Is it still to soon?

[crux]

I've never understood the problem so many people have with world spawns. Is it the expectation that every player should be able to experience every facet of the game? That surely can't be it. Is it that every player should have access to every item in the game? I can't imagine it's that either. Is it that competition should never exist? That no one should ever be put in the position that they might waste their time?

Botting is the only fathomable problem that I can see with those HNMs. There are other ways to fight kings, without the drops, and there are other ways to get 90% of the drops. So the average end-game player won't have a chance at a Defending Ring. Boo hoo. It's one item - and it's an elite item at that. Should the average end-game player have ample opportunities for such an item? The average end-game linkshell can't even defeat Tiamat, even if they were to bother trying to claim him.

World HNMs aren't for every player and I don't know why they should be. For some of us, going afk for 30 minute increments for a chance at a claim is not only acceptable, but even superior to farming Zeni or farming pop sets or farming Dynamis mobs. I don't think that every facet of an MMORPG needs to be ideal for a hundred percent of the populace.

I understand not everyone is suggesting that they shouldn't exist, but I don't understand those that are. Claiming is the number one problem with world HNMs, and even that is simply a matter if the claiming system, not the HNMs themselves. I'm personally acutely aware of the lack of important world spawns in a game like WoW, and I think the game is often lacking in diversity (and elitism) because of its choice to relegate all end-game drops into instances. Kings or HNMs aren't the end all be all - they're just another option for elite gear for those willing to camp them. People should be clamoring for the claim system to fixed, not for HNMs to be fixed.

[Mojo]

No game should be designed to waste 3 hours of your time sitting around waiting for a chance to fight something. It's fucking retarded, plain and simple. It's a recreational activity and frankly I don't find sitting around wasting my time to be enjoyable in any way. If you've somehow deluded yourself into thinking that this is acceptable because you can AFK (or whatever other reasons you've come up with), then congratulations, you have just planned your life around a video game. That's always been the problem for me. Kings waste your time and encourage a pathetic lifestyle.

[Corrderio]

No game should be designed to waste 3 hours of your time sitting around waiting for a chance to fight something. It's fucking retarded, plain and simple. It's a recreational activity and frankly I don't find sitting around wasting my time to be enjoyable in any way. If you've somehow deluded yourself into thinking that this is acceptable because you can AFK (or whatever other reasons you've come up with), then congratulations, you have just planned your life around a video game. That's always been the problem for me. Kings waste your time and encourage a pathetic lifestyle.

This is the main reason I never found HNMs worthwhile. Having to wait for up to 3 hours for a mob just for a CHANCE at claim was stupid. I'd rather do something more productive with my time for a chance at a mob for a chance for an item to drop for a chance to lot it.

Do I have an issue with competition? Not really, however I don't want it to be a mandatory event or have to make a BS excuse that pretty much means I need to stop playing the game and wait for the thing to die.

[Thorny]

80k / h is what a clever player can farm solo if it has THF75.

500k-1m/hr is what a clever player can farm if they have 2 rdm75/nin37 accounts
this is irrelevant, as said earlier:
is this spectacular gil by any standards? no. selling salvage gear, ra/ex, soloing enms, znms, sky, sea, etc lowman will all shit all over it(sometimes by over 5x)
I'd love to see a better method you can smoothly reproduce while including your entire linkshell though.. inb4 some idiot says znm before considering the time it takes to gather all the plates. ZNM is only practical for gil if you can farm PW reliably.

Even worse, few shells can even beat the harder forms of Hydra/Cerb/Khim so in that aspect the ZNM system has turned into mainly a side dish for shells that camp things often.

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here.. are you implying few shells can real Khim/Cerb/Hydra or that few shells can kill Tyger/Tinnin/Sara? In all honesty, I could see 'harder' going either way, and all 6 of them are pretty easily doable with one party.

[machiko]

I thought my server was bad with the few new shells botting everything to gear it's members, I didnt even consider how bad it could be on other servers with the high tier all out botting shells doing it to sell the drops for 15m+. I find it hilarious Square crack down so hard on rmt on this game and yet leave things like this to be easily exploited for the bigger shells to RMT gil.

[ronin sparthos]

I'm not quite sure what you're saying here.. are you implying few shells can real Khim/Cerb/Hydra or that few shells can kill Tyger/Tinnin/Sara? In all honesty, I could see 'harder' going either way, and all 6 of them are pretty easily doable with one party.

Few shells can reliably kill Tinnin/Sara/Tyger on my server at least.

The source of various complaints are that the world spawns are 'too easy' so SE upped the difficulty on the T4 ZNMs (compared to the world spawns) and now very few people bother to go for the T4s because odds are they will wipe.

