Instance Caravan Escorts are Needed

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Originally Posted by Altanas

As mentioned, multiple caravan instances per camp in the open world would be ideal.

In addition, and a bit of an aside from the complaint of the OP, I want to suggest that grinding a caravan for <15min and repeating is a bit boring. It would be nice if getting to a hamlet is the first checkpoint (sort of like old school racers like Outrun). When you reach the checkpoint the objective changes, and you have a new destination, survive through multiple checkpoints or keep going until failure. Each checkpoint could give a multiplier (but of course have more difficult mobs). By the end of a 2 or 3 hour run you could have racked up a lot of seals, and be at the other end of the region map.

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Oh this this this a thousand times this ^----------^-----^--------^

I had one of those people who put auto follow on one of the caravan chocobos yesterday. Granted he was reluctant to help out the rest of the party killing the mobs that spawned. Wish there was some way to oust these type of players. But he was active enough to beat other people in activating the caravan...

Would absolutely love it if Caravans worked like Leves, hell even take one of my 99 leve allowances each time if you must. Anything that would allow me to get in a group with my LS and do this without worrying about people forcing their way in or leeching.

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Originally Posted by Kerwin

I had one of those people who put auto follow on one of the caravan chocobos yesterday. Granted he was reluctant to help out the rest of the party killing the mobs that spawned. Wish there was some way to oust these type of players. But he was active enough to beat other people in activating the caravan...

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You should have changed the focus from escorting the caravan to MPKing the freeloader. Who needs seals when you can have fun MPKing an asshat?!

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Originally Posted by Nemo5990

It's retarded how many people just teleported across Eorzea an couldn't get into a caravan lets just say 3000people on 1 server all trying to for there are only 24 slots PROBLEM ?

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Server mergers anyone? How can people be so fickle as to not see that, before asking for merge? Same shit about primals. 2.0 will suck beyond everything else when we start getting open world content. You can't beat no lifers and people that get paid to farm items. That goes to all the TARUS out there. Do you know when you will see a primal in 2.0? Never!

Better go to YouTube.com if you want to see them.

I hope they instance as much as they can the special stuff. My two cents.

Screw instances, screw timers between runs, and screw the limit on how many people can enter at once.

Just let whoever wants to do a caravan run do a damned caravan run!

Caravans now are how behests used to be a year ago: everyone swarms the spot where the start-up NPC is, and within a few seconds, all the spots get taken based on who can spam enter the fastest and isn't getting any lag. It's stupid. Now, behests aren't nearly as popular, and we still have to wait half an hour between runs, even amongst different camps. It's a huge pain in the ass for people who are trying to earn their achievements, or who just want some good exp.

I'm pretty sure (at least, I really HOPE so) that the current server limitations have something to do with this, but we already have too much content that's fixated on this instanced "you must have 8 people and then you have to wait afterwards" bullshit, and quite honestly, I'm sick of it, because it's getting to the point where my small linkshell can't get enough interested people together to do things anymore, and we often end up having to cancel our scheduled events as a result.

We need more stuff like the imperial attacks where anyone can join up whenever they want, and form parties however they like. I know even that has a limit on how many people can enter, but at least it gives us a lot more freedom as to how we can go about doing things. I'll go play the PSO2 Beta right now if I want instances all the time, and even then, they have multi-party areas...

OPEN WORLD CONTENT IS EXCITING AND COMPELLING GUYS!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS JUST LIKE HAVING HNMS!!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS WHAT EVERYONE WANTED :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

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Originally Posted by Tetsaru

Screw instances, screw timers between runs, and screw the limit on how many people can enter at once.

Just let whoever wants to do a caravan run do a damned caravan run!

Caravans now are how behests used to be a year ago: everyone swarms the spot where the start-up NPC is, and within a few seconds, all the spots get taken based on who can spam enter the fastest and isn't getting any lag. It's stupid. Now, behests aren't nearly as popular, and we still have to wait half an hour between runs, even amongst different camps. It's a huge pain in the ass for people who are trying to earn their achievements, or who just want some good exp.

I'm pretty sure (at least, I really HOPE so) that the current server limitations have something to do with this, but we already have too much content that's fixated on this instanced "you must have 8 people and then you have to wait afterwards" bullshit, and quite honestly, I'm sick of it, because it's getting to the point where my small linkshell can't get enough interested people together to do things anymore, and we often end up having to cancel our scheduled events as a result.

