So... who got owned thisweek in Campaign?

[LyonheartLakshmi]

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

On Lakshmi,
S: 3 => 4
W: stayed at 2
B: stayed at 1

Both Windurst and Bastok failed to recapture their respective "newbie" zones.

[Lunaryn]

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

Midgardsormr has lost everything but the cities this week. And the Beastmen are starting to gain influence in Bastok Markets.

[Ziero]

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

I still think the mobs are just fine, its the player's strategies that suck. The NMs were ramped up, for certain, but they're not impossible to take down with just a little coordination. When people stop exploiting /BRD and dragging mobs a mile to the side to "solo" them, in addition to taking out Transporter mobs and advacing technology, we might start doing better.

But as long as people keep singing, trying to horde mobs for themselves and just bang on fortifications, we'll keep losing ground.

I call BS on that.

The bots play no factor in whether we win or lose, they're bots and if they weren't there they wouldn't be helping regardless.

And you can't keep "banging on the forts (which btw is the way to retake a zone) because they're always surrounded by Beastmen. They *repop* while defending, so when you think you're making headway by killing one, two more spawn in their place and instantly aggro. I've had mobs spawn in casting tier IV nukes on people running by, they weren't even fully materialized before they began casting. And no, it wasn't lag.

And now we HAVE to drag mobs miles from the fort to fight them because if we're even within sight of another beastmen we run the risk of linking. And I don't see anyone soloing anything anymore because 1) The sheer number of people doing it now makes that near impossible and 2) the fact that all the mobs are stronger...and they are stronger...makes it riskier to do.

After a week of this Beastmen dominated campaign, niether Sandy or Bastok has made any progress into retaking a zone. And it's not from lack of effort or numbers. And while Windy did retake a zone on Cerby, they lost the only other one they had.

There is something wrong with the balance if we can't even come close to winning a single zone.

[Raydeus]

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

Fenrir this week is:

Sandy : 5
Basty : 1
Windy : 1
Beastmen : 14

Or something like that.

[Mhurron]

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

There is something wrong with the balance if we can't even come close to winning a single zone.

I think a lot of the problem is that to take zones, or at least make headway on Campaign, you have to be able to have people participating in Campaign Ops. Unfortunately, when your home city is constantly under attack, it's very hard to actually get the quests in the first place.

There was one zone that changed hands, I think San d'Oria took one back, but since I doubt that suddenly there are far less people taking part in Campaign battles something isn't balanced right.

[Ziero]

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

I think a lot of the problem is that to take zones, or at least make headway on Campaign, you have to be able to have people participating in Campaign Ops. Unfortunately, when your home city is constantly under attack, it's very hard to actually get the quests in the first place.

There was one zone that changed hands, I think San d'Oria took one back, but since I doubt that suddenly there are far less people taking part in Campaign battles something isn't balanced right.

It doesn't take long to do an Op, I did at least 5 different ones last night despite constant attacks. And the fact most ops are at one star...meaning people do em often, yet the stats say we desperatly need everything is another indication to me that there is something wrong.

[Losrase]

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

Phoenix:

Sandy: 2
Bastok: 1
Windy: 2

Nothing has changed from last week.

On another note,I joined in Sunday to keep from losing my current medal and each mob (except the NMs) hit about the same as before. I noticed there were more mobs than usual, it felt worse than besiege with they crazy lag(when I helped take down a siege weapon, I thought the game froze 4 different occassions because nothing was moving on the screen each time for 3-5 seconds), and I seen siege weapons and those teleporting portals more often. Every battle they set up a teleporting portal and about every two battle they used a siege weapon. We won each battle(6 battles and 2 even without NPC help) but there was a lot of deaths.

[Silent Howler]

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

Garuda:

San d'Oria: 3
Bastok: 1
Windurst: 2

San d'Oria is actually holding pretty strong. Last time I checked they were on there way to controlling a 4th region. The Beastmen started gaining influence in Bastok but I haven't check up on the Campaign situation since last night. The Beastmen have full influence in West Sarutabaruta and may be attacking the city in a couple days.

Makes me wonder if this was all intentional; changing the tide of battle.

[Taskmage]

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

I think it's a given that it was intentional to change the balance of the battle, but I doubt it was intended to swing the balance so far that the players are cowering in their cities unable to make any headway in place of the beastmen.

