Dev Tracker: Discussion (Old)

[Yugl]

I, for one, look forward to reaching HNM and then monetizing it.

I mean, that's pretty much the only thing monipulators get out of this, right? Is there some way we didn't spend dozens upon dozens of hours leveling monsters for the privilege of being better farming targets for people with Delve weapons, who naturally get to reap all the actual rewards of the system?

This is one of the obvious problems with the system. We'll have fairly high level strosity users that won't have anyone to compensate them when they offer their HNM to the LS (If they even do so).

[solkanar]

You can't win-trade like that. You get 20% of your victim's current infamy, and the victim loses 30% of his. Killing the same guy repeatedly tanks his infamy too fast to make it worth while.

It's a pretty bad system overall, mostly because you risk losing too much by engaging in a fight you can't be sure you'll win, and from the looks of it players can opt out of being targets while monsters cannot. Players will never be at a disadvantage (never have to expose themselves until they get delve weapons or better), and monsters can't ever become powerful enough to challenge players without spending 100+ hours at this disadvantage.

Hugely disappointed.

Glanced over that part, yep seems pretty disappointing.

[Toth]

I think the server population should spike back up with the next patch, especially with FFXIV newness wearing off and us endgamers waiting for 2.1, which may still be almost two months away. FF11 is just stagnant now and the huge amount of content next month should help get more people back and ready to rock.



That being said, Matsui had 2 posts today. Anything good?

[Fwahm]

Maybe it's a fiendish plot by Square Enix; stagger content updates for FFXI and FFXIV so that players alternate, while still staying subscribed to both.

FFXI's content release rate needs to speed up to make that effective, though.

[Byrthnoth]

I'm surprised that they aren't releasing new monster types in November, given that translations generally lag behind everything else and they were already done for the new monster types as of the October Update.

[pancakesandsex]

I see new JP dev posts. Slycer signal broken?

[Byrthnoth]

I think they were deemed uninteresting.

[NynJa]

I think as long as SE keeps fucking XIV up, people will get fed up and come back. It seems every time i pop in there, a new shitstorm is brewing. First it was the "edit your serverside stats as you wish", now something about an endgame battle being so glitched they had to shut it down.

[Damane]

who says SE cant place a restriction on players that are in Gladiator mode. wouldnt surprise me if they limit euipment to lvl 99 and ilvl items wont be even usable in gladiator mode.

[jimbobsonofgod]

I think the Monstrosity update will just turn out to be people farming prestige on normal mobs and totally avoid doing monstrosity in the first place.

I wonder of prestige will be tied to your monster, or if it will change when you change species. It is going to be very difficult for monsters to accrue points any way other than killing players (unless they can do it out of gladiator mode), because at level 99 there aren't really any good xp camps and if you go out at <99 you're going to get mauled by adventurers.

Prestige is for player points only, monsters still only gain infamy. You can buy and upgrade items with either points. All it really does is allow people who haven't done any monstrosity gain at the same rate as those that have. I am just hoping that you can only gain prestige in the zones that you can play as a monster.

I've leveled a lot of monsters to 75+ now (Behemoth, Tiger, and Rabbit to 99) and can tell you that unless the fight is 1v1, monsters don't have much of a chance. Monster evasion doesn't mean shit against Delve weapons, and I'm sure that most characters with iLevel gear will be nearly untouchable in terms of hit rate. The two advantages of monsters are 1) that they can store TP and unleash it all at once and 2) that they have a ton of HP. In 1v1 fights, for instance, my Rabbit or Gnat would kill pretty much any player that they could hit. In 1v2 fights, you'd have to blow your TP taking out the support character and then hope the other guy wasn't a Paladin or evasive.

Really think that movement and nuking is going to be the way to go for PVP just like normal PVP.

It would suck if someone did /sea, looked for the anons, and then walked all the way into the bowels of CN just to confirm that I'm not in gladiator mode.

There's a search function that allows you to search > monstrosity.

