Baldesion Arsenal Feedback

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Originally Posted by Lacan

oh yea, no doubt about that. It still needs to be punishing, I just would like a little more flexibility. Like even putting a consumable item in the bunny chests that lets you revive people. Just more options to get people back up if things go terribly wrong. I just hate having to leave people behind in runs.

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I’m not sure if the devs would alleviate the difficulty like that, since that’s 54 Rezzes you can throw at people. If anything, the current Sacrifice Chaining strat isn’t bad; the only offset is that you only get 12 Healers, each with at least 2 Sacs. That’d be 24, provided Healers don’t die, so I think the content is balanced.

if they have something to remove a challenge, then where's the challenge?

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

if they have something to remove a challenge, then where's the challenge?

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well, if the item was really rare and precious I don't think it'd entirely remove the challenge. Put it in gold bunny chests or something. Then you'd just have it in your pocket as a trump card to save a really awful run if need be.

I had a private discussion with some colleagues yesterday, who have played in the NA/EU servers about it. One of the spoke about the difficulty of getting people to perform meteors and acceleration bombs correctly and likened it to his weekly party finder runs for savage. He asks for "blue and above" and gets all kinds of people in his party. I said that while I don't use any tools; in Gaia's duty finder runs for savage, "grey and green" are perfectly fine and have been for months. He dropped his jaw in shock.

First I reminded him that Gaia/Mana duty finder does not imply better skill. I replied that "grey" while queuing for savage duty finder in Gaia means that they can be counted to execute all mechanics flawlessly. The issue would be probably be dps uptime and rotation optimisation. However, with the completion of the Eureka weapon relic step, most players are in full i400. Hence, as long as the mechanical execution is flawless, "grey" is more than sufficient for a clear, and has been for a couple of months. JP macro strategies emphasize safety, margin of error, ease of understanding. Speed, or squeezing out the last GCD of damage are discarded. My colleague kept quiet for a seconds, sipped his coffee and quipped that in NA/EU, "grey" generally implies some problems with mechanical execution.

I think some players on reddit and other discussion platforms have pointed out what I've been reiterating, JP players are not more skilled. NA/EU have probably much better ways of maximising DPS. However, a poor optimiser ("grey") in Gaia who regularly pugs savage will have practiced enough to flawlessly execute the mechanics of O9S - O12S. All the while I thought it was the same for NA/EU, it was a culture shock to hear it is not the case.

Moving the topic back to the arsenal, I mentioned that it was similar for this content. These same players, especially during the Ozma fight can be seen contributing in a different way - acceleration bomb is coming, the sound goes off and the clustered group on the front left of the platform and the tank on the right, all shift slightly behind (to avoid using their own auto attacks) and freeze. Even if you are 100% sure acceleration bomb is not on you, you will freeze for the sake of the group. For that short few seconds, the entire raid dps drops to zero. This is a key example of playing it safe.

Meteors is another example. Markers come down, the cluster group on the left will stop all dps entirely and start to spread apart ever so slightly. Suddenly the meteor marked players jump and start sprinting. It becomes apparent the players with the meteors didn't even know the marker was on them, but this small step, a willingness to take the dps loss prevents a wipe. Similarly, Ozmashades, Ozma's mourning star or flare star and handled by taking a dps loss and performing slightly preemptive movement. My colleague drank more of his coffee and said, the loss of uptime like that will lead to more enrages. He shook his head and said uptime is the most important thing.

I nodded and said yes I have seen a lot of enrages for Ozma. Last week I had mostly 12-15% Ozma enrages. So far for this week, it's 6-9% enrages. More and more players have fully geared elemental bonuses. Playing it safe lets everyone practice mechanics. I concluded that NA/EU data centres seems to prioritise uptime, maximising every GCD. JP data centres prioritise safety, flawless mechanical execution, dropping dps to zero to execute mechanics is acceptable. Of course when both sides execute things correctly, NA/EU will be faster.

My colleague nodded and agreed with that point and said he never realised that "grey" in savage meant something so different across an ocean, and also understood more about why pugging in JP data centres results in clears eventually, but NA/EU wants their clear now, not later, so dps uptime is paramount. I just shrugged.

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Originally Posted by Epidendrum

My colleague drank more of his coffee and said, the loss of uptime like that will lead to more enrages. He shook his head and said uptime is the most important thing.

My colleague nodded and agreed with that point and said he never realised that "grey" in savage meant something so different across an ocean, and also understood more about why pugging in JP data centres results in clears eventually, but NA/EU wants their clear now, not later, so dps uptime is paramount. I just shrugged.

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See the 2nd part of my sig.

I'm not sure what continuously pointing out cultural differences between the data centres is doing to help any situation.

We are not "the West" or NA/EU like Japan is Japanese.

We are Aus/NZ/Oceania, USA/Canada/Brazil/South America, France/Germany/England etc etc etc. There are widely different styles of language and culture at force here.

Our servers are a hodgepodge pot of many people and differences in game play. As what happens in real life, people in the same countries find each other to play within similar time zones. People who speak French are (generally) going to group with others who speak French. English players are going to get annoyed when non-English speakers join their groups and can't understand the strategy. Just like on Tonberry, the Japanese want to play with the Japanese and just like the rest of us, that data centre is at war for portals.

