<Players Abusing the chocobo Escort missions>

[Asiaine]

The thing about the 'open world' content attacks is this...Chocobo Caravan is NOT open world. I can't randomly walk through an area where people are doing one of these missions and attack their mobs, or heal their chocobos. I am not even sure if I can heal the people on the mission. (I never tried). So saying that the content shouldn't be 'instanced' because we need more 'open-world' is flawed. It already is 'instanced' content.

What I don't understand is why they don't make it that you can accept the chocobo caravan missions from the npc, but they count as a leve. Maybe make it so that if you are in a group, and in the same guild company, you can 'link' for bonus seals. But if you are not of the same guild company you get just the base seals. Basically, take the same rules for leves and leve linking but apply them to company seals/chocobo missions. Although I think I'd like to see it have at least a 2+party member requirement.

This way, you can have several different groups doing the missions at the same time.
No one will have to deal with 'unwanted leeching'.
You don't need a large party, but the content won't be very easy to do without grouping. (assuming they make a party requirement like 2+ etc)
You don't have to wait on a cool-down timer.
You don't get screwed out of doing them simply because 8 people clicked the NPC faster than you.
You can gain company seals, more by working with others in the same company.
High-level people tend to have an abundance of leves anyway. This is a way to keep them using their leve allowance credits too.
Also, they could consider adding ***** levels to the missions as well. The more * the harder the caravan but the better the rewards.

Because.... now I would have to find a party of 4-8 people who want to do the caravan, rather than just show up and join. This is like the last thing I can do in this game that involves anyone else without having to find a party. It's also a nice way to meet strangers.

The problem is not the system, the problem is people who abuse the system. We should sort them out ^^;

[Kinseykinz]

Because.... now I would have to find a party of 4-8 people who want to do the caravan, rather than just show up and join. This is like the last thing I can do in this game that involves anyone else without having to find a party. It's also a nice way to meet strangers.

The problem is not the system, the problem is people who abuse the system. We should sort them out ^^;

You can't have a witch hunt...there will always be someone who abuses the system. There will also always be parties that get upset because 'you stole my friends slot' or who won't invite a random. Sorry but the ONLY way to keep people from abusing it somehow is to 'lock' the content somehow. Even having it that you need to stay so close to the npc isn't gonna work because people will just 'auto-follow'. Making it 'damage' or 'emnity' based won't work, because it risks penalizing active party members who are in support roles/caring for the chocobos etc.

I suggested making them 2+ party members...and considering even now if I am out soloing leves, without asking for help I still get /t <team up?> A LOT, I am willing to bet, if the system was changed to be more like leves, (especially if it worked that you needed just 2-3 people to be successful) you would see /sh's around the NPC or towns and parties in the search function. If you are mostly upset that 'gee, I like PUG groups cause I like working with new people.' Well, form a party of people you don't know. Also, if the whole 'bonus for having people from the same guild company thing was added, then people would have even more reason to try to group with folks they may not already know in game.'

The bigger problem is that on any given server, at any given time, only 24 people can do rank 45+missions and only 24 people can do the rank 25+ missions. This makes the competition for slots even more stiff AND makes people more pissy if group members are seen to abuse them. Imagine if only 24 people on any server at any time could do Ifrit...or Cutters? If SE wants to have a larger playerbase, they need to take in account that more than 24 people at any given time would probably like to participate in this content. Yes, there are other ways to get seals. But really, this is a solid, group-oriented way to do them.

Oh, and it's only going to get worse when more people on every server NEED to spam chocobo escort missions for the relic. (assuming that is in fact one of the steps needed).

[Asiaine]

Might it not be prudent to wait for a period other than immediately after the release and a sudden high demand for collecting vast amount of seals, to decide if the system in place is sufficient or not?

Note: There was no problems before the Rank up requirement with 25,000 seals. (As far as capacity).

Also, any system you come up with anywhere will always have problems with people abusing/exploiting. Only way to avoid that is to go single-player game.

And finally, just because there are a few inconsiderate people out there please dont' suggest we should lock content in such a way that the end result is people like me can't play anymore.

[Ilethius]

I havent read all the posts so if this has been suggested already apologies, just had a couple of thoughts about possible ways to make sure ALL member's of a caravan pty participate with the entire escort and not just chocobo to the end.

1. Upon sign up the 8 members (or how ever many there are) should be auto partied up and if they leave the party they abandon the escort. (Put in a condition that when they sign up for caravan escorts they cannot be in a pty already)

2. Add conditions that must be met to spawn the NM at the end of the escort, i.e. Add way points (lets say 3 way points located @ 25%, 50% and 75%) throughout the escort. To meet the condition it requires that all members of the pty must be present at the exact spot of the caravan, if only 7/8 or less are present the party fails the condition and the NM will not spawn.