The nature of lowman is that your people are competent and are paying attention which most definitely is not always the case.

My point was more that people QQ'd for harder content, got the harder content then pussied out and went back to failing the easy content. ZNM was the closest system to what we asked for as a playerbase and most people turn around and call it failure.

tl;dr: The playerbase has no fucking idea what they want.

[Corrderio]

I thought my server was bad with the few new shells botting everything to gear it's members, I didnt even consider how bad it could be on other servers with the high tier all out botting shells doing it to sell the drops for 15m+. I find it hilarious Square crack down so hard on rmt on this game and yet leave things like this to be easily exploited for the bigger shells to RMT gil.

SE can't detect bots worth shit. Back when SE did the last NA fanfest Allah and some french site asked them about botting in a Q&A. All they got form SE was a "How do you know they bot" shit, then they also admitted the only thing they have to go on is chat logs. Which I hope was a lie.

[Nightmarelord]

Squenix is like any other game company now-a-days. they get or got yo money and now they pretty much just sweep you under the rug like "fuck off"

some game companies want to Keep getting more money and they want their fanbase happy ND is an example. so they actually TRY to listen.

[Brutala]

The system is fine. Imagine the alternatives. If every person in the zone to act on the NM had an equal chance to claim, morons would surely drop recruitment criteria even lower and get hundreds of members. Most HNMLSs have shown over and over that they don't care about drop/member efficiency. If every LS to have members act on an NM had an equal chance to claim, every LS would just create a new dummy LS on each member. Also, think of the epic lag a fair claim system would lead to. Think of the time wasted waiting for bad LSs to rage/wipe/1-hour-kill because they'd be claiming just as much as anyone else. If they changed the system altogether making all HNMs instanced you would still say it's flawed. If an instanced Ridill had a KC-like drop rate and stayed r/e you would still be bitching about being 0/100 while that JP went 1/1. If they made it tradable you would be bitching about how overpriced it is. In both cases the low drop rate would be there because the game NEEDS items that aren't easy to get to keep hardcore players busy. I just dread the day SE pulls an Alkyoneus on Fafnir and I can't earn anything while being afk anymore.
If you can't live without haute/dring/ridill, buy them. Make the gil, jump servers or w/e is needed. Sellers exist. The only thing stopping you is the price. I see too many people buying all expensive HQ shit and finishing one salvage body after another and still bitching about not being able to get gear cos of botters and dumb windows. It's ridiculous. The improvement you get from a salvage body is worth well over 10mil, but going from joyeuse to ridill isn't worth 20-30? Really?
That being said, if there is something in the game that a person or their LS think they absolutely can't win quickly and efficiently or can't win at all without haute/dring/ridill, they should just quit.

[Antithesis]

Few shells can reliably kill Tinnin/Sara/Tyger on my server at least.

The source of various complaints are that the world spawns are 'too easy' so SE upped the difficulty on the T4 ZNMs (compared to the world spawns) and now very few people bother to go for the T4s because odds are they will wipe.

The nature of lowman is that your people are competent and are paying attention which most definitely is not always the case.

My point was more that people QQ'd for harder content, got the harder content then pussied out and went back to failing the easy content. ZNM was the closest system to what we asked for as a playerbase and most people turn around and call it failure.

tl;dr: The playerbase has no fucking idea what they want.

One night, when all the developers ran out of ideas for content for the next update, they sought for the advice of the Update Man. Update Man lives in a dimly lit room somewhere in the vicinity of Square Enix's office. The development team entered the room and spook to Update Man: "Update Man, we need your help! We have no idea what to do for this update and we want to give the players something that might please them!" Without missing a beat, Update Man responded: "Do not fear my children, as I can read into the future! I knew of your troubles and have created the perfect system for your new update!"

The development team looked at Update Man with awe as he continued to speak. "We shall introduce a new system that will allow players to farm for special pop items that, when taken to the correct spawn point, will allow them to summon a special Notorious Monster! When spawned, only their party will be able to fight it. The monsters will drop valuable treasure and more items to spawn even tougher monsters! This will eliminate that terrible "randomness" feel of certain fights and will give players control of when they want to do events rather than be dictated by a random in-game clock." The development team cried "But Update Man! We can't simply give them exactly what they want!"

Update Man smiled with a grin and hastily responded "Alas! You underestimate my plan! We will not make these pop items simple to obtain! No, we shall force them to gather points for the pop items... By using the under-used Pankration event! They will go out of their way, search for monsters by dawn and by dusk, usually terrible awful monsters that no one in there right mind would farm in the first place. To make it even better, they must reduce the monster's HP to the lowest amount to get the most points for the pictures while holding the monster as it continues to attack them! Imagine doing that to a Soulflayer! Ho-ho-ho!" Update Man continued "The fun does not end there, no; once the player gathers the absurd amount of points necessary for the pop item, they will go fight the monster they desire. Sure, these monsters will drop treasure, but most, if not all the items will be trash, easily replaced by anything else introduced in previous updates. To make it better, they will be non-sellable items!"