Just saying something is a simple as Your Servers vs Japanese is short sighted.

The thing Square forgot when implementing this content is that, the servers that aren't Japanese are of vastly different people's and time zones. People want to do content with their friends, the same way like we progress every single other content. Japan has a pug culture where everyone speaks the same language, is on at the same time, and have the same mind set, obeys Japanese macros.

We do not.

Even the culture and conduct between Aether and Primal parties are different beasts.

If you don't mind me asking, where do the JP players share/find the macros used for content? I would love to see more examples than the BA one to model things on.

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Originally Posted by Rockette

I'm not sure what continuously pointing out cultural differences between the data centres is doing to help any situation.

We are not "the West" or NA/EU like Japan is Japanese.

We are Aus/NZ/Oceania, USA/Canada/Brazil/South America, France/Germany/England etc etc etc. There are widely different styles of language and culture at force here.

Our servers are a hodgepodge pot of many people and differences in game play. As what happens in real life, people in the same countries find each other to play within similar time zones. People who speak French are (generally) going to group with others who speak French. English players are going to get annoyed when non-English speakers join their groups and can't understand the strategy. Just like on Tonberry, the Japanese want to play with the Japanese and just like the rest of us, that data centre is at war for portals.

Just saying something is a simple as Your Servers vs Japanese is short sighted.

The thing Square forgot when implementing this content is that, the servers that aren't Japanese are of vastly different people's and time zones. People want to do content with their friends, the same way like we progress every single other content. Japan has a pug culture where everyone speaks the same language, is on at the same time, and have the same mind set, obeys Japanese macros.

We do not.

Even the culture and conduct between Aether and Primal parties are different beasts.

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Because people are trying to push the "Japanese can do it why can't you?" shtick without considering that we have 6 time zones in America alone, extremely different cultures from coast to coast, multiple languages spoken, and less than half of the active Eureka player base they do. They think that magically with a drop of a hat that we will completely swap from years of rejecting harder pugged content (casual reminder that our EX and raid queues are 10 hours+ while the JP servers use them frequently) to embracing the PUG in lieu of premades and PF.

It was shortsighted design. BA should have been a separate instance from the very beginning.

(And I am saying this from the perspective of someone who PUGs almost everything and is very patient. I don't have a static and probably will never have one.)

I just wanted to chime in, I think BA is amazing content for the game and hope that many of the dungeons' mechanics carry over to future dungeons or trials. You really feel a sense of danger in BA, making you play the dungeon not like the other dungeons we have where you just run through everything.

The main factors are the limited availability/entry, hard to rez, and the prep needed to enter that makes everyone cautious about walking around. I personally didn't encounter the "elitism" problem faced by many western players since i play in JP server and they're happy to do it pug style.

It does take alot of research on the players part to not completely ruins everyone's run, but it all adds to the satisfaction you feel when you clear it similar to savage.

I can totally see dungeons like this, maybe made a bit easier and abit more accessible to become a mainstay in the game. This even opens up the possibility of similar "hard" or savage 4-8 man dungeons with similar mechanics like traps, splitting up your party, needed to prep before hand.

The final underrated thing is how good it feels to progress your equipment in BA, if you go in fresh you basically get 1 shot by anything, after getting some eureka gear, your power level increases dramatically.

My BIGGEST complaint is about the hydatos map itself. All the prev eureka maps had amazing elevation, different "zones", choke points, map secrets, and overall good map shape. Hydatos map is a basic shape without any of the things mentioned.

I've given up on BA even though it's really fun content. Should have been disconnected from Eureka and tied to the DF and PF systems.

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Originally Posted by ltsquigs

If you don't mind me asking, where do the JP players share/find the macros used for content? I would love to see more examples than the BA one to model things on.

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I'm hesitant to reply because my more recent posts seem to have been taken out of context and seen in a negative light. About Rockette's words above, yes every server is a hodgepodge of diffierent cultures. I come from Alexander, we have players from India, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Philippines, Russia (Vladivostok), Canada and Mexico, we stretch across many time zones and have large variances in culture too. It's hurtful that Rockette's words seem to imply that my earlier comments didn't take culture and time zones into consideration. However despite differences in culture and time zones, we are all fluent Japanese speakers, and we have an identity as members of Alexander server, Gaia DC. Personally I'm an ethnic Chinese Singaporean, fluent in English, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and German. My culture is significantly different from the Japanese (whatever similarities there are, the reasons behind it are different), I just happen to be fortunate enough to have to travel around a fair bit for my work. My intention was to share techniques used in my server and DC to handle certain problematic mechanics (e.g. acceleration bomb killing many players on a platform due to poor execution), so that if nothing else, they remember that one thing and maybe it saves their arsenal run. As I said, it was taken out of context, but this is the internet - people are free to interpret my words as they wish. After years of playing FFXIV, I decided to join the English forums to share since most information that NA/EU gets about JP servers is from Tonberry/Elemental and they don't seem to know much about Gaia or Mana, but I see now that it's my mistake and I should leave.

