Hamlet Defense how to make it better

I think its a little discouraging to see how so many people seem to have lost interest in Hamlet defense so quickly. Not even a week after the two new Hamlet Defense missions were added and already near impossible to find players who want to put time into it.

I don't want to get into a flame war over whats wrong, rather take a positive spin on it and perhaps start a discussion thread on ideas to make it better.

As I have only taken part in the DOL aspect of it, I will focus my ideas on that.

As it stands you can only carry one potion at a time, and one hit makes you drop that. You deliver a potion and it begins a sequence. Three of one kind delivers a certain type of enfeeble, one of each another type.

My suggestion is, allow DOL players to choose where in the 3X3 grid they want to place the potion. That way, you can set up future combo's. So you could gather two red, two blue, two green, then complete each combo in sequence.

X X X Blue
X X X Red
X X X Green

This is how the enfeeble grid is set up. As it stands you give a potion to the NPC and its put in place. YOU can't set up combo's its cut and paste. What ever one you give them goes to the combo happening, you can't set up future combo's or decide how its placed. It takes more time and gives us less control over what is happening.

As far as the drop system and the reward system. There is not really any intensive to do better. The rewards for doing "standard" (around 9999 and up) are dismal, and the rewards for the next step up, (lets say 15000 and up) are not substantially better. I don't think GIVING away drops would be better, but something more than 1 anima and a few useless cosmetic fireworks isn't much of an intensive. Perhaps a tweek of the loot system, better rewards...gill, more anima, the ultra rare ore's that are 100k each? Something to convince players to WORK towards getting a better score.

just some thoughts.

Hopefully some users can suggest some changes to the battle and DOL aspect. A lot of us were very excited about Hamlet defense and over all it has just been very disappointing. There may be nothing we can do about it being instanced, but Im sure it could be much better than it is now. Because as it stands, its just not fun. Maybe it was fun the first time, and the second time...but after about 20 or so runs and nothing but a few anima and cosmetic fireworks...its not worth it.

One suggestion I have for the DoL side of things is that you shouldn't need to confirm with the NPC that you want to hand a potion in...massive waste of time.

Oh thank you for bringing that up! It is so annoying to go through that waste of time speech every time. I understand they want a small delay to make sure you are not being attacked wile trying to drop an item off. But nothing frustrates me more than spamming enter to get through her text, only to click one time to many and have to go through it again! Its war woman hurry up!

I ran Hamlet Defense with my LS once..... ONCE! (I mean beat it once, did several attempts with diff setups and strats) the general consensus was: NOT WORTH DOING. I don't think we'll be back to HamDef anytime soon.

The need for 8/8 PT members = too demanding for this caliber of content.
The rewards for our time spent = pitiful
Instanced content = boring community

How to improve Hamlet Defense?
1) get rid of the need for 8/8 full PT. scale content based on PT size from 1 member - 8 members
2) greater rewards. Give us Grand Company seals for our efforts. Around 500 for a successful attempt.After all we're getting 7 other people involved for up to 30 min at a time. At least give us incentive for giving the effort to gather PT members.
3) In ver 2.0 make it non instanced!! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE! I'm sick of being separated from the rest of the world while partaking in world events!


I know people get all bent out of shape when you mention FFXI. But I imagined Hamlet defense being a cross between Besieged and Campaign. I think a lot of people did. The imperial invasion forces seemed like you were heading in the right direction with HamDef. But completely missed the mark. What a tease.

I have high hopes for revamps and refinements for ver 2.0 but this content in it's current form, it's just not up to par.

HamDef is Dead on arrival.

I think the Garlean invasion event is a good place to start when dealing with Hamlet Defense, they did so well with that...and then crashed when it came to Hamlet Defense.

The more i think about hamlet defense the more i realize they dropped the ball here.

Like a lot of other people when they mentioned them many many moons ago i though it would be a open world thing.
I understand that the current client has crippling limitations. but there very little incentive to do these at all and it sucks because i know there were some people at square busting ass to get these done. I hate to see there work go to waste like this.

I think one the issue here might be the entry barrier. Right now i am sitting in a 5/8 party to try to do aleport its like pulling teeth to fill the last slots. We are probably going to break soon as the only other thing we can realisticaly do with this group is darkhold for the billlionth time

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Originally Posted by Hayden

I think the Garlean invasion event is a good place to start when dealing with Hamlet Defense, they did so well with that...and then crashed when it came to Hamlet Defense.

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Lol, Garlean Invasion sucks if you think of it from a difficulty standard, at least with Hamlet there is a challenge to it which is why there is a party limit. Setting something out for 1-8 party difficulty isn't as easy as it sounds. Even swtor had to take it's time with releasing certain difficulty modes because it's not just about adding more or less monsters it also comes down to how strong they should be given the situation.

