Developer Interview (Dengeki Feb. '09)

[Corrderio]

I guess they didn't notice PW's been beat :S

Give it some time, I already see the update notes.

"The following monsters have been adjusted.

Pandemonium Warden
Pandemonium Lamp"

[Shinsei]

In all honesty, I wish Vrtra, Jormugand and maybe even Tiamat dropped some abjurations (It doesn't have to be existing ones, it could be, or new ones). It doesn't matter, but just something lol....I've always liked Wyrm fights, Jorm especially, but there's like no point on doing it after the first kill. Afterwards it becomes rather boring especially just to do a fight like that for such a shitty pool.

If they are going to implement really hard NMs, I just hope the Treasure Pool compensates for the difficulty of the fight. It annoys me to see some of the fun, challenging fights with a terrible loot pool.

[Elmer the Pointy]

I guess they didn't notice PW's been beat :S

The time of the actual interview was the end of December. Makes you wonder if PW being beaten now will negate their comments on possibly adjusting AV/PW.

[Not Kuno]

The time of the actual interview was the end of December. Makes you wonder if PW being beaten now will negate their comments on possibly adjusting AV/PW.

Oh, I'm sure they arn't happy with how PW was killed and will adjust it in the near future.

[Aro]

Oh, I'm sure they arn't happy PW was killed and will adjust it in the near future.

I think that's more accurate ;p

[Ayn]

What they should do is give the Mercurial Pole damage reduction.

Amazing.

[Devek]

There is no such thing as 'low man created difficult fights' unless it is in a member capped BC fight. SE doesn't have the thought process of 'lets create a fight that would be really tough for 6 people to kill' unless it is a BC of 6 members because that would be a joke for an alliance which could fight it.

SE makes mobs like that all the time. Try fighting Hydra or Ash dragon with an alliance, lol. Quite a bit harder than simply fighting with a party.

[Virtuous Saint]

SE makes mobs like that all the time. Try fighting Hydra or Ash dragon with an alliance, lol. Quite a bit harder than simply fighting with a party.

Ya if your alliance consists of retards. Nice try tho.

[Nattack]

ALSO FIX NINJA, NEED MORE JERB ABILITIES THAT ACTUALLY DONT SUCK (Mijin Gakures suicide, Sange's removal of shadows and spending of THOUSANDS OF MILLIONS of gil nobody uses) Matter of factually, i think id bitch about ninja less if they made shuriken "quiverable" and affordable, and if they removed the toolbag system and replaced it with a MMM pouch like thing (this way ninjas could cast spells without sacrificing any gear, since we have to swap alot of gear, ALOT of gear), make elemental ninjutsu enhancement merits just one category like scholars, and make San spells do more DoT than Ni spells.. like seriously.

[arus2001]

I could see a mob where if your alliance members are greater than 6, it gains access to a TP move that randomly sends someone back to their homepoint along with a super gravity effect that lasts like a half hour so they just can't come right back and repeat. Could be your tank, your healer, or just one of the DDs. So, you could risk a larger group, but it could bite you in the ass if it takes out crucial people.

[orson]

Kaylia really hit the nail on the head.

I don't think SE has a good grasp on how flawed the risk/time vs reward is in most of the endgame events. The biggest problem is I doubt they spend much time testing these systems. They test them just long enough so that they are playable (most of the time.) The drop rates probably are simply arbitrary numbers that are produced in a broad room basing it more on lengthening the amount of time that people are forced to spend to have a shot at the item.

If SE wants to make a mob like AV or PW they need to make it a roaming NM like sandworm/dark ixion with a relatively short respawn time.

[Max™]

Drogaroga, roams around WoTG like UFO's as an untargetable but visible menace.

Lands with a Wyrm landing effect AoE damage/knockback/stun when he aggroes, if you wipe or die, he goes to a new zone...

That would be goddamn awesome having a big Wyrm randomly flatten you, eat you, and fly away.

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...illadragon.jpg

[Amok]

I'd love to see AV and PW remain mysterious and difficult, while at the same time encourage people to try and beat them. Making pop-items so rare and not giving some kind of exp loss reduction upon getting smooshed by either HNM is not very encouraging. This is a stupid idea, I know, but it's more of the principle behind the idea. Something like a semi-victory would definitely encourage people. Like, let AV/PW grant exp or items (maybe an item that would make the fight easier the next time around) if he depops and his HP is under a certain %. Like saying: "Too bad there, buddy, but here's something for your trouble. Better luck next time." but worded in a less patronizing fashion.