Sorry to digress, I'll answer your question. If you're talking about raids, we (Gaia data centre's Japanese speaking community, inclusive of the non-Japanese from many countries and time zones) generally have Pekolog's blog (http://pekoe1001.blog.shinobi.jp/) with detailed explanation for mechanics. Players convert them into macros. Other places we share:
(1) lodestone, probably the fastest place to get help and find strategies. It's the best thing since sliced bread for us. A lot of knowledge transmission is done here.
(2) twitter - us non-Japanese playing on JP servers, usually keep our twitter entirely in non-English as a platform to practice foreign languages, links to a new guide on Pekolog or someone's lodestone post are retweeted. Word gets around the community fast.
(3) ffxiv mobile companion app, LS members will remind us to check someone's twitter page for a retweet or that a certain website has been updated with guides for the latest content.
(4) Dopr.net's FFXIV guides, contains detailed information and guides on virtually all content in FFXIV to date ( https://www.dopr.net/ff14playguide ).

I'll include some examples of lodestone macro sharing below:
(i) Arsenal. (https://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../blog/4038064/)
(ii) Omega raid. (https://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../blog/3924606/)
(iii) Ultima weapon: Ultimate. (https://jp.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodes.../blog/3827052/)

I hope this is what you are looking for, and will help you.

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Originally Posted by Epidendrum

After years of playing FFXIV, I decided to join the English forums to share since most information that NA/EU gets about JP servers is from Tonberry/Elemental and they don't seem to know much about Gaia or Mana, but I see now that it's my mistake and I should leave.

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Please don't! Your posts have been extremely enlightening and a delight to read, being very well phrased and respectful. Unfortunately there will be always some people who might misinterpret, for a variety of reasons, but how to gain better understanding if not by communicating?

While for your general thoughts on the topic of BA, PUG or premade, and cultural differences in particuar, I found them extremely enlightening, and would like to contribute an observation or three of my own (while agreeing with many of the other things already stated by others here).

Comparing your description of things on Gaia with my own experiences as a German player on a NA server there seems to be a considerable difference in how the average player approaches the game. By and large a considerable chunk of the NA players seem to be at the core solo players who happen to play together with others. Team play, group effort, or even something like group harmony are near-alien concepts, all that matters is individual gain -- clearing an instance as fast as possible, getting the drop you are after, that's it, and doing it in whatever way you personally prefer. To encounter any sense of duty toward others, or the idea of "we are in this boat together", a desire to create a pleasant and enhancing experience for everyone in your team is... rare, at best (of course other players on NA servers might disagree here, I am just stating my own experiences and observations, ymmv).

Actually in all my years on Balmung I have NEVER heard anyone express such an idea as having a duty toward your datacenter/server, and any real group loyalty and sense of duty toward such is also... rare. The only times I ever see something remotely similar said about individual servers is when people make (mostly bad) jokes about Balmung being the server for ERP (cliché, cliché...), or the other way around "Balmungites" feeling some attachment to Balmung due to the RP/FC connections they have made there.

This general observation might also be related to another symptom of different attitudes, cultural differences: The sad fact that the mentor system on NA servers is famous to be a hotbed not of actual mentoring, but instead of people bickering or even trolling (and many I spoke with by now seeing anyone wearing the mentor crown not as someone to approach for advice but a sign of an inflated ego and bad attitude problems). Many people on NA servers seem to lack any desire to teach or to be taught, sad and baffling as this observation is to me. Actually there have been times when I offered polite suggestions during runs with PUGs when I saw someone struggling or lacking even most basic competence at their chosen job (let's say a level 70 WHM casting NOTHING but cure 1 and medica 2) and in return I was severely criticized for doing so, if not downright told "you don't pay my sub". A friend from the US told me later that many US people see any kind of unasked-for "advice" as talking down to them, belittling them, humiliating them in front of others etc., no matter how politely you phrase things (and tbh I was flabbergasted at the very idea -- but yay learning about cultural differences!).

Combining this lack of any teaching "spirit" unless people specifically sign up for it (like in those premades, I guess) with this difference of attitude making an Eureka instance essentially up to 144 solo players who happen to play next to each other it is easy to see (I think) why PUGs in BA can easily lead to disaster, and premades allow for a greater chance of success -- which is in the end all most people on NA servers seem to care about. When I mentioned in shout chat I would be interested in going in "just for fun", to see the place and learn a bit, even if it is obvious from the start we will wipe I was given the feeling of being an alien on the wrong planet ^^; I think it is enlightening that there are jokes going around on NA servers about alliance raids (24 man) meaning you have to play with a "23man debuff" -- the other players are not seen as part of your team, but an obstacle to your path to success. Now to more than double that to what is seen as a "55man debuff" (and in many cases lacking the inclination to "cleanse" that "debuff" through teaching while having some patience and team spirit) and it becomes clear why few people would want to PUG something like BA...

I noticed similar differences in attitude regarding any kind of "competing for resources", which is a real issue on NA servers whenever there is a limited resource (like in this case, portals). People are just not very willing to share, or react with nothing but a bit of disappointment and otherwise good cheer -- more likely there will be lots of rage from at least some. Add to that a considerable amount of -- sad as it is -- trolling and things can go bad very quickly when you create competition between players for such desired resources. I have seen people on Aether who will "snipe" portals as in they will go in and quickly out again for no other reason but to screw with premades, out of pure spite, malice, or the enjoyment of trolling (which makes me honestly very glad the ToS got a bit updated in that regard, to hopefully combat some of the worst behaviors seen on NA servers...). Just one or two trolls like that can really ruin group efforts FAST (we saw that with the EM missions in Diadem already).