We need more stuff like the imperial attacks where anyone can join up whenever they want, and form parties however they like. I know even that has a limit on how many people can enter, but at least it gives us a lot more freedom as to how we can go about doing things. I'll go play the PSO2 Beta right now if I want instances all the time, and even then, they have multi-party areas...

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And since when you will get to kill open worlds bosses without a ls? What? Gonna wait till the big ls show up to ks? I hope we can pk you all.

With the new engine you can instance 8/24 ppl and do some good fights. I don't want open world rates that you have 6969594959 ppl ksing and lagging the damn thing. Plus, farming the whole day. Then you see the rare item being sold at eBay for 5 k dollars . Not my idea of fun.

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Originally Posted by Teakwood

OPEN WORLD CONTENT IS EXCITING AND COMPELLING GUYS!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS JUST LIKE HAVING HNMS!!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS WHAT EVERYONE WANTED :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

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This is what everyone wanted yap (myself included wooot)...but need the server that can handle it, 2.0, etc. It will be fine by then. Lol on my server people are fighting and swearing in shout..reminds me of the good ol FFXI days >.> They could always just put caravans in more areas for a temp fix unless that is more trouble then its worth!

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Originally Posted by Babydoll

This is what everyone wanted yap (myself included wooot)...but need the server that can handle it, 2.0, etc. It will be fine by then. Lol on my server people are fighting and swearing in shout..reminds me of the good ol FFXI days >.> They could always just put caravans in more areas for a temp fix unless that is more trouble then its worth!

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Well if they put them at the actual level 30 and 40 camps, there are two in each zone. Doubling the number of available spots would help but I doubt it would fix anything. Though adding them to Coerthas and Mor Dhona would be nice, especially now that they're not specific to the company. Either remove the size restriction and scale content or make it like leves. Either solution would be fine IMO.

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Originally Posted by Babydoll

This is what everyone wanted yap (myself included wooot)...but need the server that can handle it, 2.0, etc. It will be fine by then. Lol on my server people are fighting and swearing in shout..reminds me of the good ol FFXI days >.> They could always just put caravans in more areas for a temp fix unless that is more trouble then its worth!

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Admittedly, ridiculously epic chocobo caravans requiring entire alliances of people would be pretty hilarious, but-

Naw, my point was that people actually literally wanted the competition over a limited open-world resource. This is a design problem that is solved by using instanced content, and while you could say that in a perfect world with better servers they'd make instanced chocobo caravans, I don't think that's even remotely factual. Chocobo caravans are open world content, open world content means you won't be able to get claim on the content 9 times out of 10.

I figure this is all part of Yoshida's nefarious scheme to make us realise that open-world content isn't actually fun, immersive, or exciting at all, and leads to conditions of artificial scarcity, so when 2.0 instances everything we'll all go "Yaaaay this is wonderful". I know I will be! :D

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Originally Posted by Nemo5990

It's retarded how many people just teleported across Eorzea an couldn't get into a caravan lets just say 3000people on 1 server all trying to for there are only 24 slots PROBLEM ?

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I have already tossed Square Enix this idea and noone took my post likely.

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Originally Posted by Noir

And since when you will get to kill open worlds bosses without a ls? What? Gonna wait till the big ls show up to ks? I hope we can pk you all.

With the new engine you can instance 8/24 ppl and do some good fights. I don't want open world rates that you have 6969594959 ppl ksing and lagging the damn thing. Plus, farming the whole day. Then you see the rare item being sold at eBay for 5 k dollars . Not my idea of fun.

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I'm having trouble understanding you... :confused: (I hate it when people abbreviate words and assume everyone else knows what it means)

If you're referring to people camping open-world, roaming NM's and then trying to get claim on it all it once to ensure the rare drops, then yes, I can see that being an issue. Thing is, most of the NM's in this game respawn within about 5 minutes, so it's not really a problem. Now, when roaming primals come out in 2.0, that might be a different story... but then again, we know little about how that's going to work at this point in time.

My issue is that everything from primals to hamlet defense, and to an extent, the dungeons, ALL require a fixed amount of EXACTLY 8 people. This poses a huge issue for me because:

1 - If you have more than 8 people in your group/linkshell, and not a MULTIPLE of 8 (16, 24, etc.), then people get left out, or have to swap in and out of parties with other people

2 - If you have less than 8 people, then you can't do the content at all, or wind up having to do pick-up groups with random people who most likely don't follow the same strategies you're used to, language barriers, people not passing loot, frustration/confusion ensues, the runs end up in total failure, you waste your time, everyone's pissed off, etc...

Things like beastmen strongholds, imperial attacks, behests, and caravan defense don't have these restrictions. You can have a full party of 8, or you can solo it, if you feel bold enough.

