New Assault Area (03/01/2007)

[Caspian]

Re: New Assault Area (03/01/2007)

"Thats no ordinary rabbit....look at the bones!!!"

"We can't risk another frontal attack, that rabbit's dynamite."

Hoping for good things from this. I doubt it will be so easy to get that people give up HNM camping alltogether. At best, it will likely thin out the zones a little bit and make claiming a little easier.

[tazirai]

Re: New Assault Area (03/01/2007)

Sounds extremely fun, Been havin a hard time getting back into FFXI since my last "break" from the game. This sounds like something to kick my spirits into high gear.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: New Assault Area (03/01/2007)

"Thats no ordinary rabbit....look at the bones!!!"
"We can't risk another frontal attack, that rabbit's dynamite."
Hoping for good things from this. I doubt it will be so easy to get that people give up HNM camping alltogether. At best, it will likely thin out the zones a little bit and make claiming a little easier.

If it destroyed every HNMLS on every server, I honestly would not shed a tear. Endgame at my own pace is what I've really always wanted and ToA hinted at that with Assault, CoP somewhat with Limbus. People should be able feel like they're working for a tangilble goal and really earn it, endgame as it exists now on ground HNMs and Sky is just a second job with low payoffs.

[Caspian]

Re: New Assault Area (03/01/2007)

Oh, I totally understand that, but I've seen some people claiming the sky is falling on HNMls's, and frankly I just don't see it. More likely, this would make a bigger impact on RMT than normal HNMls's. Kind of the same thing that happened when people heard about Salvage, only this one, if it actually does drop abjurations and ridills, might actually have the effect of lessening the load on the currently overcamped HNM's. But I really can't foresee it killing HNMls's alltogether. The prospect of getting lucky and claiming them and getting lucky on a drop will still keep people coming around for some time to come.
P.S. I would be absolutely amazed if Defending rings were potential drops in this new area.

[Neomage]

Re: New Assault Area (03/01/2007)

Omg XD that made me lol'd. Serious note though >_>; Whirl Claws hurt in Cape Terigan espically on rdm/blm that got forced into main heal w/o being told >_>;

AMEN! Take my last party in Caedarva Mire for example. Half the pt was /anon, so I figures someone had to be the WHM or at least the RDM/WHM. Erm, nope, THF, WAR, MNK, BLU, DRG, BLM(Me). When I found that out I asked if the could have told me that BEFORE we took the ferry to camp(candesence was missing) so I could have changes to /WHM and their reply was they were scared I would leave for not wanting to main heal. Imagine that. What BLM wouldn't want to main heal?

Cursed Sphere was nearly as deadly as Whirl Claws without shellra and bar-water, and on top of that I didn't have refresh other then Cloak. Nonetheless, it was the bets EXP I ever got in my life at 8k/hour(previous record was 6k in Mount Z at 64)

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: New Assault Area (03/01/2007)

Kind of the same thing that happened when people heard about Salvage, only this one, if it actually does drop abjurations and ridills, might actually have the effect of lessening the load on the currently overcamped HNM's. But I really can't foresee it killing HNMls's alltogether.

The only reason HNMLS exist as they do now is due to the fact SE never really implemented a guild and loot distribution system into Linkshells. Since players were given a glorified chat room, we had to make our own rules. Too late to go back on that now, players think being in an HNMLS is some prestigious thing. But since there's no real structure save for what the players decide, there's lots of drama.

That's not to say other MMOs don't have drama, we just have much more potential for it here in FFXI.

If Ridills and abjurations drop in this new zone, a good degree of prestige will be lost for these HNM shells and ground HNMs will be like a 2nd shot at the same item. But if I no longer have to fight dozens of others in an LS for a drop, why go at all, I can just do this Assault with friends til we all get what we want. HNMs move in and out of a time zone, we can camp em every day. Well, OK you can if you're really willing to throw away your real life, which some people actualyl are.

Whatever happens, I like the SE is getting into more modernized MMORPG design. They were riffing too hard on EQ and Lineage II's design and it retained too many of the flaws of those games. Looks like they're overcoming that design now, at the very least.

[Toksyuryel]

Re: New Assault Area (03/01/2007)

*All participants will obtain tokens from a mission; however, only the person who operates the Rune of Transfer on the starting floor will receive the recorded data.

Is anyone else worried about what kinds of drama this could cause?

[LilithAngel]

Re: New Assault Area (03/01/2007)

Not really, if you think about it: there are two.5 ways to go about handling this situation.

