Why can't SE let us reserve Dynamis?

[Raydeus]

Question, how would you manage time extensions if a LS reserves the same zone to start 1-2 hours after another LS went in?

[Amele]

zones could only reserve in max time blocks.

yes. this means that areas that don't get max timed frequently ('sup icelands / outlands) will result in fewer runs being possible on the same night, rather than more.

[Murphie]

Yeah, that's what I was going to suggest. Just reserving with maximum time extensions considered.

[Raydeus]

I don't like it.

I hope if SE ever considers doing this they will go with instancing instead.

[Murphie]

Instancing would likely require a lot more work than merely allowing for the maximum possible time when scheduling slots.

[Raydeus]

The only way I could even think about this working is if the requisite for reserving an area was actually trading a glass or two, that way you'd know the player who made the reservation is at least serious about using that time slot.

Otherwise if a LS didn't make it to their reservation time then the slot would be lost (and it wouldn't cost a thing to the offender LS), imagine all that time wasted because a LS reserved the place and couldn't make it in time, what happens to all the other LSs that could be actually doing Dynamis in that time slot.

And I still don't like it, if instancing is too much for SE to implement then things should remain the same as they are now. Also, having a bunch of players reserving Dynamis just to block everyone else wouldn't be a rare occurrence either.

[Murphie]

Well, there's not really anything stopping people from abusing the system currently in place, but at least on Bahamut, that doesn't really happen. While I'm sure some LS's would try and take advantage, I'm willing to bet that most would play by the rules.

[Aeni]

thousands is a big overestimation.

I'd can name only about 8 active dynamis linkshells on my server at this time, and allowing for EU and JP linkshells I can't see; I'd estimate the number of active linkshells to be about double that. 16 - then there is usually 1 or 2 linkshells per primetime that are just getting started and will scrub out in a month, so 18ish total.

so you're looking at communication lines between 18 people, spread out over 7 days. (the issue comes up in that approximately half of these shells run on saturday and the other half on sunday, except for the one odd shell who does monday/thursday or tuesday/friday etc) but even split down the middle on a weekend, you have 10 dynamis zones to run - so you could still *ALL* go at the same time.

I'm on Hades and I know your estimate is FAR FAR low. In fact, I'm still pearled into a JP LS that has members active in Dynamis. Even amongst the JP community, there is disagreement in how Dynamis is being scheduled and just recently, an AU/NZ community was expressing interest in forming a Dynamis LS which would *step* on JP time (A few KOR players are also trying to get something)

Right now the reason why there aren't MORE *active* Dynamis LS on Hades is simply that it's not worth it. Forming one will almost always cause issues with scheduling. It is therefore far easier to attempt to get into an existing one than form a new one, but I bet you a million dollars that given the opportunity to do so, MANY will form overnight if SE puts in the Instanced Dynamis idea into play.

[Raydeus]

Well, there's not really anything stopping people from abusing the system currently in place, but at least on Bahamut, that doesn't really happen. While I'm sure some LS's would try and take advantage, I'm willing to bet that most would play by the rules.

1 million gil for 1 hour reservation Dynamis is ok, zero gil for 3 1/2 hours reservation is not, and even with the glass being a requirement it's still too much of waste of time to be worth it.

[Murphie]

Well, that's subjective.

[Amele]

I'm on Hades and I know your estimate is FAR FAR low. In fact, I'm still pearled into a JP LS that has members active in Dynamis. Even amongst the JP community, there is disagreement in how Dynamis is being scheduled and just recently, an AU/NZ community was expressing interest in forming a Dynamis LS which would *step* on JP time (A few KOR players are also trying to get something)
Right now the reason why there aren't MORE *active* Dynamis LS on Hades is simply that it's not worth it. Forming one will almost always cause issues with scheduling. It is therefore far easier to attempt to get into an existing one than form a new one, but I bet you a million dollars that given the opportunity to do so, MANY will form overnight if SE puts in the Instanced Dynamis idea into play.

is it really though?

I mean: how many active NA linkshells are there? DD, BMO, AS, DI, HB, GreenerGrass, GH, Cadecus, Hybrid, Aristocrats, Intrepid - am I missing any?

of those, GreenerGrass is less than three months old, and GH, hybrid, and Cadecus can't be much older than 3 months since I know I don't remember them running pre-marchish.

so that's 8 primary shells with 3 shells that are 'new' and maybe won't last, so I'm one shell low in my estimate. (I'm probably forgetting one or two, so I'll give you 3 shells - I am *not* counting hnmls who only do dynamis once in a blue moon and otherwise just have members going in other shells)

and as far as I know, the NA side *still* doesn't have any shells that run M or F, so there's room for a good six or seven more shells on our end if people stay out of the weekend time slots.

speaking for JP; last time I checked a JP calendar it was about the same number of recognizable groups, with ~3-4 scrub shells, just like us. what the japanese are concerned about is that the logical EU start times would have end times running into their logical start times - which is a HUGE hassle but not the same as being overcrowded (and reservations would actually exacerbate this issue since it's rare for shells to max time farm - especially the new scrubby shells that people are worried about in the current system.)

so I guess I could give you 24 instead of my 18-20 but that's hardly 'FAR FAR low'.



the other issue with reservations is: When was the last time any of you saw a linkshell actually enter the area immediately on their start time? I know my shell is notorious for late starts (BMO) but none of the others I've been is was particularly good at it either.

[Kirsteena]

I guess this is where Bahamut's large JP population comes into play - I think I worked out in a week, over 40 different shells do dynamis on our server - do that twice a week and you need that scheduling. But apart from a few minor hiccups every now and then it all works very well.