Also, the timers after completing a certain area. I see absolutely no reason why this was implemented in the first place, other than a way to prevent the same people from spamming runs of the same area when there should not be such a low limit on how many total people can enter at once in the first place. People should be able to spam multiple runs of the same content if they so desire. Sure, it gets repetitive (trust me, I've played PSU where people spammed nothing but White Beast runs for months), but if people need certain drops, then how else are you going to get them if they're untradeable and have abysmally low drop rates, and/or are tied to speed runs in which people need practice over time to do effectively?

I prefer open-world content, but I wouldn't mind the instancing so much if SE would just drop the "8 people or not at all" crap and the timers afterwards. I just don't see any point to them. If someone and their friend wants to duo Ifrit, or Aurum Vale, or Hyrstmill hamlet defense, over and over again, crazy as that may sound, then they should be able to do so, in my opinion. There might need to be some adjustments to difficulty and perhaps drops, but I don't think that'd be so difficult to implement... correct me if I'm wrong.

Come on, really now SE ... Is FF XIV a MMO, or just an "per instance" game like Counterstrike? Even counerstrike allowed more players per chance of playing. Only 3x8 possible players on high level caravan runs every 15 minutes when you are asking for thousands and thousands of seals for one quest/item?

It it time to really need to make this game "multiplayer" and not just 8 players.

jc

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Originally Posted by AttacKat

Come on, really now SE ... Is FF XIV a MMO, or just an "per instance" game like Counterstrike? Even counerstrike allowed more players per chance of playing. Only 3x8 possible players on high level caravan runs every 15 minutes when you are asking for thousands and thousands of seals for one quest/item?

It it time to really need to make this game "multiplayer" and not just 8 players.

jc

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Hello,

I think it is worthwhile to point out that there are 3 caravan routes, so up to 24 people can be out doing escort duty.

Also, you are presently trying to get seals during peek seal-hunting-time: A LOT of people want to get the new rank that just came out, as well as the pretty weapons and equipment. After a while it will quiet up. It is best to strategize when one does popular activities and go during quiet times.

It is also worth to note that there are still alternative (instanced) methods of getting seals should one wish:
-- Darkhold Dungeon
-- Toto-Rak


And if all that is still not sufficient there is the lower level caravan routes (where another 24 people can participate). Yes it is a lot less seals, but a lot less work. In fact it would be possible, for example:
An LS of 8 goes to low-level caravan.
7 sits at end crafting
1 goes through the entire caravan.
All 8 get reward.
Alternate which one goes through caravan and rest craft.


But if none of these are appealing, then I suggest waiting till it gets quiet, rather than just a few days after the appearance of a demand for a lot of seals.


Thank you.

Although I am sure someone has already mentioned, I will add my 2 pence after being told by a GM to write here.

One of the most aggrivating issues was like this weekend for me, we were at about 5 people in the caravan, that built up to 9. But one of the most irritating things about it was there was 1 person sitting there crafting the entire time, only getting up to accept the quest again.

So not only did it take up a space so one person wouldn't get in, they didn't even contribute.

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Originally Posted by Eruantien

Although I am sure someone has already mentioned, I will add my 2 pence after being told by a GM to write here.

One of the most aggrivating issues was like this weekend for me, we were at about 5 people in the caravan, that built up to 9. But one of the most irritating things about it was there was 1 person sitting there crafting the entire time, only getting up to accept the quest again.

So not only did it take up a space so one person wouldn't get in, they didn't even contribute.

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It might be worthwhile to note the names and LSs of these people so you can be wary in dealing with them or their associates in the future.

Getting booted from caravan because another party strolled in and filled the slots is bullshit. I'm for anything to change this so that caravan is available for more parties to do. Only 24 people on the whole damn server can do it at once? That's retarded. (didn't even read the thread, just wanted to vent)

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Originally Posted by Asiaine

It might be worthwhile to note the names and LSs of these people so you can be wary in dealing with them or their associates in the future.

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Which solves nothing, because you can't keep them from joining the event. Even if you black-listed them they would be able to join if they were one of the fastest 8 clicking the NPC.

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Originally Posted by Kinseykinz

Which solves nothing, because you can't keep them from joining the event. Even if you black-listed them they would be able to join if they were one of the fastest 8 clicking the NPC.