It is great that BA seems to work like intended on JP servers, but given the considerable differences in play style and general attitude between JP servers (as I got it from reports like yours, and other people playing on JP servers) and what I observed on Aether makes me think that sadly this type of content is poorly suited for the NA audience in general except with the aid of such things as discord-organized premades, or some form of PF to organize groups, and even then it is... problematic.

Anyway, besides these my lengthy own observations and thoughts, thank you, Epidendrum, for sharing yours here. They brought me much food for thought and are a joy to read ^^

Two weeks after my first attempts to even get into BA and having to wait 2+ hours just to attempt the content, I've given up on ever running this content. I'm having more fun playing other games. BA (and Eureka in general) needs to never happen again. It's the only thing in this game that has given me burnout like this.

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Originally Posted by Epidendrum

Personally I'm an ethnic Chinese Singaporean, fluent in English, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and German.

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Warte du sprichst auch noch deutsch?? Und ich fand das englisch schon sehr gut/angenehm zu lesen^^


But yes i have to chime in there, pls dont leave, youre insights are rly interresting, I'm sure many others would miss that too.

I'd just like to know why so many SAMs die in BA. Most of the time when the dust settles after the first two bosses there will be numerous dead SAMs on the floor. We have to leave a lot of them behind. Do the mechanics deal more damage to SAMs or something? Sometimes they even die to the trash in the hallways.

It is very annoying being forced to wait 3-5 hours to get a 9 min pull to do the only boss that matters because Aether. The way BA is implemented so far is very frustrating. So glad I got my clear once my friends get it I will never go inside that place again.

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Originally Posted by Lacan

I'd just like to know why so many SAMs die in BA. Most of the time when the dust settles after the first two bosses there will be numerous dead SAMs on the floor. We have to leave a lot of them behind. Do the mechanics deal more damage to SAMs or something? Sometimes they even die to the trash in the hallways.

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Probably something to do with people believing just because they are in a discord pre-made means they know what they are doing.

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Originally Posted by Lacan

I'd just like to know why so many SAMs die in BA. Most of the time when the dust settles after the first two bosses there will be numerous dead SAMs on the floor. We have to leave a lot of them behind. Do the mechanics deal more damage to SAMs or something? Sometimes they even die to the trash in the hallways.

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Believe it or not... many melee made it through 4 Eureka zones and find their way into BA without ever realizing that they can ignore positionals on Eureka monsters...

I wasn't exactly sure who to begin with quoting, because some of the opinions I'm responding to have been expressed repeatedly in this thread and others, so I'll just speak a bit more broadly.

This concept that NA servers lack players willing to teach is absolutely false
The NA servers are full of people who are willing to provide help to players of all skill levels. Whether it's novice network discussions about where the next quest is or how to AoE, or people in places like The Balance offering to take time out of their day to look over your parses and help you see your strengths and weaknesses, or the numerous content creators making text guides such as the one for BA or video guides for everything from dungeons to ultimate raids, these people deserve our appreciation.

More specifically, I can log onto the Aether BA Discord and be presented with links to guides, strategy images, chat channels full of people willing to explain mechanics, and LFG tools designed to get anyone who wants to into BA in a group appropriate to their level of experience. These people have set up a huge amount of infrastructure to make all our lives easier.

For people to post in threads like these about Glorious Japan and what a dumpster fire NA servers are is just incredibly unappreciative. Don't spread the idea that people aren't helpful because they don't define themselves by the number of super kawaii Japanese emoticons they post or how much they prattle on about the sacred duty of the mentor crown. There's an absolute litany of English-language help, created by "Western" players, many of whom are extremely nice and approachable. These people are working hard to increase the general competency level of the entire population of their datacenters so that we can all have less facepalm deaths and more fun.

What the NA servers lack is a broad culture of being willing to learn.
For many reasons, a number of them asinine, the overall population of the NA servers is, as you said, solo players who happen to be in the same world as others. They aren't thinking about bringing themselves up to a competency level that makes the experience of playing on these servers better for everyone. They are thinking solely of their own gameplay experience and not how it affects those around them.

I won't claim that the reason for these differences is based on a culture defined by nationality. As a poster above mentioned, the servers located in Japan are geographically the best-located servers for people from dozens of disparate real-world cultures. There is absolutely no reason to sit here and espouse how great Japan is and how terrible the rest of the world is unless you're looking for hi5s from other people in the same echo chamber. People all over the world have something to offer, and areas to improve. I believe that the current state (read as: low skill level and high selfishness of a large portion of the population) of the NA servers is attributable primarily to socialization within Eorzea and the other online worlds we've shared. Although as I said above there are many amazing people working to the benefit of all of us, there are also plenty of examples of people who have given up on teaching after being snapped at by "you don't pay my sub" types.

