[dev1015] Still no Abyssea VNM adjustments still a major point of congestion

[Habiki]

Dunno about the rest but T3s are 15minute repops in heroes zones last I checked.

Maybe i was just thinking of scars and visions zones.

[Airget]

Sorry for the late response on this topic! I know there have been quite a few threads about this, but we got a chance to speak to the development team and they provided some feedback.

Currently the development team is looking into making adjustments to the rate in which the demilune abyssite changes color (no plans to make these adjustments to VNMs outside of Abyssea). However, they currently have no plans of increasing the number of VNM spawns. Since the degree of difficulty between Empyrean Weapon related monsters and VNMs is so different, even if we simply increase the amount of VNM spawns like we increased the amount of “???,” the results of the adjustments will not be the same. To be a bit more concrete, for Empyrean +2 items and Empyrean weapons you need to spend time gathering multiple trigger or key items and likewise for VNMs you need to spend time changing the abyssite.

There's a little error in the comment being made, while you do say "multiple triggers" are needed for certain NMs, there is the case of heroes, where you only need 1 KI to pop the mob, Heck with the zone bosses it's only 1 timed NM or you can get it out of a chest, and with the ease of just farming gold chest for KI you can easily obtain 3-5 KI in the time it may take to receive 1 tier 3 VNM pop.

Truth be told the error lies in the balance with +2 obtained from the scars area, while you may believed it's balanced as it stands now the VNMs that drop the 1-3 of the +2 are a pain to obtain compared to other KI, in the time it takes to just farm other pops you could have 1-3 of a single NM in the time it takes to actually obtain the tier 3 pop trigger. Also in some zones unlike other timed NMs most of the tier 2 VNMs can be soloed which just bottlenecks the ability to obtain the tier 3 even more.

Also in heroes areas the "Empyrean weapon" NMs aren't to tough to obtain if you have gil, or again farm gold chest. To obtain Apademak it takes Snow God Core, Sisyphus Fragment, High-Quality Marid Hide. Snow God Core is a popped NM that is easy enough to kill and spam, the golem is a timed one next to the NM witha stingy drop rate however, you can obtain the item from gold chest. Then the HQ marid hide is an easy enough drop from the marid nead apademak spawn. After obtaining those you can easily pop the Dhorme Khimari, trigger red and obtain the KI, then you can easily rinse and repeat this process without having to wait 15 mins. After that you can just go to Apademak and spam him within having to wait for others or even then 15min respawn in between.

The problem with VNMs is this, you have tier 1 which is instant respawn and multiple, then you have tier 2 which there is only 1 of and a 15 min respawn, then the same is said for tier 3. So while you can easily stockpile and spam fight a majority of the NMs, VNMs are very restricted by the only way to obtain them is through the abyssite and spamming /heal and hoping you beat out the competition.

If you take a look at all the information relating to abyssea you would notice that the VNMs are very restricted and changing the % of tier 3 change isn't really going to help much for those who might need to fight the NM a few times.

Overall I find the argument about how it's balanced kind of weak, a real balance would be that you could either keep the tier 2 the same and make 3 ??? for the tier 3 or add the tier 3 KI to the gold chest KI list.

But ya, this just comes experience of spending 3hrs farming the tier 2 VNM with no competition and getting no color change when I know in that same time I could have easily obtained a set of 3-5 pops of another +2 NM.

The simple formula is 1-2 pop NM KI, and then 1 15 min KI, however you even made that moot in the last update when you allowed the 15min KI to be obtained in big gold chest, so had those 15min KI not been added in the KI list of gold chest your argument would hold. However since competition for those 15 mins NMs is alleviated how does it really make it much different from the VNMS?

Another suggestion perhaps have it so that only a person with a colored abyssite can obtain the tier 3 KI in the gold chest if they are willing to upgrade it. The chest could be something like "The chest is filled with an aura that resonates with the Colorful demilune abyssite". Then upon accepting it your orb would change color.

Just if you can get back to your dev team and perhaps inquire to them that while they have created additional ways to obtain KI and added ??? to a majority of other NMs they haven't done anything to do the same for VNMs.

[Khajit]

VNM are hard to claim?

[Zetonegi]

When there are 3 or 4 other parties trying to claim, it gets quite hard unless you're cheating.

[Lukielucas]

VNM are hard to claim?

Yes and No

It's all depends on how quick you are with /heal and how many people are competing for the VNM

Personally this system had made me very unhappy and even with the proposed change that the developers are thinking of, makes me wanna decide about my future with FFXI cos i use to play religioniously every day and now i'm barely on more than 2 hours a day cos i'm sick with being in abyssea too much cos i'm trying to complete my trials but sick of having to compete with LS's...

And I'm halfway thru my empy upgrade and yet I just gone off the idea of doing it again cos i hate the fact that i have to farm 3x KI to get a measly 1-2 items and also fight the NM 25+ times... It gets very very VERY boring doing the same thing over and over again....

[GlobalVariable]

This congestion just encourages people to cheat to get it done and over with.

I've been reporting it since it began and nothing was done. In another thread
someone links this youtube video and now its fixed (until cheaters update their programs)...Why do we have the STF again?

Last night I watched someone repeatedly claim a T2 the exact moment it was up on a single rest 7 times in a row. The repop timer would end, I'd rest to get a direction, the other person didn't rest just ran straight to the spot sat and popped. Every time. That seems pretty unlikely without the previously fixed cheat. In before people bunch of post pretending we all don't know what happened just like we didn't "know" all those people claim botted HNM for YEARS...

The entire invisible monster thing was a horrible horrible idea.

[Khajit]

When there are 3 or 4 other parties trying to claim, it gets quite hard unless you're cheating.

The last major update broke all of the ways to cheat for VNM (probably permanently) so cheating isn't an issue and while I cant remember dealing with 4 parties 3 parties isn't so bad. Unless it's a t3 it's really not that tough and t3 is only hard due to the respawn time.
PS this entire make more spawns in heroes zone tack people are going on is stupid. It would be easier/better to just make the other abyssea zone vnm drop souls. I'd honestly expected them to do that during the last major patch.

[Alhanelem]

This congestion just encourages people to cheat to get it done and over with.

Last night I watched someone repeatedly claim a T2 the exact moment it was up on a single rest 7 times in a row. The repop timer would end, I'd rest to get a direction, the other person didn't rest just ran straight to the spot sat and popped. Every time. That seems pretty unlikely without the previously fixed cheat. In before people bunch of post pretending we all don't know what happened just like we didn't "know" all those people claim botted HNM for YEARS...

The entire invisible monster thing was a horrible horrible idea.

There are radar programs out there that show you exactly where the VNMs are, even without having the appropriate abyssite. The server sends you information on this and this is how it was learned that VNMs are literally just invisible unaggressive mobs that attack you when certain conditions (kneeling with abyssite in hand) are met.

This is also how some people can fight only the tier2 VNM they want in the original areas where there are two in each zone.

I appriciate how this gave us insight into the system, and it wasn't much of a problem when VNMs came out, but now that there's actually heavy competition for them, it has become a serious problem and I wish those programs would go away.

[Rie]

From what I heard, they don't show up on those radar programs anymore due to the changes in the last update.

[Alhanelem]

The only way they can break it permanently is to not have the relevant information sent to the client. But then you can't get the distance and direction if you kneel (well, it would be lagged as it would have to ask the server).

So it won't remain broken forever, unless they can fix the underlying reason of why it worked in the first place.