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Well, there are a few things that can be done:
1) IF you see they want help for AF/quest/etc, do not aid them.
2) If you see them on the ground needing a raise, do not raise them.
3) If you see members of their LS join your party, you can tell them you are ousting them due to bad behaviour of their LSmates

I would personally prefer it to stay open-world (but wouldn't mind if it changed to instanced like leves)

There are other solutions imo:
1) Make multiple routes to the hamlets (4-5 routes for each hamlet = 40 people/region = 120 people same time)
2) I'm sure other places require stuff too, other than hamlets. So more locations (with 4-5 routes each)
3) Increase the limit of players joining, from 8 to say 15? and the difficulty increases with more participants

Instanced caravans escorts can serve a purpose as well if implemented. Make a red ring around the caravan and if players are outside that zone for a certain amount of time then "You are about to abandon your caravan duty" appears. That's for those good-for-nothing space-takers.

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Originally Posted by Asiaine

Well, there are a few things that can be done:
1) IF you see they want help for AF/quest/etc, do not aid them.
2) If you see them on the ground needing a raise, do not raise them.
3) If you see members of their LS join your party, you can tell them you are ousting them due to bad behaviour of their LSmates

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Maybe it's just me, but I try not to hold a grudge forever...

Also, this still does nothing to address the actual problem/problems. People will still be able to leech and parties will still be at the mercy of 'who clicks in first'. While yes, it is nice to play with new people sometimes, it is also nice to have the option to group with friends...and the whole 'wait a couple weeks until it's less busy' while true isn't exactly how content should work. We should all be able to access content in which we meet the level/pre-req requirements. In another thread you said you don't want it to be something you are forced to form a group with pre accepting the quest (like a leve) because you like random PUGs. Fine. Well then realize that most people like to be able to, within reason, log in and play the content they wanna play...and not wait 2-3 weeks simply because 'contents busy now, try again later'. Or get in the content only to have friends not get in or be stuck in a party full of leechers. It's a repeatable chocobo mission for heaven's sake, not a rare HMN....


Ideas that won't work and why:

1. Auto-grouping (locking everyone into the same party). Basically the game is already doing this. So it's the exact same problem we have now, except now you are forced to party. Also, who gets lead? As soon as someone is given lead, they can 'oust' people to get their friends in as long as they 'oust' before the timer to start is up.
2. Having players get rewarded based on % of damage done, % of emnity drawn %healing done %of items given to chocobos etc. As some have stated, they are trying to damage the mobs, but mages are burning them to fast etc. I'm not sure if you played this game from release, but back when the game was released, we earned EXP more or less this way....do you know how much it sucked to be a CNJ who was main healing a group? You got exp at half the rate as the rest of the party because DDing=better exp. This is just too finicky a system to work correctly.
3. All party members must be in a certain range for the NM to spawn. So all this means is 'afkers'/leechers just need to memorize the spawn points or auto-follow a chocobo. Again, fixes nothing.
4. Wait a couple weeks, caravan popularity will die down and then you can do it. First, I have issues with this for reasons stated above. But also, as they become less popular, you will actually find more people trying to abuse them, and now, instead of having at least 5 people trying to win, you might only have 3. Also, not sure if the 'wait it out' plan will work as from what I understand, one of the later relic weapon quest steps, requires getting a key item from caravans. If this is true, then in like a month or so the demand will be even higher.
5. There are other ways to get seals. I agree with this...but just because there are other ways to get them doesn't mean people should not expect chocobo caravans to be easy to enter and not easy to afk.

Also instead of telling people who say 'Gee, SE this is kinda broken, can we fix it?' that they are wrong and/or that it is working fine, maybe listen to what they are saying. Or at least offer actual reasons why the system is better the way it is. Because frankly, while I can understand your liking of the pick-up battle style, arguing that you don't want to be forced to party to do content that requires a party is silly. You can still use the party search, or shout etc. to group with people you don't know even if they fix it so that it requires a group to sign up for the event. What should be arugued more is WHY am I FORCED to party with 8 random people...some of whom might not even help?

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I think it is worthwhile to point out that there are 3 caravan routes, so up to 24 people can be out doing escort duty.

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Out of how many players on the servers? Tens, Hundreds, Thousands? As said, this is a MMO, and in case anyone forgotten, it stands for Massively Multiplayer Online, NOT 24 players.

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Also, you are presently trying to get seals during peek seal-hunting-time

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This is not the peak hunting season, this is what SE expect us to do. They want 50K seals just for relic and the latest rank promotion. Even when consider that you have the caravan down perfect, that is 50 1K runs, or 12-1/2 hours per player. This is not counting if anyone needs any other GC items. That is a lot of time required from the player base given the limited slots allocated.

