Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

[Vyuru]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

it's the only way to get Imperial Standing outside of XPing in Aht Urhgan areas and non-repeatable quests.

There are repeatable quests that give IS? I need to look into this.

[Murphie]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I'm not sure where you'd get the idea that there were repeatable quests for IS from that statement you quoted.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Meh, on Hades it sometimes takes weeks to get the AC back, and this was both before and after the expansion came out, so losing it and not having it back right away doesn't mean dick as far as I'm concerned.

[Balfree]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Dont forget the Relics are probably in Aht Urghan, that might keep people there. More if you end up needing the Astral Candy to get them.

[Silent Howler]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

There really isn't any need to 'keep' people in Aht Urghan. You are given a 1-2 hour heads-up before the battle actually starts. That's pleanty of time to take a break from your little campaign and run to Aht Urghan.

[Vyuru]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I'm not sure where you'd get the idea that there were repeatable quests for IS from that statement you quoted.

Er... Yeah.... Sometimes I read what I want to read... >.> /blush

[Karinya]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

There really isn't any need to 'keep' people in Aht Urghan. You are given a 1-2 hour heads-up before the battle actually starts. That's pleanty of time to take a break from your little campaign and run to Aht Urghan.

More like 3-4 hours for high level besieged - and the npcs can pretty much win the low level ones by themselves.

Of course, that's if anyone bothers to check the besieged map But with the price of khroma ore, people will want IS to do ISNMs, if nothing else. And unlike the OP's speculation, WotG zones aren't used for grinding at all (yet, but I don't see even slight movement in that direction), so almost all high level exp (campaign aside) is still dominated by the Empire.

[Sabaron]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I'm looking at WotG areas as something of a novelty that will end up as quest/mission/farming zones like CoP zones. Aht Urghan was definitely designed to be more of a high-end XP zone set. Still, it would be nice to get some cool party XP zones for people who don't generally get invited to meripos.

[Kittyneko]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Meh, on Hades it sometimes takes weeks to get the AC back, and this was both before and after the expansion came out, so losing it and not having it back right away doesn't mean dick as far as I'm concerned.

I haven't seen it gone for longer than a few days tbh. Last week it was gone for 5 days ish.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

There are times it's gone for weeks, and times it's back before I even know it was taken, lol. Depends when the JPs decide to do it, the NA hardly ever do.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

I'm looking at WotG areas as something of a novelty that will end up as quest/mission/farming zones like CoP zones. Aht Urghan was definitely designed to be more of a high-end XP zone set. Still, it would be nice to get some cool party XP zones for people who don't generally get invited to meripos.

Beastmen fortresses are viable merit camps in WotG, its just the same problem as always:

Players are too lazy to "walk" in a video game.

I mean, really, they gave us teleport spells that put you in spitting distance of these past fortresses, teleports to each zone they're in and probably chocobo access by next month and that still won't be enough.

People. Are. Lazy.

[Akashimo]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

People. Are. Lazy.

BBQ wins the Vana'diel Awards for the statement.

Anyways, yeah, I still call people lazy and ungrateful on any ls i'm on or on vent when they bitch that the jps haven't gotten the candy back after 1 day.

I think we went for an entire week with out it only once. Best week ever ^_^

But yeah, I'd rather see more RoZ/CoP/WotG parties with any of the coming updates ;x

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Meh, on Hades it sometimes takes weeks to get the AC back, and this was both before and after the expansion came out, so losing it and not having it back right away doesn't mean dick as far as I'm concerned.

Not having Runic Portal access could actually work in your favor as far as meritting is concerned. I'm sure a lot of players will decide not to go to most ToAU merit camps without Runic Portals active. But the Nyzul Isle Colibri camp isn't that much harder to reach on foot than it is with Runic Portals.

[Karinya]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

Beastmen fortresses are viable merit camps in WotG, its just the same problem as always:

Players are too lazy to "walk" in a video game.

I mean, really, they gave us teleport spells that put you in spitting distance of these past fortresses, teleports to each zone they're in and probably chocobo access by next month and that still won't be enough.

People. Are. Lazy.

Well, I don't think that's the *whole* problem. If the camps were good, people would go there even if it did take 2 whole minutes. Heck, people used to go to Lufaise and Moongate. Those camps died, maybe partly because they were inconvenient, but mostly because they were *inferior*. Empire = more exp. So why leave?

Teleporting to the past right near the fortresses won't give you sigil, which you need if the camp's potential is going to be anywhere remotely comparable to sanction camps.

But suppose you have everyone retrace, get sigil and then use the cheap past teleports, and get to camp. Then you can start fighting beastmen.

There's just one slight problem there though - beastmen are REAL monsters. They can take a beating, and worse, they can hit back. The typical colibri abusing party won't have an easy time beating them at all, let alone with anything like the same kill speed. Even comparing the classic beastmen to the Empire beastmen... all 3 classic beastmen races are stronger than mamool ja. A lot stronger. And when you do kill them, you get less exp, because sigil doesn't have the exp bonus of sanction.


SE clearly put some effort into making signet, sanction and sigil different, and they *are* different. But they're not equal.
Signet: free (no-TP-loss) resting, bonus exp for 2-5 members, can use some conquest based items, bonus def/eva against EM or lower when engaged
Sanction: latent refresh or food extension, bonus exp regardless of number of members
Sigil: latent refresh and/or food extension, free resting

Regen is omitted because it's too small to matter. Conquest/IS/AN balance each other out (sort of, assuming more ways to use AN are coming in future updates). Food extension doesn't affect your exp/hr, only slightly affects your gil cost. There aren't many signet dependent items and their effects are not large. Frontliners in high-level parties rarely rest at all, while backliners have no TP to lose, so free resting isn't a significant benefit in that context.

So for a full party of high level expers, ignoring insignificant bonuses, you get:
Signet: nothing useful
Sanction: latent refresh and bonus exp
Sigil: latent refresh

It's not hard to see which of those is superior.


In the end, it doesn't matter how convenient the camp is to reach if it's a worse camp because (1) Sanction is better than the alternatives and (2) the commonly-exped-on TAU mobs are weaker and quicker to die than other mob families. Fashion can have a lot to do with camp locations, but in this case the fashion is backed by cold hard facts, which SE will have to change because nobody else can. Exploiting imbalances (or if you prefer, seeking out the maximum obtainable efficiency - and when you're dealing with anything other than an *obvious* bug, the line is far from clear) is a player behavior, but having imbalances at all is SE's responsibility.

[Aksannyi]

Re: Will Al Zahbi be Thrown to the Wolves?

There's just one slight problem there though - beastmen are REAL monsters. They can take a beating, and worse, they can hit back. The typical colibri abusing party won't have an easy time beating them at all, let alone with anything like the same kill speed. Even comparing the classic beastmen to the Empire beastmen... all 3 classic beastmen races are stronger than mamool ja. A lot stronger.

To me, this is just more incentive to invite people like Paladins and White Mages. Remember those? And maybe even coordinate something like a skillchain.

Wait, skillchain? Who am I kidding?

Excuse the bitchy/sarcastic nature of my post, it's just kind of nice to see PLD and WHM get some xp love from time to time.