We need to give up this superiority complex of JP vs NA, FFXI vs WoW (and EQ and RIFT and UO and every other MMO that Squaresoft didn't make). Instead of trying to discount the views of vast swaths of people because of where they were born or what games they have enjoyed or critiqued over the years, listen to each person based on their own merits. And let's give a hearty thank you to the dozens if not hundreds of NA/EU content creators who are producing guides and other media for us to learn from and enjoy.

Like the poster above me, I'm not sure who to start quoting as well. I thought quite a bit during my work breaks yesterday and decided how to best frame my next post to the discussion here.

Danke! Ich muss noch viel lernen...

Firstly. thanks to everyone who is posting here. I think the amount of feedback makes SE notice something isn't right.

After much thought on how to post a neutral, or at least non-culture-comparative and constructive discussion point, I believe the question I want to ask is this: Given the varied reactions to the arsenal, and this is a feedback topic. How can SE best implement content for a large amount of players in future that is region agnostic? Or phrased in a slightly different way, is it possible to make game content that is truly global and with a certain degree of longevity?

I've seen replies that entry to the arsenal are contentious to say the least and others suggest to make it PF/DF. PF/DF has its own issues as well, due to different regions responding differently to using them. So, I'm not sure if that would be a viable solution.

As for the experience in the arsenal I can think of two ways to improve it without affecting the challenge too much.

First, the support fate. We know Tristitia is tied to Absolute Virtue(AV). Defeating it weakens AV significantly. I would propose making the AV chest's 6 fragments be split if the group outside in Hydatos completes the fate. People outside get 3, those inside are left with 3 when they open the chest. Now, what if the support fate fails? I would say, if Tristitia's 15 min fate timer runs out, AV still has a buff but greatly reduced. It will still be beatable but harder than normal. Meanwhile in Hydatos, Tristitia will roam as a very dangerous monster with true sight, but otherwise is a mob with a large amount of exp for killing it. Lore wise I would explain it AV having to use aether to maintain two forms while it is in mortal danger from the teams inside the arsenal. In this case, if the arsenal teams manage to kill the harder but slightly less buffed AV, they keep all 6 fragments. My idea is that, rather than just increase the support fate's reward, make it a sharing/splitting of the AV fragments, to create a sense of shared contribution. It's not just "if I do the support fate, I get rewards.", but rather "if I complete the support fate, the arsenal folks split the reward with me 50-50." If the people outside really don't want to help, those inside still have a fighting chance this way. There are also implications for not helping - a non fate Tristitia roaming Hydatos until killed, or the instance ends. Shared pain, shared reward.

The other idea I have is related to Ozma. We can't raise in the arsenal due to aether from the weapons. I propose that if Ozma is killed, players who are dead but not yet ejected due to black hole, (1) get the achievement, (2) can now be raised normally, meaning also that they get to click the final chest. I think lore wise it makes sense to remove the "Cannot raise normally" debuff as all weapons are defeated, and also encourages players to really give their all in the fight and not lose hope if they die. The rest of the players can attempt a race to defeat Ozma before the next black hole in order to preserve rewards and a clear for their party members.

I think it is really difficult to create content like this in a "one fits all" way, given differences in how various regions approach it. BA is a novel concept within XIV, and we see how it highlights differences in style which are hard to bridge if sticking with the current format -- if anything I want to hand the devs some aspirin as they have to deal with this kind of headache now.

Something I noticed though beyond the issue of portals/PUGs vs DF/PF, and while playing on Aether (no idea if the same issue exists on other datacenters) is a general problem with the fact that BA is directly linked into Hydatos instances. Once people enter BA suddenly up to 56 people are gone from the instance, and prepping any high-level NMs becomes even more difficult than it is anyway, given a good chunk of the Eureka population is sitting by default at base semi-afking and waiting for NMs (hopefully) spawned by others to pop. Remove 1/3 to half of the instance into BA on top of that and... well, yeah, you get the picture.

I just came out of an instance and there was exactly ONE group prepping the dragon, and just getting this single party together took an incredible amount of cajoling. You can imagine how long that entire effort to spawn PW took... X_x (but at least it popped, while I have spent more hours than I want to count on fruitlessly trying to get a prep for high-level NMs in Hydatos going in any meaningful way...)

Therefore I think a direct link between Hydatos and BA is a bit on the problematic side to begin with (at least on NA servers? idk...), but given there is the entire thing with the support FATE I see no real way how to address this issue now. If anything it might be something to consider for future content of this kind -- depriving an instance hinging on plenty of players doing things of... well, active players by sending them to another instance can cause unintended problems.

That aside, and something which might alleviate at least some of the problems for NA could be a system which allows premades to chose what instance they enter (Hydatos 1, Hydatos 2, Hydatos 3 etc.) -- that way quite a bit of stress and hassle would be removed from the picture. Combining this with a clear labeling of "Arsenal" instances vs. normal Eureka instances could also be an idea, so that people who want to specifically enter BA, and/or do the support FATE there could enter Arsenal-instances (and as 56-man premades all but hog or even "create" such an instance, thus also less bickering about portals on NA servers), while those who do not wish to see their efforts to prep high-level NMs hindered by suddenly "losing" up to 56 players to Arsenal go to "pure" Eureka instances. I just worry a bit about that approach, as it could leave one or the other type nearly drying up... >.>

Agree! SE should have set up a system, that rewarded the people outside the BA for thier help or made it more of a raid where you could form your parties and enter without causing all the chaos...