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It is also worth to note that there are still alternative (instanced) methods of getting seals should one wish:
-- Darkhold Dungeon
-- Toto-Rak

(and others as you have suggested)

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And why are not more people doing those?

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rather than just a few days after the appearance of a demand for a lot of seals.

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We didn't set the demand for those seals, SE did. SE can ALSO lower the seal requirements, instead of 25K, they can make it 10K. Won't that also help resolve some of these overcrowding conditions?

Don't forget, many of us play this as a game, and not some RMT that plays this game as a job. I have a job already, and I don't need this game to be my 2nd job.

The sad and funny part is, that SE reminds you to not to allow the game to over take your life every time you login, yet, they come out with all these "requirements" that demands you to play the games for hours, and often days, just to get anything useful in game.

jc

Well i dont see the problem of making that instanced, they could improve a lot the caravan escorts, like adding more mobs, without having server issues, it would be nice having a boss fight on those like at some point of the road the leader of the pack comes and fight with lot of adds, they could make 3 different bosses, so they appear randomly, maybe we could even get a special item with low drop rate like a ring, earring or bracelet. But not a must to be top notch, or an item that can be traded for more seals at your company.

I love having open world events but this kind of event is not that good, i prefer hamlets defense being open world so you can see other players and they could even add rankings list depending on how many mob kills a player got in one fight, or how many kills a linkshell did or points granted by kills, like a boss kill will give you a lot more than a normal mob, but would feel more epic having those fights as open world.

Just an idea

All fair points. But at the end of the day the real issue is not the 'mechanic' but the 'people'. Any mechanic can eventually be exploited (we are still suffering from the Garuda exploit despite being fixed ages ago). The only real solution is to avoid other people.

Either we create a world where we do not deal with other people, or we create a world where other people are good. Which is easier or preferrable? ^.^;;

If we turn everything into instanced content, add content finder with three levesl of difficulty on it, then there will be a lot less 'problems'. But then it will feel like playing a single-player game with some slightly better than standard AI companions.

Personally I would rather just accept the world as having both good and not so good people in it who (ocassionally) make it less fun, then resort to such strict and drastic changes that turn this into a very different experience.

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Originally Posted by AttacKat

We didn't set the demand for those seals, SE did. SE can ALSO lower the seal requirements, instead of 25K, they can make it 10K. Won't that also help resolve some of these overcrowding conditions?
jc

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In a way 'we' did. 'We' said we wanted to make more seals as the seal rate was too low. They added Toto/DH/NMs, but yet 'we' said we wanted more. So they upped Caravan rewards too.

Well, all this new found 'wealth' of seals comes at a cost. The cost being you have to earn 25k seals to go lieutenant (which you get back anyways, plus 5k more). 'We' asked for it, 'We' got it. The only way this wouldn't happen is if 'We' also asked for a 'Press this button to win' button. At least we did not get that ^.^;

Also, we do not have to wait till last minute to get our seals. Could be building them for a month or longer beforehand or wait longer to get a promotion.

Lots of options, and lots of ability to plan. For example:
There will be stuff we need seals for soon.
Will we saving up or are we waiting for the last minute?

I have what I need (promotion, cudgel, and still my coin). I am still saving up seals because I know I may need them in the future and do not want to panic and run around like crazy at the last moment desperate to get some to buy an item or get a promotion.

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Originally Posted by Asiaine

All fair points. But at the end of the day the real issue is not the 'mechanic' but the 'people'. Any mechanic can eventually be exploited (we are still suffering from the Garuda exploit despite being fixed ages ago). The only real solution is to avoid other people.

Either we create a world where we do not deal with other people, or we create a world where other people are good. Which is easier or preferrable? ^.^;;

If we turn everything into instanced content, add content finder with three levesl of difficulty on it, then there will be a lot less 'problems'. But then it will feel like playing a single-player game with some slightly better than standard AI companions.

Personally I would rather just accept the world as having both good and not so good people in it who (ocassionally) make it less fun, then resort to such strict and drastic changes that turn this into a very different experience.

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Well im just saying having the real good content like hamlets versus caravan or behest as open world and the other 2 as instanced would still make the important thing be and feel more global and fun, but another option is to autogroup people for caravans and behest like allowing 40 people be on the same event, you would need only to get there and you would be automatically grouped with others, right now they cant do that, but im hoping that by 2.0 they can add that.

About caravan and behest bosses, they could add em according to the number of players at the moment, if theres 40 people well they can unleash the 3 bosses at the same time with lots of adds, if they have to make something instanced to work better im fine as well with that.

Content should be ready all the time for as many players as they can.