So I'd like to know what you guys think about the new situation with the Viral Deflection of the archive bosses.
As far as I could tell so far they adjusted the VD of the boss to match the max VT the HIGHEST level player who can enter a particular archive can have.
Example : Ashencourte (lvl 20-30 archive) - the boss has a Viral Deflection of 240 which is the maximum Transmission a lvl 30 player can have.
My observations so far (and I'll be more than happy to be told I am wrong - that's what this thread is for) is that you do not even need to ATTEMPT to kill the boss unless you are the highest lvl that can enter an archive - and even THEN it becomes a nearly impossible feat depending on how lucky the boss is with his VD rolls.
I just went into the lvl 25-35 archive with my alternate charachter (lvl 35) and another buddy - lvl 35 as well and we were able to kill the boss twice - but each of us in the interim died about 3 times so we gave up and left.
So basicially they are giving us now ONE level to try and get the best item drop from a particular archive. And even then it becomes almost impossible since you can't kill him by yourself - so you need a team - and then of course everyone on the team would like the drop as well. That coupled with the fact that the MALE drops drop about 5 times less than the female drops gives you almost impossible odds to obtain the item.
2 things that I have seen happening from this so far are a) The archives are always empty. Just went to Sakura for about 45 minutes to farm from the Priestesses and the entire time I was the only player there and b) that if you are planning on buying these items somewhere you better be prepared to have a big wallet. Before the merger people would charge about 10 million info for items such as the Sakira Bandana - after the merger these prices went up - probably due to the fact that there were now lots more people so the ratio of iitems dropped to the number of people seeking one created a high supply/demand effect - so the prices went up to about 30 million info - which is what I paid for mine - so far so good.
My buddy just sold his Sakura Bandana 2 nights ago - for 80 (!!) million info. These items have now become such a rarity that people are willing to pay 80 - let me repeat that - EIGHTY million info for a clothing item.
This alone IMO shows that the "new" archives threw things greatly out of balance and have made the archives in my opinion utterly useless.
Sorry for the long post
/discuss