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Originally Posted by ShratNevor

Agree! SE should have set up a system, that rewarded the people outside the BA for thier help or made it more of a raid where you could form your parties and enter without causing all the chaos...

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IMO I think the best option would have been a sort of prep area you couldn't go back into once you exit it where players could change job classes and form parties.

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Originally Posted by Chiami

Something I noticed though beyond the issue of portals/PUGs vs DF/PF, and while playing on Aether (no idea if the same issue exists on other datacenters) is a general problem with the fact that BA is directly linked into Hydatos instances. Once people enter BA suddenly up to 56 people are gone from the instance, and prepping any high-level NMs becomes even more difficult than it is anyway, given a good chunk of the Eureka population is sitting by default at base semi-afking and waiting for NMs (hopefully) spawned by others to pop. Remove 1/3 to half of the instance into BA on top of that and... well, yeah, you get the picture.

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The problem isn't that those 56 people are taking up slots for people that aren't going to farm claws anyway, the problem is that it's a pain and a half to get 56 people in the same instance to begin with... it can easily take half an hour to an hour to find a suitable instance that everyone can enter.

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Originally Posted by Chiami

I just came out of an instance and there was exactly ONE group prepping the dragon, and just getting this single party together took an incredible amount of cajoling. You can imagine how long that entire effort to spawn PW took... X_x (but at least it popped, while I have spent more hours than I want to count on fruitlessly trying to get a prep for high-level NMs in Hydatos going in any meaningful way...)

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Once people have their 5 scales (2 PWs), there is no incentive to farm more unless you actually went through the grind to get multiple 4.0 relic weapons. So it's no surprise that some instances have trouble getting people to farm claws for 3 hours, only to get kicked out midfight...

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Originally Posted by Chiami

Therefore I think a direct link between Hydatos and BA is a bit on the problematic side to begin with (at least on NA servers? idk...), but given there is the entire thing with the support FATE I see no real way how to address this issue now. If anything it might be something to consider for future content of this kind -- depriving an instance hinging on plenty of players doing things of... well, active players by sending them to another instance can cause unintended problems.

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Fates are scaled to the number of people in the instance (BA players are excluded, they have a special player flag in search.)
The support group is generally the one dealing with dispelling and debuffing Tristitia, beyond that it's a matter of dodging the dual cast aoes like any other FATE boss. Except you get 30 crystals as a reward.

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Originally Posted by Chiami

That aside, and something which might alleviate at least some of the problems for NA could be a system which allows premades to chose what instance they enter (Hydatos 1, Hydatos 2, Hydatos 3 etc.) -- that way quite a bit of stress and hassle would be removed from the picture. Combining this with a clear labeling of "Arsenal" instances vs. normal Eureka instances could also be an idea, so that people who want to specifically enter BA, and/or do the support FATE there could enter Arsenal-instances (and as 56-man premades all but hog or even "create" such an instance, thus also less bickering about portals on NA servers), while those who do not wish to see their efforts to prep high-level NMs hindered by suddenly "losing" up to 56 players to Arsenal go to "pure" Eureka instances. I just worry a bit about that approach, as it could leave one or the other type nearly drying up... >.>

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Dedicated instances for BA would be preferable, but the main issues are:
* There's no way to get 7 full parties in a single instance, other then through luck and perseverence. (FFXI solved this by using hourglass clones.)
* There should be 6 portals, and only the party leader can initiate entry into BA. Portals should not be solo entrances, especially with some in the middle of some very dangerous mobs.
* Stabilizers should be removed, they are purely meant to grief. Or they could be used to make Spirit of the Remembered be 100% successfull, but it consumes the stabilizer.

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Originally Posted by Seedling

* Stabilizers should be removed, they are purely meant to grief. Or they could be used to make Spirit of the Remembered be 100% successfull, but it consumes the stabilizer.

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Lol. I very much doubt square would intentionally put an item and make said item easier to get with lowering the cost involved in purchasing it with the intent behind it of causing grief. It is there to be used to gain entry to BA. The fact it is there should tell everyone in NA/EU we are doing this wrong. We find a different way to do the content. It does not mean the item in question can't be used or is being used for grief. It's being used to do what it was meant to do. Allow a player priority entry to BA.

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Originally Posted by Seedling

The problem isn't that those 56 people are taking up slots for people that aren't going to farm claws anyway, the problem is that it's a pain and a half to get 56 people in the same instance to begin with... it can easily take half an hour to an hour to find a suitable instance that everyone can enter.


Once people have their 5 scales (2 PWs), there is no incentive to farm more unless you actually went through the grind to get multiple 4.0 relic weapons. So it's no surprise that some instances have trouble getting people to farm claws for 3 hours, only to get kicked out midfight...


Fates are scaled to the number of people in the instance (BA players are excluded, they have a special player flag in search.)
The support group is generally the one dealing with dispelling and debuffing Tristitia, beyond that it's a matter of dodging the dual cast aoes like any other FATE boss. Except you get 30 crystals as a reward.