[Damane]

I think as long as SE keeps fucking XIV up, people will get fed up and come back. It seems every time i pop in there, a new shitstorm is brewing. First it was the "edit your serverside stats as you wish", now something about an endgame battle being so glitched they had to shut it down.

i wouldnt be sure about that. while there are some major exploits flaws, most people havent even reached bahamut coil 5 which was shut down. I for myself unsubbed 2 days ago from 14 due to various reasons however I am also not confident if i will stay in 11 for long, with most friends gone to 14. some said they would come back for the rem update but that was over a month ago. and if 11 keeps being this stagnant with no friends or people to play during EU prime it might turn for me to the way that i wont play either of them

[scaevola]

Prestige is for player points only, monsters still only gain infamy. You can buy and upgrade items with either points. All it really does is allow people who haven't done any monstrosity gain at the same rate as those that have. I am just hoping that you can only gain prestige in the zones that you can play as a monster.

They have to be different points spent on different stuff, or else nobody would have any incentive to play a monster at all.

[Malithar]

who says SE cant place a restriction on players that are in Gladiator mode. wouldnt surprise me if they limit euipment to lvl 99 and ilvl items wont be even usable in gladiator mode.

I can't imagine them going back to the cluster fuck that was lvl capped BCs not scaling gear. Worst case, ilvl gear would scale down to lvl 99 stats.

[scaevola]

I can't imagine them going back to the cluster fuck that was lvl capped BCs not scaling gear. Worst case, ilvl gear would scale down to lvl 99 stats.

That's absolutely going to have to happen; monsters really need to be stronger than individual players if this whole system is going to work.

[Byrthnoth]

That's absolutely going to have to happen; monsters really need to be stronger than individual players if this whole system is going to work.

Problem being that players are more evasive (physically and magically), more accurate, and have comparable/superior offensive stats. The only thing monsters really have on players is a shitton of HP.

[jimbobsonofgod]

They have to be different points spent on different stuff, or else nobody would have any incentive to play a monster at all.

Cutting down NMs and HNMs rewards gladiators with rare items, which can also be obtained by exchanging prestige. The materials necessary to augment them are obtained by exchanging infamy/prestige or from treasure chests that felled monipulators relinquish.

I think that's the way its going to be, There's really no current benefit to leveling monsters if that is the case.

[scaevola]

Problem being that players are more evasive (physically and magically), more accurate, and have comparable/superior offensive stats. The only thing monsters really have on players is a shitton of HP.

Well, when you say it like that, you kind of undersell just how much HP the monsters have. Also, they consistently hit pretty hard for their delay; I wouldn't sell a crit build short until we actually see how it plays out against players.

At the end of the day, the single biggest problem with the system as it's explained is that there's no reason why anybody would ever want to fight another player on what appears to be even footing.

[Byrthnoth]

Imagine, if you will, DNC/NIN. What do you fight that on?
* Melee damage won't work because you probably have a 20% hit rate.
* Magic damage won't work because it has shadows, and when it doesn't have shadows it resists your nukes or stuns the spells.
* Any damage that you do while the DNC is meleeing you to death is countered by their Waltzes.

If I was fighting a DNC/NIN on level 99 Behemoth, I'd probably strip the shadows with melee attacks and then use two Wild Horns back to back. If I got lucky and they both connected and the DNC wasn't using Fan Dance, then maybe it would die.

Next imagine an Aegis PLD/anything. What would you fight that on?
* Melee damage doesn't work because it shield blocks you.
* Magic damage doesn't work because it's an Aegis.
* Any damage that you do while the PLD is meleeing you to death is countered by their Cures.



Honestly, I see running away as the primary use of the huge Monster HP. If someone tries to melee you, you can just run away and SE's annoying monster pathing system will probably let an intelligent monster consistently out of range a player. If you're annoying enough, they'll probably leave you alone.

[dasva]

I don't really see them expecting people on 99 monsters fighting players with stats that are around level 130. Especially with the advantage of being able to full gear swap in the field while monsters can't instinct swap.


Also what's this talk about players being able to opt out and not manipulators? It says you have to get a mark to fight or be fought

[scaevola]

Yeah, that's exactly right, except you can't run away because you can't zone. Really, what happens is you force d/c and hope your HP lasts long enough to get out.

The "monsters not opting out" is just my speculation on a worst-case scenario, since obviously players are going to be able to opt in. That's probably an unfounded concern, but if monsters can opt out (or rather everybody has to opt in) the system completely falls apart because nobody ever actually "fights"; we just set up controlled scenarios with friends to boost our NM/Glad ranks.