Instance Caravan Escorts are Needed

[Asiaine]

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.

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

[Kinseykinz]

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

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?

[Kitfox]

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)

[TenraiNagi]

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.

[elreed]

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