Update Man continued to lecture the development team: "As the player continues to defeat more useless Notorious Monsters that drop nothing of real value, they must continue to farm more and more picture points for more pop items! Now, at the end of each of the three roads, there will be a grand Notorious Monster based on the three Aht Urgan Kings! These kings will drop some items of value but hey, lets make the players suffer to get those items by having them have to re-farm and re-fight the same monsters that drop nothing of value again and again until they obtain the three necessary items for spawning the King!" The development team cheered at Update Man's idea but asked one more question before accepting the offer: "We love your idea Update Man but shouldn't the event go out with a bang of some sorts? Something to give the players even more of a challenge!?" Update Man stood up and responded with the utmost glee "But of course! The three Kings that the players will defeat will drop another set of pop items, that don't drop 100% of the time mind you, that, when all used, will spawn a super Notorious Monster on-par with our lovely Absolute Virtue! But lets not stop there! lets give that monster some terrible treasure to drop when defeated! He shall hence forth be known as, Pandemonium Warden." The development team cheered and quickly went back to there stations to begin work on the Zeni Notorious Monster System...

[Corrderio]

Antithesis just won a lifetime supply of internets.

[Nightmarelord]

i lol'd.

[Omnipotent]

One night, when all the developers ran out of ideas for content for the next update, they sought for the advice of the Update Man. Update Man lives in a dimly lit room somewhere in the vicinity of Square Enix's office. The development team entered the room and spook to Update Man: "Update Man, we need your help! We have no idea what to do for this update and we want to give the players something that might please them!" Without missing a beat, Update Man responded: "Do not fear my children, as I can read into the future! I knew of your troubles and have created the perfect system for your new update!"

The development team looked at Update Man with awe as he continued to speak. "We shall introduce a new system that will allow players to farm for special pop items that, when taken to the correct spawn point, will allow them to summon a special Notorious Monster! When spawned, only their party will be able to fight it. The monsters will drop valuable treasure and more items to spawn even tougher monsters! This will eliminate that terrible "randomness" feel of certain fights and will give players control of when they want to do events rather than be dictated by a random in-game clock." The development team cried "But Update Man! We can't simply give them exactly what they want!"

Update Man smiled with a grin and hastily responded "Alas! You underestimate my plan! We will not make these pop items simple to obtain! No, we shall force them to gather points for the pop items... By using the under-used Pankration event! They will go out of their way, search for monsters by dawn and by dusk, usually terrible awful monsters that no one in there right mind would farm in the first place. To make it even better, they must reduce the monster's HP to the lowest amount to get the most points for the pictures while holding the monster as it continues to attack them! Imagine doing that to a Soulflayer! Ho-ho-ho!" Update Man continued "The fun does not end there, no; once the player gathers the absurd amount of points necessary for the pop item, they will go fight the monster they desire. Sure, these monsters will drop treasure, but most, if not all the items will be trash, easily replaced by anything else introduced in previous updates. To make it better, they will be non-sellable items!"

Update Man continued to lecture the development team: "As the player continues to defeat more useless Notorious Monsters that drop nothing of real value, they must continue to farm more and more picture points for more pop items! Now, at the end of each of the three roads, there will be a grand Notorious Monster based on the three Aht Urgan Kings! These kings will drop some items of value but hey, lets make the players suffer to get those items by having them have to re-farm and re-fight the same monsters that drop nothing of value again and again until they obtain the three necessary items for spawning the King!" The development team cheered at Update Man's idea but asked one more question before accepting the offer: "We love your idea Update Man but shouldn't the event go out with a bang of some sorts? Something to give the players even more of a challenge!?" Update Man stood up and responded with the utmost glee "But of course! The three Kings that the players will defeat will drop another set of pop items, that don't drop 100% of the time mind you, that, when all used, will spawn a super Notorious Monster on-par with our lovely Absolute Virtue! But lets not stop there! lets give that monster some terrible treasure to drop when defeated! He shall hence forth be known as, Pandemonium Warden." The development team cheered and quickly went back to there stations to begin work on the Zeni Notorious Monster System...

Quoting because it is that good.

[wipers]

Look for the Update Man comic coming to Square-Enix store very soon. The mental image I got from reading that story is priceless. lol

[ronin sparthos]

Nice story, lol but the point is that the system is what was asked for by a majority of the players. It is one of the few times that in my time playing XI that SE took for the most part a popular player idea and transposed it to the game.