[eticket109]

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

Last week 90% of the people doing Campaign from Windy seemed to be in Windurst Waters [S]. I'll have to check when I get home, but I don't expect there was much change on their side of things.

[LyonheartLakshmi]

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

I think it's a given that it was intentional to change the balance of the battle, but I doubt it was intended to swing the balance so far that the players are cowering in their cities unable to make any headway in place of the beastmen.

The recent 1up interview was an interesting read. The Devs said that they wanted the beastmen to be stronger, something about the player base being too comfortable sitting back and defending rather than going on the attack. Their rational was that if the beastmen were stronger, then players would be forced to join in on offensive battles more often, as non-city zones would be under beastmen control more often.

The irony is that players don't have the luxury to go on the offensive right now, with the constant attacks on cities.

Being a part of an offensive battle doesn't even seem to be worth it. I was in Pashhow today for at least 30 minutes, with only a few other PCs and an NPC DNC brigade. We were beating on the fortification unopposed the entire time. I checked the fortification level there from time to time. I saw it go down to around 120/156. When I checked back toward the end of my time there, somehow it was back up to 156/156, in spite of the ongoing battle.

[Kitalrez]

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

One of the things I noticed this last week in Windurst on Diabolos is that city battles last forever. Seriously, one in Windy Waters [S] made it up to 45 minutes. I figured out how to work the Performance Assessments to make 4-5k each battle on my WHM. They're great for exping up now. Downside is that you only get to hold that zone, since as others have pointed out, you have about 3 minutes between battles to get/finish Ops.

[Juiced]

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

I figured out how to work the Performance Assessments to make 4-5k each battle on my WHM.

You know, I've always been under the impression that you achieve more exp by turning in tags and getting new ones periodically throughout the battle. Is there something more to it? Obviously doing your part in campaign is a must for exp gains. Getting tags and standing around isn't going to get you anywhere.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

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

I saw it go down to around 120/156. When I checked back toward the end of my time there, somehow it was back up to 156/156, in spite of the ongoing battle.

There are "transporter" mobs that periodically walk thier way to the fortifications. These are not campaign mobs, but they are more or less are peforming supply and fortification Campaign Ops for the beastmen.

If left alone, they will accomplish thier mission and fortifications and supplies will be restored. If you take the "transporter" mob out, this stops them from doing that, but you'll have to fight his two stronger buddies as well.

They will perform these runs whether a battle is going on or not. They don't really aggro unless you get too close to them or attack, but then will stop and watch you for a second and if they aren't engaged, they'll continue on thier own mission.

So, stop these bastards.

[Kitalrez]

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

Actually, it's a lot faster to exp up by getting new tags periodically. Here's BGLS's Point calculation guide which I will now explain...

You'll notice that each category in that has it's own point cap. This is the hard cap for the total of that particular action. At the bottom is a listing by ribbon of each minutes soft or rolling cap. How that works is this, let's say I take healing and just do that. Up until I heal 5000 dmg, I'm getting exp for it. Let's say however that I decide to front load healing. I'm a WHM, in a pt with 5 Galka PLDs, everyone in the party has 1 hp left, (poison pots or something). As soon as we all have tags, I pop Benediction and heal everyone for 5k immediately. I've just capped healing exp, but I won't get full credit for that until I break the soft cap, meaning the battle has to last 8 1/3 minutes past when I got the tags if I have just the first ribbon, (not did the action, time starts from tags), for me to recieve the full 500 exp points. This is because the soft cap for that ribbon is only 60/min. So, I have to wait it out if I want the full exp.

The loophole in that is that the 60/min cap for Bronze Ribbon of Service only applies to a single action. You can do multiple actions over the course of the battle and cap multiple sources of exp. Provided the battle lasts long enough for the soft cap on that action to be reached, you'll get full exp for it.

So, what I do over a battle is cap multiple spell exp sources, starting with self-buffs (that's why you see everyone spam bars as soon as they get tags), and working my way up to healing. At Mithril Wings of Service level, I get about 86/min, so I cap healing in a bit under 6 minutes now. I basically can cap this in the time it takes to recover mp from doing it. Once I have my caps, I run back to the CA and refresh tags. Meaning over the course of any battle I've been tagged probably 4-6 times in the cities. Try looking at the chart a bit and seeing the fastest way to cap things between tags. My system is by no means the fastest way to exp up, it just works for me.