The 9,968 Pages ThreadFollow

Even if some gear is 1% with capped lights, you can at least sit and spam the fight over and over and over as many times as your Voidstone stock will allow. I wouldn't compare it to Salvage; back in the days people would spam it daily and not see a certain 35 piece in months, if not longer... then just lose it with a crappy lot.

My Proposal to Mainstream Voidwatch
The development team at Square has often mourned the fact that much of the vast FFXI content is "sleeping". In fact you get the feeling that this whole year is devoted to renewing and reinvigorating less used "sleeping" content as it moves toward the 99 level cap.

But it's also important to not keep churning out more content that will simply lay dormant as soon as it's released. Case in point, Voidwatch. A lot of people I know tend to like at least the idea of Voidwatch, but for whatever reason it doesn't seem to take off. Only a handful of players have done its content.

The enemy fights are fun and unique. It provides something for larger more coordinated groups to do in contrast with the simpler small group content in Abyssea. Rewards from VW are pretty good and can't be obtained anywhere else, as well as the mirrors and heavy plates needed for trials. And going by the road map VW clearly has a long future system planned. So why hasn't it caught on as a popular event?

My answer to this is that the reward system is very bad, starting and accessing the event is too time consuming and inconvenient, and that forming pickup groups is not as convenient as could be. Wedging lots of magian trial items into the battles is not enough to ensure its popularity among people who want other things out of it.



Here's my suggestions for fixing and mainstreaming the popularity of Voidwatch:

1-Ditch the loot system entirely. Implement a points system like Assault or Nyzul tokens or Einherjer Ichor. Killing a VW NM results in a points minimum, where procing weaknesses will boost the points won massively with your performance. Save up your points for the loot YOU want to buy from the NPC. Include mirrors and heavy metal plates purchasable with VW points.

One bonus here is that equal points for all comers means it's much simpler for there to be no drama and make pickup groups (like assault). One flaw might be that universal points could mean groups will only spam the easiest NM that grants the most points. To counter some of that you could make region specific points perhaps just like you had Assault points split up for Mammol Ja/Ilrusi/Halvung areas. Split it up into like Bastok/Windurst/Sandoria/Jeuno/Norg/Rabao/Khazam

2-Reduce the amount of running around to start up. Talk to ONE of the three nation NPCs who gives you all THREE stratums. Talk to ONE of the three zilart town NPCs who gives you all THREE stratums.

3-Reduce the amount of cruor required to upgrade Atmas and buy abyssites. I don't mind having to use up some cruor or other regional points to buy Voidwatch things or services. But the huge amount needed is a transparent way to keep players on a points treadmill.

4-Grant area teleportation to VW fights from the start, purchased from either with cruor or Voidwatch points. What does it matter if some people can warp to the area if some can't and you must wait on them anyways?

5-Tie together as many Voidwatch warp NPC areas as possible into one /yell chat. This would make it easy to hang out at the NPC, form a pickup, then go immediately.


Here is the cold hard psychology behind current Voidwatch rewards. You spend 15 minutes wrangling up a VW party. You explain how it works and get your group of confused players together after 15 more minutes of coordinating and traveling. You spend 20 more minutes fighting, trying to call attention to weaknesses and light levels. You have succeeded and you go to inspect the reward chest to see what your precious time spent has afforded you. You peer in and find... some tea leaves a little worm and a mythril nugget. For four of the six players in your group, that is the beginning and end of their Voidwatch ambitions.

Now alternatively let's see how it could go using Voidwatch Points. You spend 50 minutes wrangling, explaining, and fighting your Voidwatch NM. You have succeeded at skillfully hitting weaknesses and maxing out lights. Every player helped to do a good job at coordinating weakness and lights. Every player gets the same amount of Voidwatch Points now. You return eagerly to the Voidwatch NPC to see what the implications are and what you should start planning to save up your points for.

This is the most important aspect that needs addressing. When an MMO shows its disdain for your time spent with pitiful rewards don't be surprised when the players rightly conclude their time is better spent elsewhere.

hey enough of FFXI talk, there is a general board for that. This is for nonsense fun times, and pictures of Tofu's nintendo pnaties.

You just described Salvage exactly. You can do the Bastok T4 VNM every day (stones have a set recharge rate) and not get the Body for months. And this is assuming everyone else your with wants it, if someone wants a piece off a different VWNM then your splitting your stones even further. Drops are calculated on a per-person basis, meaning after one fight you have 18 separate treasure pool calculations, this is why it's so easy to get probabilities on them. If an LS does a T3VWNM three times, then they've had 54 pool's calculated. Over the course of a few weeks that's a few hundred pool's being calculated, yet often people don't ever even see the body drop much less drop to them. So we're actually talking less then 1%, into the .5 to .25% realm (I'm trying to be generous for SE). This wouldn't be so bad if you could share the R/EX drops, so that even though its less then 1% you have 18 chances at that less then 1%, but since you can't it's only your pool and it's sub 1% drop rate.

That is doing runs every day for weeks and months and never getting your item to drop to you.

I know you want to step in and defend the VWNM system because you like it, I like it too. I enjoy the fights, although some are quite cheap, overall it's a very fun system. But don't even try to say the loot distribution system is fine, or ok, or manageable, or even bad, it's absolutely horrible. It's designed with only one purpose, to get you to waste months of your time doing a limited even to get your cheddar. It's the very definition of a skinner's box, designed to get you addicted to pumping that lever hoping to get that food pellet to drop. I ~might~ drop on the first pump, or it can drop on the 200th pump, you don't know so subconsciously your forcing yourself to pump it as fast as possible in the hope that the next time will be the end. It's the same mechanics that get people addicted to gambling.

Also, your time estimations are a bit silly figuring only 1 VWNM a day. You completely omitted or forgot about Voiddust, which makes Voidstone stock virtually unlimited with the incredible ease at which Allied Notes can be farmed, not to mention the CP and IS many people have saved up. Besides, anybody who took the time to do the preliminary Voidwatch quest after introduction likely has a healthy Voidstone stockpile thanks to the first installment's difficulty and lackluster rewards making it unpopular. Personally my Linkshell has been spamming VWNM 2-3 nights a week since the 2nd installment, and I currently still have 126 stored on NPC.

Anyhow bring on my boobs. Sadly most of my pics that I posted got banned lol.

{Cheeky rebuttal}
{Quick dismissal and call for lulz}

No nintendo panties as i no longer have prem. Sad panda is sad.

As long as you're actually female, this is relevant to my interests. I once had the misfortune of seeing a picture of a certain unnamed admin's man-boobs. This incident scarred me for life.

Anyway, to keep this FFXI related, I am now the proud owner of a shiny new pair of Creed+1 pants.

*Cue Ovjang calling me a slacker for not having a full Creed+1 set*

*Comforts Ralrra* It's ok. I don't think there's a person alive that wouldn't have been scarred to see something like that.