3. Add kill requirements, i.e every member of the party must have killed or been involved in killing 10 mobs (being involved in a kill will also take into account healers that heal party members instead of doing dmg)(increase or decrease depending on difficulty) or more throughout the escort. If the player does not meet this requirement when the end NM is killed they are not eligible for the drop and so are not considered when the system hands out the drop.

Just a thought...

[Asiaine]

I havent read all the posts so if this has been suggested already apologies, just had a couple of thoughts about possible ways to make sure ALL member's of a caravan pty participate with the entire escort and not just chocobo to the end.

1. Upon sign up the 8 members (or how ever many there are) should be auto partied up and if they leave the party they abandon the escort. (Put in a condition that when they sign up for caravan escorts they cannot be in a pty already)

2. Add conditions that must be met to spawn the NM at the end of the escort, i.e. Add way points (lets say 3 way points located @ 25%, 50% and 75%) throughout the escort. To meet the condition it requires that all members of the pty must be present at the exact spot of the caravan, if only 7/8 or less are present the party fails the condition and the NM will not spawn.

3. Add kill requirements, i.e every member of the party must have killed or been involved in killing 10 mobs (being involved in a kill will also take into account healers that heal party members instead of doing dmg)(increase or decrease depending on difficulty) or more throughout the escort. If the player does not meet this requirement when the end NM is killed they are not eligible for the drop and so are not considered when the system hands out the drop.

Just a thought...

These are all good suggestions, and there are many other suggestions that could help ensure there are no 'leechers'. The good news is that there are some plans to make this system better in the future. Of course that is in 2.0.

In the mean time, I think the only thing that can really be done is to note who the undesirable adventurers are that seek to claim reward without work, and avoid aiding them in the future.

[Urthdigger]

So, I noticed something odd earlier today. Our entire party was unable to get into a caravan (Time was running short when we entered, wasn't due to leechers for once), so those who got in decided to just drop and wait for the next one. When the next caravan came around, we noticed that a few of the chocobos, and some monsters from the old caravan, were still just hanging around. So, they most definitely have the capability for multiple caravans to run, there's no reason they can't instance it (As in, leve style instancing).

I tried to think of a method that would work for everyone, and came up with the following. First off, the party leader can sign up his entire party at once by talking to the NPC. If it's a party of 8, then that's it. They're signed up and just have to wait for their caravan to start. If it's not a full party, however, people may freely join. If your group is small enough, you may even just wind up joining another partially filled caravan. This way, people don't have to deal with people splitting up their party (Or worse, replacing a productive member with someone who's leeching or doesn't have a clue), yet at the same time keeps the more open style it currently has. In the interest of fairness, this should probably be applied to behests as well.

[Aistalia]

This is really annoying. Yesterday I was in a party for Caravan Escort and I didn't get in a run because some people outside the pt talked to the NPC a little before me, so it reached the members cap. Needed to leave, also because the party leader started kicking everyone who didnt talk to the NPC in time.
And let's not talk about the rude players who accuse you of "leeching". I was fighting as well, but the mobs went down so fast because the lv50 BLMs did most of the work with their area spells, I couldn't do much.

[Jinko]

This is really annoying. Yesterday I was in a party for Caravan Escort and I didn't get in a run because some people outside the pt talked to the NPC a little before me, so it reached the members cap. Needed to leave, also because the party leader started kicking everyone who didnt talk to the NPC in time.
And let's not talk about the rude players who accuse you of "leeching". I was fighting as well, but the mobs went down so fast because the lv50 BLMs did most of the work with their area spells, I couldn't do much.

You have a point here, anything other than BLM and WHM is useless in these things because the monsters are normally dead before you can gain TP as a melee.

Another example of SE not balancing content.

I'm just glad I have both mage classes levelled.

[Kinseykinz]

This is really annoying. Yesterday I was in a party for Caravan Escort and I didn't get in a run because some people outside the pt talked to the NPC a little before me, so it reached the members cap. Needed to leave, also because the party leader started kicking everyone who didnt talk to the NPC in time.
And let's not talk about the rude players who accuse you of "leeching". I was fighting as well, but the mobs went down so fast because the lv50 BLMs did most of the work with their area spells, I couldn't do much.

And this is one of the reasons why I feel treating these like leves would be smarter than changing it so people had to do a % of damage etc. to get credit/full credit. You ARE participating and actively trying to help. It's not really your fault the blm is killing faster than you can gain the tp for one weaponskill.

Also, you aren't who people are talking about when 'leeching' is getting thrown around. They mean either the folks who 'auto-follow' the chocobos or who just run to the endpoint and wait for the npc there. Neither of which you were doing.