[Juib]

Unless they gave the mob a TP move that did damage that increased exponentially based on how many people have hate on it. There are millions of ways to make it impossible to defeat a mob with more than a certain number of people.

not exactly what you're saying, but Charybdis rings a bell

[Genosync]

Byakko 6man or less

total and complete joke

Khim 6man or less

moderately challenging but still not that bad

Jorm 6man or less,

this is actually hard

KB 6man or less

but this is a fucking joke.

low manning things is very easy when you have a highly skilled group of players, but there gets to a point where this is no longer 'fun' anymore due to the length of the fight. I mean, KB has his rage timer, but that's it. byakko of course is still a < 1hr fight even with pure DoT so I'm not including the kitty either (it's even easier with 3rdm 2brd/blm[troub unlocked] 1 smn/drk, that makes that shit a joke, seriously).

I basically killed Jorm with 6 people, a 13 person kill with 4 people controlling adds, and some of the people being completely fucking useless (aka two of the three <<< tanks), it's just fucking time consuming as hell.

Skill just isn't rewarded in FFXI like wasting tons and tons of time is, and even then, you've got so much ridiculous competition over drops because EVERYONE 'needs' that item because they HAVE all these jobs, because the game allows them to, and you're limited on how many times you can do something within a time period because of the bullshit 72+ hr timers and shit like that... ugh, </rant>

[terraflarex]

I'm all for more enemies like PW or AV even, just make sure their drops are worth the effort invested and I'll have no qualms. AVs are obviously excellent for the most part, but PW's are rather debatable at this point.

[Septimus]

Itou: However, be forewarned that this is high-level content, and these monsters are much tougher than the Beastmen you’re used to. (laughs) Although, simply making it super difficult for no reason would cause people to stop going, so we’re planning some good stuff to balance out the difficulty. Also, while nothing on the level of “Splitting Heirs,” we are close to adding some lighter battle content that opens up based on certain conditions - for example, if you have control of Jugner Forest(S), something will be available there. It will be different than just Campaign Ops.

The bold-italicized portion is something that they have spent their efforts after RotZ fighting against. Why start now? >_>

[LD]

Drogaroga, roams around WoTG like UFO's as an untargetable but visible menace.

Lands with a Wyrm landing effect AoE damage/knockback/stun when he aggroes, if you wipe or die, he goes to a new zone...

That would be goddamn awesome having a big Wyrm randomly flatten you, eat you, and fly away.

http://i341.photobucket.com/albums/o...illadragon.jpg

You have my endorsement. I've been thinking a flying HNM would be a perfect addition to complete the wandering HNM trio. Pashhow & Vunkerl are the only 2 zones that don't have Ixion or Sandworm, so that could be 2 of his spots. Vunkerl is perfect for a flying HNM, since it could be made to bypass normal pathing and that would really work with all the islands and bridges.

[Shin Volcano]

You guys have to remember the golden rule with SE, they want you to spend as much time playing this as possible, so time consuiming fights, 24-48+ hours of things repoping with a horrible drop rate (hi khimiria) are there trademark, I am very interested to see what they could possibly add to WOTG that's as hard as AV and PW, maybe they could let us get used to acttualy beating AV 1st? even tho PW has been killed that dosn't mean he's a peice of cake now.

[orson]

Well that's the thing PW is still an extremely hard fight and there's no saying that SE is going to say this is an ok way to beat the monster. Blu magic might be nerfed in weakness and something may even happen to the logout strategy. I'm not by any means saying that those are "exploits" but SE seems very sensitive in the way that AV has been beaten. I think there are some weird ways to weaken these monsters and SE wants us to figure out that.

If they do release more crazy hard mobs with gimmicky weaknesses then they should include quest lines that provide information on how to weaken the monster. Heck they wouldn't even have to release the quests right away to give us a chance to actually try to figure it out ourselves but AV weakness being unknown this late in the game is stupid. SE needs give up it's baby and let us know how to beat it.