ZAM Scars Of Abyssea Question/Answers

In Part IV of their Premier Site Q&A sessions, the Final Fantasy XI Development Team tackled questions from the ZAM team regarding the new Scars of Abyssea add-on scenario. Japanese translations of all questions and answers are available below the cut.

1) Bastion is a new battle system that allows for players to gain large amounts of experience points, cruor, and resistance credits, used to purchase the normal quality Empyrean leg armor, in relatively short periods of time. Currently, it is very difficult to make any progress in Bastion if there are very few other players there, as the resistance fighter npcs offer very little support. This leads to battles lasting only a few seconds after they start and very little experience gained. What plans are there, if any, to adjust Bastion to allow for it to be more low-man friendly?

We are aware that at certain times of day players may find themselves severely outnumbered in Bastion battles. To give small groups a fighting chance, we intend to give NPC Resistance fighters a boost in power, as well as to make clone wards more resistant to damage.

That said, the Abyssean hordes will not be routed so easily. Especially in the event that martello cores have attracted the attention of scores of foes, we urge that players expend all effort to perform resistance operations in advance to gain every possible advantage in the forthcoming battle!

2) Currently, the normal quality Empyrean feet armor pieces can only be obtained through golden chests in the new Abyssea areas. This unfortunately has caused some issues since their inception, ranging from players in alliances lotting on them despite not having the jobs for them leveled to not seeing a single piece drop in a several hour farming session. What plans are there, if any, to allow for players to obtain these particular pieces more readily and will these changes also allow for more control over what players get what pieces?

With the next version update, we intend to make Empyrean Armor pieces more readily available from small golden pyxides. This should solve the problem of players obtaining nothing for several hours.

This will also make it feasible for players to focus their efforts on obtaining these armor pieces by increasing the drop rate of small chests, rather than having to settle for experience and cruor gains while hoping for the fortuitous appearance of a large chest, as is often the case now.

3) As with the previous add-on, the tier II and tier III Voidwalker Notorious Monsters in the new Abyssea areas only have a single spawn in the their respective zones with an hour long respawn after they are killed. While this was a minor nuisance in the Vision areas, it's become a far bigger hassle in the Scars areas due to the tier III Voidwalker NMs being one of the few sources for the items used in the HQ2 Empyrean Armor pieces. Was this intended as a means of keeping players from obtaining the HQ2 Empyrean pieces, and if not, what plans are there to potentially adjust these NMs?

The placement and spawn rate of Scars of Abyssea NMs were set as they are to preserve balance and control the acquisition rate of upgraded Empyrean Armor. We realize, however, that due to the sheer number of players competing for the upgrade items, they are currently more difficult to obtain than we anticipated.

We intend to address this in the next version update by reducing the respawn time for certain NMs. While the specifics are still under discussion, we anticipate that the delay will be reduced by about half. This should provide many players with a long-awaited opportunity to upgrade.