this behavior will only be aggressive to the alliance who defeated the original enemy while on their patrol.

3: Reward System

Again, I will use Crabs as an example...

- Cyanic and Damask Crabs will occasionally drop one or two coins.

- Caldera Crabs will drop two or three coins and one or two frayed pouches.

- Defeating a Caldera Crab will grant a Treasure Casket containing several items which can include Frayed Pouches, Dynamis Currency, Alexanderites, Empyrean Armor Upgrade Items, high level equipment and synthesis materials. Only the alliance which defeated the Caldera Crab may cast lots on these items.

- Defeating all three Caldera Crabs will grant a Treasure Casket. This casket will have unique rewards for each participant. Your reward will be determined based on your overall performance.

- Players may choose from two options to share unwanted treasure:
» Add to alliance treasure pool.
» Add to public treasure pool.

4: Grief tactics countermeasures.

- If a Caldera Crab is held by a player or group of players for a certain period of time without being significantly damaged, it will temporarily go into a rage mode.

- If a player dies or leaves the area when being attacked or chased by monsters, those monsters will despawn and reappear at their original location, unless someone else is on the hate list.

[larrymc]

2 - once per game day - mobs in instanced fights are still soloable.

[Ziyyigo-Tipyigo]

1

Yeah, I know, losing proposition, but I'd rather see what "reward revamps" look like before throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Speaking of, why not a modification of the Union system from campaign battle? Rather than showering rewards on people on an individual basis, let parties or alliances pool their points for a single loot pool, shared exclusively among them?

The modification I would make is restricting membership to such a WoE union to only people in the same party or alliance. This would let groups have their exclusivity without effectively locking out individuals from even participating in the battle.

As for the solo players who'd be locked out from joining such a union, crank up the drop rates of Ex items (/cough coins /cough). If they wanted frayed pouches or salable items (spells, equipment), they'd probably have to go through some sort of organizing process, but if they'd rather just grind through their magian trial on their own they'd at least have a realistic chance.

Or, for the sake of making implementation easier, enroll soloers into an "everybody else" union automatically.

[Alhanelem]

If it's supposed to be once per GAME day (as it is currently) then I vote for 2).

Otherwise, I vote 1), for one reason only.

only being able to enter once a day would stink. The rate of reward obtainment would have to be a LOT higher if it were limited to once a day.

if that once a day clause was removed, I would change my vote in an instant.

[Kirschy]

Howdy!

As there has been quite a lot of feedback already on the topic of Walk of Echoes adjustments, we’d just like to confirm the type of system everyone really wants, one more time.

We’d like to decide what the best option for the renewed system is based on your feedback, so please post your opinions by 7/18 (Monday).


(1)Original open-access system

•Proceed with adjustments based on the current system.

(2)Change to reservation system

•For the reservation system, we are planning to make it similar to regular battlefields. It will be different than Dynamis and Assault.
•Planning to make entry limited to once per real world day.

We are also looking into the below regardless of which system we chose to adopt:

•Reward revamps
•Item drop rate on regular monsters
•Difficulty level of Magian-related trials that require different types of coins

When responding to this post, We ask that you please begin your post with "1" or "2" so that we can easily tally the votes up during our information gathering.

2

I very much enjoy linkshell/group related activities. Free-for-all stuff like Campaign and Besieged while fun at times, rarely reaches it's potential. Being able to schedule events with a group of friends works out great. Bonus points if WoE is setup so that pickup groups can still enter and be rewarded.

I'd realli love to see some challenging WoE fluxes that involve strategy and team work. Granting rewards to people who have some mild success, and extra rewards for teams who can complete the event. I'm also largely in favor of rewarding the group and individuals. I'm strongly against additional rewards for performance. The jobs are not created equal, their roles are not equal, and all it does is stifle working together for a common goal. Reward a group for performance by completing a flux in 20 minutes, instead of using up the whole 30 minutes. Extra rewards like that force the group to learn new strategies and find ways to enhance their performance.

[AyinDygra]

(Most likely #1) My answer would depend on several factors.

The original open-access system is a fine concept. The problems I see are:

Distribution of Rewards and Monster Difficulty and Behavior Quirks:
The event was designed around rewarding personal contribution to the battle similar to Campaign (almost identical) which favors anyone who can survive a monster's assault until its death, deal lots of damage, heal their own damage, enfeeble the monster, etc. People who focus only on healing others, or only dealing damage, or only tanking (highly specialized roles) are penalized for performing their roles in strategies meant for large groups to take down extremely powerful foes. As a stand-alone feature, this has worked in Campaign (debatable). This is because several Campaign features are designed to allow this to work that are not present within WoE. These being: temporary items, NPCs that heal and raise people, NPCs and "targets" to help fight multiple enemies so they're not all focused on players, among others.