Balancing it out by isn't that simple but it mighty be doable with how Hamlet is done. Since NPC soldiers are involved it would be easy enough to test if a 4 players party with an additional of 12 NPCs keeps the difficulty the same or slightly more difficulty, 5 members with 9 extra, 6 with 6 and 7 with 3. The additional NPC in each area could imitate the lack of an actual player but offer a greater risk since losing more and more NPCs would put you at quite the disadvantage.

Any other methods to allow varied player parties would most likely take to long to test so perhaps if we attempt to suggest the addition of extra NPCs for each player missing they may add it in XD. Which would be nice since like many people I to haven't done Hamlet since the first run because of the fact I NEED 8 to enter. It's just so troublesome trying to find people for a time based event then it is for something you know you can do any day.

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Originally Posted by Airget

Lol, Garlean Invasion sucks if you think of it from a difficulty standard, at least with Hamlet there is a challenge to it which is why there is a party limit. Setting something out for 1-8 party difficulty isn't as easy as it sounds. Even swtor had to take it's time with releasing certain difficulty modes because it's not just about adding more or less monsters it also comes down to how strong they should be given the situation.

Balancing it out by isn't that simple but it mighty be doable with how Hamlet is done. Since NPC soldiers are involved it would be easy enough to test if a 4 players party with an additional of 12 NPCs keeps the difficulty the same or slightly more difficulty, 5 members with 9 extra, 6 with 6 and 7 with 3. The additional NPC in each area could imitate the lack of an actual player but offer a greater risk since losing more and more NPCs would put you at quite the disadvantage.

Any other methods to allow varied player parties would most likely take to long to test so perhaps if we attempt to suggest the addition of extra NPCs for each player missing they may add it in XD. Which would be nice since like many people I to haven't done Hamlet since the first run because of the fact I NEED 8 to enter. It's just so troublesome trying to find people for a time based event then it is for something you know you can do any day.

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He wasn't refering to the difficulty of imperial invasion. He was talking about the manner in which it was implemented. Swarms of enemies in the OPEN world, to be engaged by ANYONE who wishes to partake in the event.

Instead we got a crappy instanced battle vs a horde of semi-challenging beastmen.... yay....


Give us a targets that take several people to burn down, in the open world, with anyone on the server.

You people take this too seriously.

You arent mad at hamlet due to what it is.

You are mad at hamlet because its not what you wanted it to be.

Hamlet is fun, you arent giving it a chance for what its worse. Yes the drop rates arent great, but the drops are good.
It isnt super easy and you cant invite 500 people to do it with you, but you shouldnt need an event to be able to do that to have fun to begin with.

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

You people take this too seriously.

You arent mad at hamlet due to what it is.

You are mad at hamlet because its not what you wanted it to be.

Hamlet is fun, you arent giving it a chance for what its worse. Yes the drop rates arent great, but the drops are good.
It isnt super easy and you cant invite 500 people to do it with you, but you shouldnt need an event to be able to do that to have fun to begin with.

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I don't think I agree with you. The problem isn't the difficulty, in fact its not really that challenging at all. It's quite easy. Easy to get a high score, easy to figure the system out. Nobody is complaining about the difficulty. It's just the pay off for what work you have to put into it isn't adequate. Among the many other issues the community as a whole are bringing up.

The thing is, the community speaks for itself. Not even a week after the last two hamlet defense missions are released and already people are losing interest.

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Originally Posted by TheVedis

You people take this too seriously.

You arent mad at hamlet due to what it is.

You are mad at hamlet because its not what you wanted it to be.

Hamlet is fun, you arent giving it a chance for what its worse. Yes the drop rates arent great, but the drops are good.
It isnt super easy and you cant invite 500 people to do it with you, but you shouldnt need an event to be able to do that to have fun to begin with.

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Of course we're gonna take it seriously. HamDef was something that we as players have been looking forward to since.... DECEMBER OF 2010!!! Tanaka originally whet our appetite before he got booted. Yoshi delayed it, sighting it would be content that any job can partake in.

They give us this crap.

I was looking forward to a system where if it were dead in my LS I could go do some HamDef until things picked up. Nope need a PT 8/8.

HamDef is content that has too strict of an entry requirement, with little incentive to repeat after the novelty wears off.

I'm talking from strictly a battle phase point of view.
To balance battle phase with the building phase. I think DoL and DoH should be required to craft and turn in , in instances where a Full PT is required to enter. Upon entry you must have at least 1 battle class to defeat mobs that drop mats that are required for the recipes.

Like I said HamDef missed it's mark with this subscriber.

Remove the instance, increase the number of mobs and strength(hp) of boss.

Fixed.

Instances and lowman 8 person content is the problem with defense, fix that and the content is fairly good. This is a prime example of instancing everything being bad, it is really hurting this content.

