[dev1019] Voidwatch Refinements

[Sparthos]

So I figure this would be the best place to comment on the changes upcoming regarding Voidwatch given the devs want feedback on content.

While the idea itself of Voidwatch being "anti-Abyssea" in its requirement to hit a large number of triggers only possible through bringing a variety of jobs is ideal, there are problems with this that leave the event currently barely desirable.

1. The reward system punishes any attempt to split or share treasure.

While I understand the reason for making treasure personal stems from the old fashioned quarrels over loot which weren't limited to surprise ninja lots and broken alliances, the current treasure system can award one person a R/EX item they cannot use or won't use leaving that awkward feeling of wasting drops.

Could this not have been a point system instead? Or simply introducing an option to put treasure into the lootpool would have sufficed. Either way, the lack of a main lootpool is a huge drawback that leads to unfair loot distribution that favors giving it all to the CPU rather than the architects of the alliance.

From one extreme to the other as it were.

2. Voidstones aren't the problem, rewards are.

With the initial 20hour cooldown on VW, immediately we got an alternative method to use Voiddust in order to access the event more often yet the problem simply is that the rewards are sparse for an event attempting to lure in 12+ man groups.

While this is partially due to no level cap increase, the event demands more work than Abyssea yet barely delivers on that effort. The lack of unique drops and the high likelihood of getting worthless gemstones or ingots is partly why this event is currently simply a novelty.

It's been over a month and some of the treasure from this event hasn't even hit the AH yet. Is that not evidence that the event has not been received well?

Garbage like the Accursed Belt doesn't help either.

3. The !! system is currently in need of refinements.

With the introduction of nearly every job class into the VW !! system, the likelihood of not finding the trigger is extremely high especially when a trigger can seemingly be any spell within an elemental school.

While it can be exciting to have seemingly anything be a proc, the bond between high levels of procs and actually getting something other than gemstones leads to frustration when you cannot !! due to having to rotate through dozens of procs.

If the system is going to be designed to need an alliance or more, the drops honestly need to reflect the diversity of the jobs brought out to battle.

[Kuraudo]

So I figure this would be the best place to comment on the changes upcoming regarding Voidwatch given the devs want feedback on content.

While the idea itself of Voidwatch being "anti-Abyssea" in its requirement to hit a large number of triggers only possible through bringing a variety of jobs is ideal, there are problems with this that leave the event currently barely desirable.

1. The reward system punishes any attempt to split or share treasure.

While I understand the reason for making treasure personal stems from the old fashioned quarrels over loot which weren't limited to surprise ninja lots and broken alliances, the current treasure system can award one person a R/EX item they cannot use or won't use leaving that awkward feeling of wasting drops.

Could this not have been a point system instead? Or simply introducing an option to put treasure into the lootpool would have sufficed. Either way, the lack of a main lootpool is a huge drawback that leads to unfair loot distribution that favors giving it all to the CPU rather than the architects of the alliance.

From one extreme to the other as it were.

As I posted in my thread http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...taining-Spoils, I really think this should be fixed. It's ridiculous that we can't give the drops that we already obtained to someone else by putting it in the treasure pool.

Sweet guys! I got another Strendu Ring that I can't do anything with!

[Runespider]

Never done Voidwatch, it gives the item directly to the popper or?

Maybe they are sick of players selling r/e drops and wanted to try counter it, it existed in HNM times and it exists in Abyssea now. Quite annoying as a dev to see people do this I would imagine.

[Khiinroye]

As I posted in my thread http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...taining-Spoils, I really think this should be fixed. It's ridiculous that we can't give the drops that we already obtained to someone else by putting it in the treasure pool.

Sweet guys! I got another Strendu Ring that I can't do anything with!

My ls does voidwatch, and this is indeed a problem we've seen. We have 2-3 people who tend to get the majority of the drops from their chests (and are on their 3rd / 4th strendu ring) while other people still haven't gotten a single drop from anything.

• A new alignment bonus will be added that will grant players who inflict damage on a weakened enemy a full-spectrum alignment boost based upon the percentage of the monster’s HP depleted.
• A minor full-spectrum alignment bonus will be granted to players based upon their Treasure Hunter effect level.

Could we get a little clarification about this?

Is it a new category of bonus, such as striking weaknesses or ascent items? Or will it be grouped with striking weaknesses and treasure hunter into a sort of "alignment increases during combat" category?

Will the bonus affect all combatants, or only the players dealing damage? Whereas I am almost always playing a support job, this concerns me. Support jobs do not have much of an opportunity to deal damage during combat.

Since TH is a debuff, it seems likely to be applied to all combatants--is this correct?

[Luvbunny]

This Voidwatch thing, is going to go to the list of FAIL ideas if the developers do not fix and improve it. The thing that is extremely baffling is that in the past they have great ideas that works very well, for example: assault points that you can exchange for items you want, bastion points, etc.. Bastion works the same way, you get points based on how you participate in the battle. I would rather they have the garbage items drop works similar to campaign or walk of echoes, and let us have points that we can trade to NPCs for the items of our choosing. Sadly the best thing so far is still Abyssea, even with that, they still have not bother to fix a few things in Abyssea, namely timed pop NM that is heavily camped...

[Sparthos]

Never done Voidwatch, it gives the item directly to the popper or?

Maybe they are sick of players selling r/e drops and wanted to try counter it, it existed in HNM times and it exists in Abyssea now. Quite annoying as a dev to see people do this I would imagine.

When you win, a treasure chest appears that has various loot for each individual person.

Treasure ranges from gemstones/ingots/logs to the rare item.

Even if it was for an anti-selling system, most of the rares are sellable on AH and the R/EX items are the main sticking point.

A point system would have worked better if the intention was to make people "work" for their drops.

[Luvbunny]

Agreed, point systems should be implemented to obtain the Rare/Ex non sellable items while the others could stay the same as long as you can sell or trade to other player.

[Malamasala]

2. Voidstones aren't the problem, rewards are.

So true. SE completely forgot Summoner in armor list. Nothing new though, SE never remembers SMN. At best it is added in hindsight to WHM or BLM armors as a "Ops, almost forgot SMN. At least now it looks like we remembered it!"

I'm still amazed there are armors at all for SMN in new Dynamis. But I guess there being a whole relic set for SMN made it hard to forget the job for that event.

I'd like to see SMN put on the melee gear so that we at least get something out of new activities. Best is still to get SMN armors, but I don't want to sound greedy (like every other job apparently is).

[Ravenmore]

So true. SE completely forgot Summoner in armor list. Nothing new though, SE never remembers SMN. At best it is added in hindsight to WHM or BLM armors as a "Ops, almost forgot SMN. At least now it looks like we remembered it!"

I'm still amazed there are armors at all for SMN in new Dynamis. But I guess there being a whole relic set for SMN made it hard to forget the job for that event.

I'd like to see SMN put on the melee gear so that we at least get something out of new activities. Best is still to get SMN armors, but I don't want to sound greedy (like every other job apparently is).

No they pretty much forgot everyone. Acursed belt is one of the best slaps in the face to jobs left off bullwhip and twilight. Really see no point in doing these fights after the first time wins. All side grade with a gear gotten else were with less effort.

They got a lot of work to make this pile into something the player base doesn't throw away like chocobo racing.

[Malamasala]

There is a difference between adding new good gear that isn't best, and adding gear that you wouldn't even use if all you had was level 60 artifact armor.