Dedicated instances for BA would be preferable, but the main issues are:
* There's no way to get 7 full parties in a single instance, other then through luck and perseverence. (FFXI solved this by using hourglass clones.)
* There should be 6 portals, and only the party leader can initiate entry into BA. Portals should not be solo entrances, especially with some in the middle of some very dangerous mobs.
* Stabilizers should be removed, they are purely meant to grief. Or they could be used to make Spirit of the Remembered be 100% successfull, but it consumes the stabilizer.

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most of the things you think a wrong, are because you dont understand the purpose of the content.

they wanted a PUBLIC dungeon, where anyone who was around could participate in any attempt, with equal chance. None of the things you think of accidents were accidents, they were done on purpose to make it difficult to exclude random players from joining existing runs. They didnt want groups monopolizing the content.

it definitely has flaws, but your solutions dont make sense because they dont solve the actual flaws.

the question SE was trying to answer, how can we make a public dungeon that is an endgame element of eureka, that all max level players can participate in, if they choose to do so publically, just by being in the instance.

premade groups holding slots away from players was the opposite of their intent. If they wanted to make that, they already have tons of already built tools to do so.

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Originally Posted by Physic

they wanted a PUBLIC dungeon, where anyone who was around could participate in any attempt, with equal chance.

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Yet, no one is doing the content the same way SE intended here in the west. Instances without discord group, don't touch BA. Instances with discord group gets targeted by snipers. Both of those are NOT what SE intended.

And before you say snipers are doing what SE intended, I'm talking about the snipers that actively hop from one instance to another chasing discord groups. Not some random who just happened to be in one.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

Yet, no one is doing the content the same way SE intended here in the west. Instances without discord group, don't touch BA.

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That's more on the community than on the devs. JP seems to do fine but that seems to be a cultural thing that randos there can come together and work on something whereas in NA it's more every man for himself unless someone takes it upon themselves to organize something and then the leeches come out of the aether to latch on to them.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

Yet, no one is doing the content the same way SE intended here in the west. Instances without discord group, don't touch BA. Instances with discord group gets targeted by snipers. Both of those are NOT what SE intended.

And before you say snipers are doing what SE intended, I'm talking about the snipers that actively hop from one instance to another chasing discord groups. Not some random who just happened to be in one.

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actually SE did intend for randoms to jump in on more organized runs. If they didnt they would have used the same party finder mechanics they use elsewhere in the game. And they wouldnt have made an item that literally allows anyone to skip ahead of anyone else.

SE is fine with people using discord to communicate, they are not fine with anyone claiming spots, thats the entire reason they chose portals and aether stabilizers over party finders and premade queues.

you are not supposed to claim a BA run, thats why SE makes impossible to claim a BA run.

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Originally Posted by Physic

actually SE did intend for randoms to jump in on more organized runs.

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I did explicitly say in my reply that I'm not talking about randoms in the instance....

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

I'm talking about the snipers that actively hop from one instance to another chasing discord groups. Not some random who just happened to be in one.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

I did explicitly say in my reply that I'm not talking about randoms in the instance....

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there is no difference between a random and a hanger on who tries to jump in on your runs, as long as their intention is to complete the content. All people who want to complete the content are the same in SE's eyes.

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Originally Posted by Physic

there is no difference between a random and a hanger on who tries to jump in on your runs, as long as their intention is to complete the content. All people who want to complete the content are the same in SE's eyes.

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With this argument, discord groups are also included. Their intention is to complete the content.

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

With this argument, discord groups are also included. Their intention is to complete the content.

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exactly, discord people have the same right to do the content as anyone else, they just dont have the right to exclude anyone.

The discord groups are basically giant pugs/PF. Just more organized to increase success rate (why wouldn't people want that). It's just a cross world linkshell with voice chat. People realized going in there with the intention to clear by just randomly jumping in on NA/EU is probably pointless and a giant waste of time since you can't control how many people end up going in there. Just like how you wouldn't try to farm on NA/EU in raid finder, you join a PF with duty complete to increase success rate. It's not even like the discord is private either, you just gotta join and follow some instructions. People make it seem like its a collection of people trying to exclude everyone else from doing it and laughing about it. Nah, it's a bunch of groups who just took like 2-3 hours just to get the parties together and making sure they have the players and tools together to attempt completion with a decent success rate that just want to do the content.

If you want to blame anything, blame the design of the content. The ones that are harassing people for taking portals are in the wrong, but on the other hand so are the ones that are maliciously taking portals on purpose just to be annoying/or to troll.

"blame the design" is gettin old, rly...

It is meant to be the main thing in Hydatos, thats why the map is so blant, we should go in and try all the time, not every X hours after you manage to get 60ppl in the same instance.

The desing was nice, it would be such fun to try, maybe wipe but still upgrade your gear, spawning fates to level back and try again... BUT not here, ppl want all and only success so we rather got another afk zone.

For the next "Eureka" they gotta limit it to about 60 ppl not "melts your PC/PS4" ppl...

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Originally Posted by Kuroka

"blame the design" is gettin old, rly...

