So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

[Malacite]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

And how did you mess up our server stats?

It's 2 2 1 not 2 2 2. Windurst hasn't a single territory this week outside of the city itself.

[Akashimo]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

Thats what I saw when I typed it as I was testing display stuff.

[Eiyoko]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

Caitsith is in uber bad shape.

San d'Oria: 1
Bastok: 1
Windurst: 2 (they have saruta)
Beastmen: 17

I logged into a campaign battle in Southern Sandy this morning. GEEZ.

[Ziero]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

Fights in the cities are near constant, and they're almost always made up of Shadowforces and beastmen Freelance. Being completely serious, fights would start right after they ended, not even a minute between battles. And of course when a fight ends the NPCs all warp so that next battle would be nothing but PCs, meaning any and all NMs can and will have their way with us.

Though I personally have been making use of what little NPC assistance we do eventually get. Led at least 5 different NMs, including Shadowhand (that sexy, evil bitch), to their doom as I'd pull them from the entrance all the way to the Music shop in Bastok where there's usually 1-2 fully rested NPC units playing cards or something. It was almost comical to watch the battlespam from the NPCs wailing on Shadowhand as the screen would fill with dmg numbers from her spikes...which seem to get through my filters with little effort.

To hell with Exp, I just want these bastards out of my city.

[Nandito]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

Lawls, this is awesome. Every server is getting their asses kicked. :D We're on the verge of losing the war, woo!

...I of course can say that since I can't participate in Campaign yet. :<

[MrMageo]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

Im a little miffed to be honest...

I personally havent gotten owned yet rdm/nin ftw, however garuda is in bad shape, i think the beastmen are sitting at about 18. Also in our valiant defense of the past we have lost 2 besieged in the same amount of days in the present.

The reason I am miffed is because I don't quite follow SE's stance on campaign

Period 1 (november to march) saw decent chalenge mobs with a great return to exp. (personally I was getting 6-8K/hr and racked up 300,000 ish AN)

Period 2 (march-june) saw a cut to mob strength a cut to exp/an earned, a buff to allied npc's, and mythical seige machines (which I still have yet to see technology level do you have it?)

Now were in period 3 with brick wall mobs, crap exp, and a very depleted npc army (I love watching the beastmen drop them in the first 5 minutes of the fight >.>)

So what exactly is campaign? Are they trying to tinker it and make it some type of large scale assault type thing making it harder to earn points for gear? Or are they just trying to revive the party situation, I know parties from 10-50 are virtually non existant on garuda. (Main/BRD song spam ftw I guess).

On the topic of seige weapons has any one seen any yet? Ive been to every zone in the past fighting battles or exploring and have yet to see these mythical abomonations.

I wouldn't mind a big gear up for some decent drops, maybe stuff like PCC or something at a high price, or other hard to obtain costly items. Perhaps a boost to exp or AN earned for being in a zone when it is taken back, If there were better rewards for the work that is now required to recover Id imagine more people would do it, as for me im going to sit on my AN until something useful crosses my path, and visit the past for pixie hunting and Ixion camping.

[Murphie]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

Ok, what dumb ass said MrMageo's name three times? Thanks a lot.

[Malacite]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

It seems that even if you lose your starting area, so long as you maintain at least one zone outside of the city itself the beastmen will not sack you.

[Losrase]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

I read this thread yesterday and decided to give it a try after I broke the Sapara of Trails and got my NPC to level 66. I started in Sarutabaruta and we were completely owned...let me know lie, we got pwned. It was like bringing a sling shot to a tank battle. I thought the first update had a nice balance. We won some battle and we lost some battles but each battle was fun. The siege weapons were a pain(Their WS would do about 800-1000 dmg) but it was still fun. If they are going to make the mobs this hard, they should at least let us get skill ups on them.

There two more pieces of armor I want and it looks like I am going have to use the "cure bomb myself until I die" method to try to get a decent amount of AN/exp.


Phoenix:

San d'Oria: 2
Bastok: 1
Windurst: 2
Beastmen: 16

[Vyuru]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

I feel a little conflicted about Campaign right now.

Well, first off I'll say that for the Unicorn server it's something like:

Windurst: 2
Sandy: 2
Bastok: 1
Beastmen: all else

Right now, I LOVE the multiple waves per fight, it feels like a real fight now. The beastmen don't seem to be really that buffed in comparison with before, but so far it's not that different. Well, now the only difference is that now it's a bit of a flip of a coin whether or not I can outlast a Quadav Pld or not. But I guess I may have to start eating kabobs, and maybe use those body/mana boost items or something for these.

However, if the difference between having a lot more fun during fights is to spend a few pennies and some of the vast amount of AN that I have accumulated, and still rake in by the truckload, then so be it.

I think there are two reasons that the beastmen are currently stomping us:

1) Allied NPCs seem to have taken a bit of a nerf. It's a bit hard to tell though since the beastmen got a bit of a buff, but the allied NPCs do not seem to be anywhere near as usefull as they were pre update. This might be because we're seeing alot more waves attacking the forts at the same time though. So maybe the NPCs are still as strong as before, but just fighting more mobs for an extended period of time and getting killed and leading us to believe that they are weaker.