We got: Quick ??? repops, poppable NMs that dont require lottery/timed spawns, tiered system that leads to better rewards and a killable AV-variant.

Specifically, the idea was that we could pop HNMs on our own time thereby avoiding the 5am phonecalls that Fafnir is up and your DKP is at risk if you dont log in now. It was a more realistic system because you could log on, work towards it then plan a day to do the hard fights with your group.

I don't really get the arguement about zeni honestly outside the per day/cap which could have been handled better and inventory intrusive aspect of soul plates. Is your time better spent AFK at Aery or actually finding a mob, taking some pictures and trading them in... at your leisure? Soulflayers? I don't like them as much as the next guy but is a VT mob really the end of the world for an event shell/anything more than 2 people? Actually Soulflayers are ideal since you get 990 zeni/day and i'll take that over 660zeni/day from Chigoes anyday.


It's like complaining about doing Temenos/Apollyon to get to Proto-Ultima/Omega. Darn, I have to do that boring ass NW run again? Limbus is SHIT! Salvage? 200 QQTH and no Macha's? This event sucks. Odin #16 and only 2 Ebody? Garbage. Dynamis-Xarcabard #50and no Duelist's Chapeau? Worst event ever.

Grinds in an MMO? Who knew.

T1-2-3 ZNM offer potential gil, good rewards and an eventual fight for amazing rewards that once again... you can pop at your leisure which is what we damn well asked for for years.

The baby is thrown out with the bath water because a time investment is demanded? What in this game doesn't demand a ton of time? Every time I hear someone call ZNM a bad time investment the word "Dynamis" flashes in my head like a neon sign.

The playerbase has become completely confused as to what we decisively want. Camping kings isn't boring but taking pictures and actually PLAYING the game is boring and causes an event to suck.

[Corrderio]

ZNM system was a great idea IMO, the only downfall is getting plates since unless you have the ability to sleep you're kinda SoL.

[Nightmarelord]

Nice story, lol but the point is that the system is what was asked for by a majority of the players. It is one of the few times that in my time playing XI that SE took for the most part a popular player idea and transposed it to the game.

We got: Quick ??? repops, poppable NMs that dont require lottery/timed spawns, tiered system that leads to better rewards and a killable AV-variant.

Specifically, the idea was that we could pop HNMs on our own time thereby avoiding the 5am phonecalls that Fafnir is up and your DKP is at risk if you dont log in now. It was a more realistic system because you could log on, work towards it then plan a day to do the hard fights with your group.

I don't really get the arguement about zeni honestly outside the per day/cap which could have been handled better and inventory intrusive aspect of soul plates. Is your time better spent AFK at Aery or actually finding a mob, taking some pictures and trading them in... at your leisure? Soulflayers? I don't like them as much as the next guy but is a VT mob really the end of the world for an event shell/anything more than 2 people? Actually Soulflayers are ideal since you get 990 zeni/day and i'll take that over 660zeni/day from Chigoes anyday.


It's like complaining about doing Temenos/Apollyon to get to Proto-Ultima/Omega. Darn, I have to do that boring ass NW run again? Limbus is SHIT! Salvage? 200 QQTH and no Macha's? This event sucks. Odin #16 and only 2 Ebody? Garbage. Dynamis-Xarcabard #50and no Duelist's Chapeau? Worst event ever.

Grinds in an MMO? Who knew.

T1-2-3 ZNM offer potential gil, good rewards and an eventual fight for amazing rewards that once again... you can pop at your leisure which is what we damn well asked for for years.

The baby is thrown out with the bath water because a time investment is demanded? What in this game doesn't demand a ton of time? Every time I hear someone call ZNM a bad time investment the word "Dynamis" flashes in my head like a neon sign.

The playerbase has become completely confused as to what we decisively want. Camping kings isn't boring but taking pictures and actually PLAYING the game is boring and causes an event to suck.

what he said seems accurate. most people want things to be EASILY handed to them or incbitchfest.

[Miraun]

ZNM system was a great idea IMO, the only downfall is getting plates since unless you have the ability to sleep you're kinda SoL.

I agree, but, not all jobs are equal for anything in FFXI, which was a fundamental property that the game was based on.

[Bikpik]

ZNM system was a great idea IMO, the only downfall is getting plates since unless you have the ability to sleep you're kinda SoL.

No not really, how about you take as many pictures per mob as you can instead of just holding 1 maybe.

Whether it's taking pictures, killing place holders, farming chips, winning wings or waiting 3 hours, every NM in the game has some sort of system in place so it's not too easy to pop.

[Iremire]

somebody's mad they dont claim :<

^