Pagos - It's possibly worse than we thought

[Tigerlilley]

I try not to post in general discussion any more since I feel it's a bit of an echo chamber in here but I wanted to share some info from the Pagos discord who have been recording and monitoring data regarding FATE spawns.

It seems that instances are "recycled" a few times. This means, if you arrive in a "fresh" instance as the first group with no one else in there - there's a possibility that instance is not fresh at all. This means, any work done by the previous players in this instance before, carries over to the "new" recycled instance.

Including fate pops.

It is 100% possible for you to spend a 3 hour lock out fighting the same mob in an attempt to spawn a fate (usually the higher level ones like Louhi, Cassie, Behemoth) but the fate will not pop due until the instance recycles - which you may or may not be able to get back into. I'm unsure of the cool down between recycled instances.

Example:


I have seen this myself in "fresh" instances where randomly the snowman or hakutaku fates will pop but no one was there. We've farmed corpses at night in an attempt to spawn Louhi, failed during our timer and had it spawn for the next people after us, leading us to spam the duty finder like crazy trying to get back in.

Another example with the copy cat cassie fate. A fresh instance where the previous entire instance had timed out, the instance then recycled and Cassie spawned on blizzard:



The reason I'm incredibly angry that this is a possibility is because my group and I set alarms to wake up for a specific weather, got up and farmed four hundred and two morbals in an attempt to spawn Copycat Cassie. The current theory is that blizzard weather is a key since thats how we popped her last time so we tried to copy what we'd done before. Not only is this amount of grinding extremely excessive for "casual" content (assuming we are correct in the proper spawn conditions, of course) the real kick in the teeth is realizing that our work could just be recycled for other people. (That, and the earrings drop from Cassie seems to be ONE total for everyone who is fighting in the fate. Exactly the same as Diadem's EM weapon drop.)
After farming, no pop, the instance was not refreshing ( I think they lock off, go on cool down and then get recycled) and we could not get back in to see. All those mobs work, for nothing.

TLDR: What does this mean?
- It's possible your "fresh" instance is not fresh at all and you are completely at the mercy of the groups before you before the instance reset. Tracking NMs is therefore pointless because you do not have the data from the previous group if it's a "fresh" recycle. The only thing you can know is what is down from your own time in there, not what is up.
- You could spend 3 nights farming corpses to spawn Louhi, but it's possible he's on CD from the instance before, even if you thought you were in a "fresh" instance.
- You could spend 3 nights farming corpses to spawn Louhi, have your timer time out and the group after you will get the fate pop.

Have fun, everyone.

[Iscah]

It could be that they’re not ‘deliberately’ recycled but simply that new people come in just as the others go out. I once joined an in-progress dungeon and when I loaded in, I was the only one there!

[Cyreil]

Might explain why NM are spawning very little.

[hynaku]

That happened to me today. Entered Pagos and was only one in it. Waited 15 minutes still only one in it so I left. Entered again it was full of people.

[LeoLupinos]

Then don't kill that much mobs. Try 90 mobs, if not pop, try something else.
@Edit: Try to see this Pagos Tracker for Cooldowns.
Ty for the info anyway.

[Antonio_Xul]

As more people are reaching higher levels, more NMs are popping. I use to see only 1 or 2 a session, but this morning, I saw about 6. Things are picking up it seems.

[Rangar]

That's okay, after 2.5 hours today, got Louhi to pop, but SE's stupid instance killer left no one around to fight it

[HyoMinPark]

@Edit: Try to see this Pagos Tracker for Cooldowns.
Ty for the info anyway.

The tracker won’t help if you land in a reused instance and have no knowledge of which NMs are on cooldown already, which are not on cooldown, and how much longer the cooldown has left on any previously spawned before they can be spawned again.

[Tigerlilley]

I just want to also throw in a few of my own thoughts on Pagos. I got to 35 in about 5 days of basically consistent grinding.

• This is incredibly casual unfriendly. If you do not have at least 4 - 5 hours a day to spare in Pagos, it's possible to get little to almost no NM pops for the work that you'll need to do to get experience. Expect at least 1 - 3 pops per 3 hour session.
• Expect to miss the NM pops as a low level with no aetheryte access or mount. Since there is no train, its possible your party can be on the complete opposite side of the map when an NM spawns. + The panic + sleeping dragons, it will take time to get to NMs. You gotta hope the higher level players will wait.
• You will need to consistently grind. If you slack in your group, you're going to drop the chain which will kill experience for everyone.
• Because of this ^ the level disparity will absolutely become an issue. Low level players in high level groups will be a dps burden.
• As a result of these ^ People are less likely to break away from their groups to help a player needing a rez. Don't go alone. Seriously.
• The low level bunny fate is, weirdly, a lot harder than the level 31 one. Voretooth is super beefy. Level 31 fate will mean your treasure will be in high level areas but its way quicker to farm.
• I farmed the high level bunny fate for 3 hours straight and got nothing except junk. There's a reason the drops are tradeable - they're have no where near the same drop rate as Anemos. In that time in our group of nearly two parties, we collectively got maybe 1 - 2 bunny housing items, 3 hakutaku eyes, a couple of cards, 2 minions. No mannequins or weapon housing drops.
• The speed belt and cassie earrings seem to be one drop per entire population present at the fight.
• The sleeping frozen void dragons in choke points seem to only exist for a train deterrence.
• As a midcore raider, I have put more total hours into completing Pagos than I did into progressing and clearing Sigma savage.
• Alongside your EXP grind, there is a Nexus light grind (renamed) at the same time. By the time I got to 35, I had what I needed for one +1 Pagos weapon with no extra grinding required.
• I wish they had have put in rare dyes or crafting materia in as drops. It might have made the lock boxes less of a bitter pill.
• I like that they have added in reskins of old glamour with no class restrictions. I hope this continues in the future.

Story Spoiler - Edit: I don't know how to format spoilers :3 A little help here?

It's treading water for very little gain for hours on end with no chance to have a break since the chain experience is your key to levelling faster. The weapons themselves seem to be nothing more than simple glamour and a check box to tick off since Tsukuyomi, tome weapons, raid weapons, HoH weapons and basically anything else in this game is nearly of equal or better stats for about an 8th of the effort.

Final thought: Pagos plays very similar to Diadem 2.0 in which the higher end fates need to meet x quota to spawn, that of which may not happen in a 3 hour lockout + one drop for the entire party like the Diadem Emergency monster thing that happened. There are layers of RNG and RNG to drops making farming for anything a completely miserable experience.

I think that last point is possibly the most disappointing of them all. It's like they literally learned nothing from that previously hated content and have managed to wedge it back in under a pretty map. I expected an expansion of Anemos, not a thinly veiled Diadem 3.0. Yoshi said in live letters that each iteration will add in more features. I expected an expansion on the magicite fighting system, not magical bunnies with crappy materia drops.

I love this game but Pagos is an absolute miss for me. I feel bad for my FC members who absolutely will not have the same amount of time I had to grind and this content will be endless, unforgiving, and ultimately, uncompleted.

[LeoLupinos]

The tracker won’t help if you land in a reused instance and have no knowledge of which NMs are on cooldown already, which are not on cooldown, and how much longer the cooldown has left on any previously spawned before they can be spawned again.

But you can know how is the max time you can keep killing the same mob for NM to spawn. I think the soft cap is 120m.
He can always see if there's a tracker or not. I would re-enter some times until I get a tracker, so that is more garanteed to be worth the grind.