For once, we are drama free in something!

[Amele]

bahamut drama free? lies and slander!

that's like midgard actually keeping the candesence for more than two weeks.

[Aeni]

is it really though?

I mean: how many active NA linkshells are there? DD, BMO, AS, DI, HB, GreenerGrass, GH, Cadecus, Hybrid, Aristocrats, Intrepid - am I missing any?

There's at least 3 your missing from that list, I will have to go look it up. One is running purely based on CST participation (Will have to check in on my former Sky LS for that info)

speaking for JP; last time I checked a JP calendar it was about the same number of recognizable groups, with ~3-4 scrub shells, just like us.

What calendar? AFAIK, there was no official community sponsored events calendar for Hades (Not counting that informal one on Yahoo JP) I did see a few like Siren, Quetzlcoatl (sp?) and Titan.

what the japanese are concerned about is that the logical EU start times would have end times running into their logical start times - which is a HUGE hassle but not the same as being overcrowded (and reservations would actually exacerbate this issue since it's rare for shells to max time farm - especially the new scrubby shells that people are worried about in the current system.)

Right now you have 2 sections of Asian "start" times. One begins early Oceania (This includes the players from NZ, AU and the Phillipines as well) and the other starts a few hours, which is based on the southeast asian regions (Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam ... many FFXI import players from that area)

We're not including our friends in Hong Kong, Taiwan and of course China ... they should also be added in here (Korea/Japan)

In this sense, your assumptions are fairly off mostly because (a) you are only using visual data, "what you see" and (b) you don't have any reliable source from the internet as well.

I'm not making any assumptions. Most of the concerns I have heard come from long time "JP" players (Some of them are Koreans whom I have made friends before my year long hiatus) What they see is what I'm talking about here ... a plethora of level 75 players with no other time sink besides meriting. Sky is so "last year" and aside from a couple of items, do not hold any interest for anyone outside of the "newbies" and RMT.

Let's not forget the Americans in Alaska, Hawaii and Guam. Small contingent, but far from "non-existent" ;)

so I guess I could give you 24 instead of my 18-20 but that's hardly 'FAR FAR low'.

It's more around 30 with upwards of a potential 30 more with "on the fence" LS looking to move on to Dynamis status.

[Amele]

There's at least 3 your missing from that list, I will have to go look it up. One is running purely based on CST participation (Will have to check in on my former Sky LS for that info)

CST participation shell is fairly new then; since when I last went shopping the only NA shells were either EST or PST based.

What calendar? AFAIK, there was no official community sponsored events calendar for Hades (Not counting that informal one on Yahoo JP) I did see a few like Siren, Quetzlcoatl (sp?) and Titan.

http://g-shell.net/sche/sche32.cgi this is the one that BMO and DD also post to, since we overlap slightly with the early start JPN shells on weekends.

currently there's about 25 shells that use this - of these, approximately 6 are less than 3 months old (ok, so I'm low on the number of scrub shells that exist on hades. - looks like I agree that there's 30 active shells currently) I predict of these 30, 10 will be dead in the next 4 months.


obv. there's not 100% participation on this or dynamis-calendar; but afaik all the major asia time shells post here. (that is, I don't know of any asia time shells that don't post here, and before you dismiss that as me not knowing who's running during JPN times, I actually considered several of them before deciding on a late night EST shell, so I did my homework.)

Right now you have 2 sections of Asian "start" times. One begins early Oceania (This includes the players from NZ, AU and the Phillipines as well)

most of the AU players I know who run dynamis either do it with a JPN prime time shell (1800-2200 start JPN time) or a PST based english shell.

and the other starts a few hours, which is based on the southeast asian regions (Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam ... many FFXI import players from that area)
We're not including our friends in Hong Kong, Taiwan and of course China ... they should also be added in here (Korea/Japan)

again, in my experience these players gravitate toward shells that are in JPN prime time. when an event is 3-4 hours long, you don't mind shifting schedule slightly to accommodate: this is why 90% of the NA primetime shells are either EST or PST based.

In this sense, your assumptions are fairly off mostly because (a) you are only using visual data, "what you see" and (b) you don't have any reliable source from the internet as well.

so because my assumptions (backed up by two calendars) are in disagreement with yours, my assumptions are off? where's your 'reliable source' for 30 serious shells?

I'm not making any assumptions.

burden of proof then, I guess. I still don't see where you get 30 more potential shells from either way.

Most of the concerns I have heard come from long time "JP" players (Some of them are Koreans whom I have made friends before my year long hiatus) What they see is what I'm talking about here ... a plethora of level 75 players with no other time sink besides meriting. Sky is so "last year" and aside from a couple of items, do not hold any interest for anyone outside of the "newbies" and RMT.

kings, salvage, einherjar, sea, - dynamis is so last year too except for that small handful of items for each job that are actually unique. same story as sky, basically.

Let's not forget the Americans in Alaska, Hawaii and Guam. Small contingent, but far from "non-existent" ;)

while I don't know of any players from guam, to a person everyone I know in alaska and hawaii runs with a PST shell.

It's more around 30 with upwards of a potential 30 more with "on the fence" LS looking to move on to Dynamis status.

as I said, I'll concede 30 active shells. we still fit just fine, considering there's 10 zones to choose from and we're spread out over a 16 hour period.

are your character info and sig up to date? if they are, I'm not sure why we're even discussing it since you can't even be active in the scene at that level...(unless the 72 dark is still active and not a retired character?)