2) And I think this is the main reason, players are still in this for soloing mobs. In the last few fights I was in, I have seen alot of players leave a mob they were fighting and go off to find another one as soon as even one other player showed up and got hate. They aren't even done with the first wave after 15-20 minutes, so of course they aren't going to be able to handle the next 3-4 waves as they come up, which leads to more areas controlled by the beastmen. It also leads to the allied NPCs having to fight 3+ waves of beastmen at the same time, which leads to a rather speedy demise.

3) It seems like as soon as one fight ends, another begins within 10 minutes, if not instantly, so we are seeing a vast increase in the amount of attacks on the fort. We can't possibly win them all.

All in all, I think I am in favor of the changes. I strongly suspect that the majority of the problems here are due to the players not working together. I also think that alot of the players who used to do Campaign are off doing those ZNMs and whatever else new content was added.

I'm hoping that once things settle back down, we'll see more territories under Allied control, but I'm really hoping that the beastymen keep things interesting. It'd be a shame to go back to things being just 1-2 waves at most and too easy after this.

I'm going to have to check the Campaign Ops listings, it'd be interesting if there was one that increased your nation's standing in a particular area.

On the amusing side, but mostly because it happened in Bastok and to a LS mate and not me, it seems that there were Kaiser Behemoths running amok in the town while he was trying to mule gear and stuff for a LS event.

Just a little incentive not to lose all of your territory


Oh, and on the Siege Engine front, I saw one the other day. It was interesting, because I saw a bunch of NPCs standing around, then the Siege Engine spawned where they were standing, shortly after that, I saw a bunch of War Lynxs join the Yagudo attacking the fort. The War Lynxs seemed to be guarding the Siege Engine, because except for 2-3 Lynxs that were attacked, or attacked the fort, the other 4-5 or so Lynxs stayed next to the Siege Engine. I don't know if the NPCs I saw earlier were the War Lynxs, or if there are Yagudo NPCs who build the Siege Engine, it'd be interesting to find out.

Oh, and I heard that a Belfry was made in Sarutabaruta, but didn't see it. You seem to get a zone-wide message when something like a Belfry or Siege Engine goes up.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

I quite agree with Vyuru, I think players are under the illusion that our NPCs got weaker and the mobs got harder. The fact really is that the beastmen are now more coordinated than the players actually are.

Players try to solo beastmen or a mob of players gang up on one beastmen. The beastmen do not do this, they'll most certainly gang up on one player given the opportunity.

One problem I've seen consistantly is players get too close to the enemy outposts and will eventually aggro an NM from it. Instead of doing the smart thing and just accepting the death the brought on themselves, they panic and drag the NM to other players. The NM doesn't just walk back to the fort, it goes and kills the next player it sees, then the next until that one player has basically PKed everyone in the immediate area. You're going to die, just die, don't get everyone else killed because you were stupid.

Also, people aren't going after the mob that causes the most problems and its the easiest one to solo and kill - the imps. Campaign Imps just so happen to be SCH/RDMs, SE has been paying attention to how players took to the job and has modeled a mob after them in kind. Beastmen are getting the benefit of AoE Protect/Shell/Stoneskin/Phalanx/Blink and Cures from these little guys. Thankfully, the imps aren't smart enough to use Manifestation enfeebles on us.

This is compounded by the fact that no one seems smart enough to dispel this stuff. Its like being in a bad sky fight or something, a dozen players all over the mob and none of the dimwits will dispel the mobs, so I'm sitting here popping off stacks and stacks of Dark Cards on my COR so we can kill the shit faster.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

Right now, I LOVE the multiple waves per fight, it feels like a real fight now.

It's awesome when it happens in a non-city zone. It really sucks when it happens inside your city though.

Campaign Battle starts in Bastok. After 5 minutes of waiting, a wave of beastmen finally arrives, and it takes 6 minutes to dispatch them. If that happens for 3 waves in a row, that means the Warp NPC is unavailable for a half hour.

So for that half hour, the zone is crammed with more PCs and NPCs than the city really needs to defend itself. Meanwhile, offensive battles in zones that need to be retaken are denied the reinforcements needed to actually make progress.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

ok, I was wrong about one aspect of the imps, the NMs do link them, though the general beastmen do not.

Campaign Battle starts in Bastok. After 5 minutes of waiting, a wave of beastmen finally arrives, and it takes 6 minutes to dispatch them. If that happens for 3 waves in a row, that means the Warp NPC is unavailable for a half hour.

So for that half hour, the zone is crammed with more PCs and NPCs than the city really needs to defend itself. Meanwhile, offensive battles in zones that need to be retaken are denied the reinforcements needed to actually make progress.

Call me crazy, but if your town is being attacked and there's nothing else left to defend, the highest priority would be defending home.

[Murphie]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

Maybe in real life. But in FFXI things work a little differently.

[Taskmage]

Re: So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

Eh, I think it's fair that defending the town should take priority over retaking other areas, but that absolutely relentless assault makes it a bigger obstacle than it needs to be. I feel sorry for anyone trying to do quests.