All of those Campaign features allow players to go in solo, fight monsters, and get rewards. Most solo players can't stand up to the bosses, but you don't really have to fight bosses (usually they're avoided unless you have an organized group). WoE's version of "Campaign Unions" essentially includes everyone in one big group.

The way rewards in WoE are handled runs contrary to the solo nature of this system because of the challenges faced within and the actions and choices required by participants. Most monsters in WoE have unusual hate and linking behaviors that require participants to be in groups to handle multiple monsters, and you can't even think of touching bosses on your own, so there's no chance of getting the chests from a full clear.

Identity Crisis
The devs have to decide if they want the Walk of Echoes event to be solo or group oriented and then design the content and reward system around that.

If it's supposed to be the solo method of obtaining the lesser-Empyrean weapons and a few nice pieces of gear on our own time, without needing a linkshell to coordinate schedules, something that can be done in short bursts...

Then the enemies must not have the special hate systems and linking potential that makes soloing nearly impossible in most battlefields of the event. Most of the rewards should be obtained from killing the non-boss enemies. Killing the bosses would still be required to progress with opening new battlefields (but a party of 6 random people on jobs that can normally solo the non-boss monsters in the battlefield should be able to defeat the bosses. For example, this means no spamming of highly damaging AoE attacks.)

It may be best to include a currency similar to Einherjar's Ampoules of Therion Ichor to reward participants from each kill based on their performance, similar to Bastion, to spend on items purchased from an NPC, which would remove much of the controversy surrounding the "drops" issue. People would attend on the jobs they currently bring to Campaign, fully expecting to be solo.

If it's a group oriented event that requires full linkshells with groups of tanks and healers and damage dealers all working at their peak performance to clear the different challenges, gathering at set times, rewarding their members for attendance or whatever other whims they may have...

Then the current monster setup is fine with the changes to the system listed in option #2. This way, groups could coordinate properly for the events and hand out rewards according to their own agreed upon systems (not that I think this is any more fair in some cases - I prefer in-game point systems if you hadn't guessed). Using the currency system of Einherjar would equally reward all participants in the battlefield for performing whatever role their group assigns to them for their strategy, not relying on arbitrary game code to reward each person for what the algorithm decides is worth whatever reward they get.

However, this would mean that it is no longer geared toward the casual obtaining of the lesser-Empyrean weapons. People may start treating WoE like Dynamis of old, and it will likely share many of its problems. Coins would have to drop much more freely, especially if entry is limited to once per real day (I think once per game day is fine.) These changes would make the event a hybrid of Dynamis/Einherjar.

With all that said, I'd prefer option number 1 (with associated changes) because I don't have an organized linkshell anymore that would devote itself to scheduled events of this sort. Abyssea decimated the one I was in, and the server merge finished it off. I think a lot of people are in my position, since most goals can be accomplished with small groups of 3-6 people these days - there isn't as high of a demand for big linkshells that can gather groups of 18+ at the same time on a regular basis.

[Kenthedeviant]

1

(1) Although SOME people do abuse the lotting system by leeching, or even worse IMO, people thinking they control the zone and make all the rules, HOWEVER, unless you increase droprates by 10,000%, the "entering once per RL day" is just absurd and will NEVER work. People will give up on WoE altogether, and never touch it again. Even with being able to spam it once per gameday, even as a trio, I would sometimes go 10 hours of spamming without getting a SINGLE COIN that I could use! If this is switched to once per RL day without DRAMATICALLY increasing droprates, then no one will EVER finish their weapons. Additionally, if we choose the second option, and it goes to being reserved, rather than instanced, solo players will constantly tie up the zone, preventing others from entering, so even attempting to get your coins will be the equivalent of beating a dead horse.

For the LOVE OF GOD, please do not make WoE worse than it already is... anyone who has worked their butt off for a WoE weapon already knows how awful the droprates already are, and if our ability to spam it multiple times per day is taken away or if they let someone else reserve it and lock us out goes through, then WoE will be completely dead for everyone.

[Catmato]

1
Most people seem to claim to want 2, but really want a 3rd option that wasn't offered.

[wolfshadow]

2
Whatever makes WoE more bearable than it is now would be grand