1> You static the floors with your group. Same group every time. No muss, no fuss.

2> You cycle the same set of floors with your group until everyone has a copy of the data.

2.5> A combination of the previous two methods.

TBH, this really does sound that easy to figure out, and there really shouldn't be that much (if at all) drama in this situation to begin with. Assault is easy and accessable to everyone because of the small group focus: it doesn't take much to get an Assault started, and everyone benefits equally from it. The HNM scene cannot compete with that, and as far as I can see, it only holds its monopoly on endgame because Assault is still "small-scale" in terms of cost-vs-rewards ratios. This new Assault style threatens to change that, however.

Put HNM-level rewards in an Assault-accessability-level event... ...you tell me what you think will happen.

"Hmmm, I could go to my LS's Fafhogg/Aspid/Gods/Whatever event, stand around for hours doing nothing while the 'main' players get in on the action, only to have to stand in line *yet again* for an item that might not even drop, all the while getting 'points' that really don't mean much and having to listen to people bitch and moan about it all... ...or I could go get 2-5 of my friends together for this Nyzul Isle right quick, we all could get some nice drops, could do it again later/tomorrow, and *not* have to deal with stroking people's egos just to stay on thier good side so I don't have to worry about levelling a job I don't really like 'for the good of the LS'... Descisions, descisions..."

HNM: rather restrictive on what you can bring and do (you'll play X Job in Y Manner as we tell you, or you can kiss yur shot at Z Item goodbye; sorry, this strategy that we're blindly following doesnt' call for imagination/innovation/creativity/thinking, so you can leave your level XX XYZ Job at the MH)

Assault: Freestyle all you want, thanks for playing, here's yur "Uber Item of Awesome", yall come back now, y'hear?


As rediculous as it all sounds, that's how rediculous it all is. It's almost amuzing, to a point.

EDIT: Oh, an afterthought. Assault society has adopted a method to delineate who gets the 'lead' on a particular run rather easily: /random. Whether it's to decide who gets lead first in a static group, or just to decide who gets it at all in a pick up group, /random is generally held to be the most fair and quick way to determine who gets those few extra points (and believe me when I say this, when going after those 20k items, those 'lead' points can add up fast), and overall, has been generally accepted by the populous at large as *the* proper way to start any Assault. I could very well see this trend continue with Nyzul Isle, only this time, it'll be /random for Save Data. Again, overall, this new Assault seems to be set up inherently to address any potential drama by the very fact that it is indeed an Assault.

[Karinya]

Re: New Assault Area (03/01/2007)

Additionally, if only one person gets the data, it's very likely that only one person *needs* the data to let the whole group into the next block of floors. (Assuming it's the same group - if you're doing Nyzul with a pickup group, then I agree with Lilithangel's solution of randoming for the data among people who don't already have it.)

One thing I'm a little concerned about though is the shortage of tags. You don't get Assault Points in Nyzul, which means if you want any assault gear or points for Salvage you have to do normal assaults, cutting into your ability to do Nyzul assaults and vice versa. That could kill Salvage before it even really gets off the ground.

This will obviously keep people from just spamming Nyzul all day every day, which is fine, but it means the old endgame stuff won't go away; there's a maximum amount of Assault you can do, and you have to divide it between Nyzul, points for Salvage and any Assault Points gear you want, so anything you can find outside Assault will still be very valuable.

I'm fine with that though - having more options for what to do at 75 is good. Each player can decide for him/herself which ones they want to pursue because, even more so than was already the case, nobody can do *everything* - there's not enough time in the week.


On the other hand, for all we know, the chance of finding an abju mob in Nyzul may be on par with the chance of getting a pcharm from Under Observation... if they exist at all. Or they may only exist at Floor 75, which you need 75 tokens to enter (even once you have the data), and you normally get about 5-10 per run (or something like that - the point is that, like Limbus, the system could be - and probably will be - set up to prevent you from spamming bosses.) Or, like certain Salvage areas, you may be forced to choose between taking time out to fight a certain NM or using the time to progress further into the zone.

My guess is that tokens will not be ex - there's already a market in dynamis currency, ancient beastcoins and Imperial currency and the world has not come to an end, and furthermore, collecting enough tokens for a higher-floor run would be a real pain with ex tokens (especially if the same person has to have the data and the tokens). With tradeable tokens it's much easier - we're going to floor 60? Everyone trade the leader ten tokens. If it doesn't divide evenly, random for who pays an extra token - and those people lot on the first tokens that drop until they each get their extra token back.