People will be spamming these once AF weapons are out, I still see shouts for these fairly often on my server for them. They are fine as is. Only problem is you need to be in top 20 to get worthwhile rewards. Joined a group last night and all I got out of it was fireworks.

the main problem with hamlet defense is that us players were waiting for it since tananka statement (2010) so we had high expectations ever since that. To add our expectations which weren't meet when hamlet defense was finally released had grown overtime higher & higher even if you didnt intend them to be so really hamlet defense was gonna get negative feedback anyways but would have been less if it didn't take so long. Many players feel that with all the development time and us waiting for hamlet to be released should have been way better then it is now but ended up as a total let down.

also the fact the we dont have TOO much content that you can play freely is another let down, many ppl thought hamlet was the answer to that but apprently not. The majority of players wanted something that you could come & go solo/low/high man team even work together with random ppl, its a let down that hamlet defense doesn't have it. In the end something on the basis of XI campiagn is what we envisioned hamlet defense to be but it didnt happen. only thing to do is hope for it to be changed in 2.0 to be like XI campaign style not the same exact thing but something very similar.

Hello,

I've done Hamlet Defense successfully about 15 times (across two different hamlets both level 1 and 2). And I have to voice some sadness and concern about this. But first, to the OP:

-- If you have Stoneskin up, it does prevent you from dropping an item. I've been hit without and almost always drop. I've been hit with stoneskin up and do not recall it every dropping (may happen, just not noticed it yet).

-- If the party keeps the action centeralized, you can usually run around them when heading back with the vials. At most I drop two per run (if very unluckly), usually 0 or 1.

-- Swiftsong does help you to run faster. It does make a difference!

-- You can choose the strategy you want by making sure you pick the right coloured vials and turning them in, in the correct order. I know you know this, so am unsure what you are meaning? You want to submit everything then indicate which debuff to make? Yes, that would be more realistic, not sure why they choose this way.


Now for my pain points:

-- Please don't make me have the same conversation with the NPC every time I hand in items. And when I hit enter once too often and get trapped in another conversation, it is very annoying. If a slow down mechanism is needed, just make it part of the animation please. If a message must be given, please make it so that it just spews out without me needing to hit enter.

-- After 15 runs, and thus observing the drops to 8 people each run: 120 drops. I have seen nothing. So drop rate is very low. This I can be fine with. The drops are quite good so less than 1% drop rate.. okey... but.. when the highlight of my 15 runs is one grade 5 dark matter (which, besides the prisms, is ALL I have gotten)... that is sad. A total of 1 Grade 5 Dark Matter should not be my best drop after 15 runs O.o!

Note: I do not get XP (unlike primals), I get one grade 5 dark matter (after 15 primal fights I would usually have nearly a stack of grade 5 dark matter), nor do I get gil (which I would get from primal).

Yes, there is a reward of 3 anima per fight... but I've always had 100 anima when I started, so this is not very helpful to me ^.^;

So, I'm concerned:
If I contribute supplies (which would otherwise be sellable for Gil), I still need to make sure I find people who can beat hamlet the next day often enough so that I can get a secondary drop. And of course that I can be on. This is a gamble. One that I can not afford to take (and perhaps only a few of the stronger LSs can manage).

If I do not contribute supplies, then I no longer expect to get anything from the chest (very poor drop rate). If we factor in time spent doing this versus doing something else that would net a reward, then there is a technical 'loss' from doing Hamlet. And without non-contributors taking part in hamlet, it can lead into the cycle of making it harder for contributors to find people. Which will further feed this vicious cycle.

Which is why I am sad and concerned.

I hope they find some way to give a better incentive for me to go to Hamlet, as one grade 5 dark matter after 15 runs... just isn't enough to be honest.

And if they do find a way.. then this can be a good enjoyable piece of content.


Thank you.


P.S.: Yes, doing hamlet as a DoL is fun for the first 5 times... after that it is very repetitive and can be done whilst half asleep ^.^;

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Originally Posted by Hayden

I don't think I agree with you. The problem isn't the difficulty, in fact its not really that challenging at all. It's quite easy. Easy to get a high score, easy to figure the system out. Nobody is complaining about the difficulty. It's just the pay off for what work you have to put into it isn't adequate. Among the many other issues the community as a whole are bringing up.

The thing is, the community speaks for itself. Not even a week after the last two hamlet defense missions are released and already people are losing interest.

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easy? of course its easy, we only see level 1 and 2 right now

you do realize that hamlet defense isnt even complete, itl go up to level 5 when they complete it, and itl probly be alot harder when it gets that high

either way, to everyone else, it doesnt matter how much you are looking forward to something, you ALWAYS seem to put too much hope into something being something more then it can possibly be

alot of people are enjoying it, alot arent, same can be said about most any other fight too.

hamlet defense will have its niche, same as dungeons do, same as primals do over time

those that want to do it will, those that dont, wont