It is meant to be the main thing in Hydatos, thats why the map is so blant, we should go in and try all the time, not every X hours after you manage to get 60ppl in the same instance.

The desing was nice, it would be such fun to try, maybe wipe but still upgrade your gear, spawning fates to level back and try again... BUT not here, ppl want all and only success so we rather got another afk zone.

For the next "Eureka" they gotta limit it to about 60 ppl not "melts your PC/PS4" ppl...

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I don't blame people for wanting the higher success rate. Guess what happens when you put a cool mount for clearing the entire thing and the rest of the stuff can be bought off the MB. People want to clear the entire thing. Rest of the drops in there can be bought on the MB and you can slowly farm fragments even if you can't clear the entire thing by just screwing around so you can already slowly upgrade your stuff. I'm sure there are people wanting the mount before the content just dies and it gets harder to field the amount of people just to attempt.

It would be a bit different if you could just buy the ozma mount for an insane amount of fragments right now, but you can't so the next best option is to join a more organized group of players that can control what jobs are being brought in, logos loadout, etc to make a good attempt at it. Makes sense to me.

For real though, there are certain parts of BA where I wouldn't want to be with a purely do whatever you want group, since it would end up as a circus. (like the AV portal rooms) That's just me though.

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Originally Posted by Vaer

I don't blame people for wanting the higher success rate. Guess what happens when you put a cool mount for clearing the entire thing and the rest of the stuff can be bought off the MB. People want to clear the entire thing. Rest of the drops in there can be bought on the MB and you can slowly farm fragments even if you can't clear the entire thing by just screwing around so you can already slowly upgrade your stuff. I'm sure there are people wanting the mount before the content just dies and it gets harder to field the amount of people just to attempt.

It would be a bit different if you could just buy the ozma mount for an insane amount of fragments right now, but you can't so the next best option is to join a more organized group of players that can control what jobs are being brought in, logos loadout, etc to make a good attempt at it. Makes sense to me.

For real though, there are certain parts of BA where I wouldn't want to be with a purely do whatever you want group, since it would end up as a circus. (like the AV portal rooms) That's just me though.

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mounts are everywhere, doesnt change anything, and full clears are not impossible. Its never going to be a do whatever you want group, experienced players will show regular playere, basically the same as discord, without signing up queuing, and server hopping for hours.

it happens in other games, it happens in jp. People want to succeed, if people tell them how, they will learn.

The problem with the design is that it's a mish mash of conflicting goals.

Enix has always had a bit of an issue with trying to shove opposite goals all into the same instance. Things like the accursed hoard system alongside fast alt leveling in PotD/HoH. Gatherering and battling in the Diadem. In Eureka we have players farming Warped boxes, players farming FATES for their relic, players farming Claws for Zuzu, players farming Bunnies for the mount and then bang in the middle a raid that requires 40% of the instance to drop what they're doing. It just isn't going to happen, everyone's been split into different objectives.

Pair it with the fact that it's difficult content which isn't everyone's cup of tea while Eureka itself it quite simple in terms of combat, and you're very unlikely to get a full 56 man group from the 144 in there.

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Originally Posted by Liam_Harper

The problem with the design is that it's a mish mash of conflicting goals.

Enix has always had a bit of an issue with trying to shove opposite goals all into the same instance. Things like the accursed hoard system alongside fast alt leveling in PotD/HoH. Gatherering and battling in the Diadem. In Eureka we have players farming Warped boxes, players farming FATES for their relic, players farming Claws for Zuzu, players farming Bunnies for the mount and then bang in the middle a raid that requires 40% of the instance to drop what they're doing. It just isn't going to happen, everyone's been split into different objectives.

Pair it with the fact that it's difficult content which isn't everyone's cup of tea while Eureka itself it quite simple in terms of combat, and you're very unlikely to get a full 56 man group from the 144 in there.

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actualy it can only hold 1/3rd the instance, i hear it scales down somewhat as well. Hydatos has little else going on on purpose, its mostly a leveling and releveling zone for people to attempt BA. Hydatos has the least going on of any eureka zone, its just designed to be the lobby for BA really.

and its not really incredibly harder than the hardest content in Eureka, its just that you cant get raised. It doesnt have a tight dps check, you can gear up to make it much easier, just have to learn mechanics, thats it.

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Originally Posted by Physic

mounts are everywhere, doesnt change anything, and full clears are not impossible. Its never going to be a do whatever you want group, experienced players will show regular playere, basically the same as discord, without signing up queuing, and server hopping for hours.

it happens in other games, it happens in jp. People want to succeed, if people tell them how, they will learn.

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I was more responding to the other person saying people wanting a high success rate is a bad thing, and one of the reasons is because of the unique reward they put all the way at the end that people want which falls in the "design" being at fault. Let's be real here, if there was no unique reward for clearing the entire thing or if you could buy the ozma mount for fragments the salt wouldn't even be as high since the rest of the stuff can be bought off the MB and the fragments can be slowly farmed even if you don't make it very far.

I'm not saying a group of 50 pugs wouldn't ever beat it. Who wants to gamble on having enough people and the right amount of jobs to get to the end when you can delevel and waste more time. The player base just took things into their own hands. If people would rather sit for 2 hours doing nothing to get enough people to go in that says something.