Notorious Monsters, or where's my Leaping lizzy!?

[Lucavi]

I suppose, but I'm saying that I'd rather have no avenue for cheating than an avenue, if I couldn't have a perfect world, which I obviously cannot. Leves can give plenty of that "oh shit" fighting feel against a big mob. Its more about the tactics of the mob and how satisfying the fights are than it being all about the fact that it wasn't there for 71 hours, and now it is, and you have it, and when you kill it you'll have a low percent chance to get something.

[miokomioko]

Oh no, I agree, it's just a giant bummer that the mechanic of open-world NMs [i]will]/i] be followed by cheating.

[Ponyo]

I only hope that they continue with the, not sure what to call it (verb noun/adjective noun) naming scheme occasionlly. Names like Leaping Lizzy, Cargo Crab Colin, Stinging Sophie, Voluptuos Vivian were all cool and a bit charming to me.

[Kaylia]

FF12-style rare game/hunt prerequisites for NM appearance. I would like something like that.

However, how healthy is a game with no competition outside the marketplace?

Competition between linkshell on "world first" is 100 times more interesting than claim competition.

Open NM are fine, they just need to put some form of restriction that will make botting meaningless and won't create a bottleneck when you reach the endgame. It shouldnt be that hard to do...but that's just wishful thinking with SE.

[Grey Jorildyn]

The FFXI mindset is thick in here!

Has anyone ever considered you can have open world HNMs that are challenging but do not have desirable loot? Seems to be a missed point here. You can think Jorm I guess (at least for awhile). Aion also had a bunch of open world NMs but people did not camp them 24/7 because there was either better gear than what they dropped or a very comparable item obtainable through questing or instancing.

Open world NMs are ridiculous when they deep loot pools, highly desired items, shit spawn rates, and even worst drop rates. I cannot imagine anyone desiring to have XI's horrid 21-24h system, or anything resembling it reimplemented in XIV. Don't misunderstand me, I love competition and a cutthroat end game environment, but when exploiters literally prevent me from experiencing game content, then there's something inherently wrong with the system. I'll take instances I can do on my own time any day. I pay for the game so I expect to be able to play it how I want, when I want; not limited by some awful spawn timer mechanism that I have to work into my schedule.

[miokomioko]

You mean 3-Kings mindset? Because I recall SE adding 2 or so NMs to just about every single zone in the game that only dropped stuff good for a 3~5 level gap in the low to mid range. They were never camped.

[Anton]

And then there was Huu Mjuu the Torrent(okote), and the Monster Signa guy(Monster Signa), who were camped/botted/rmt'd for the better part of EVER.

If it's valuable, it will get traffic. I don't want to deal with traffic

[Lucavi]

Shoot, even things like the assault jerkin back when the only comparable item for non-hauby jobs was a scorp harness. I remember spending about 2 weeks camping that, and on the night I finally got it, I called in late to work waiting for the next window with a bunch of LSmates - there were 4 other shells there camping and there were all kinds of MPK attempts all over the place.

I was grateful for my shell's help, but you can't help feeling that your shit is tainted when you have to resort to dirty play to get it.

[Ziero]

Here's my question, why can't these world spawn NMs have instanced counterparts that drop similar, if not the same, gear?

Personally I've always liked the idea of super rare, super strong monsters appearing in the wild. And with the world being as open as it is in XIV, that concept is even more appealing. It's a break to the monotony, a change of pace so to speak, to be grinding away when out of no where this super massive behemoth of a monster appears and starts wreaking havoc until a group of skilled higher level players come and put it in it's place. The idea itself has always been something I enjoyed, but at the same time I remember just how ass-tastic these things could be in terms of actual gameplay.

My simplest suggest would be to make these world spawn NMs, if they have them, have massive spawning areas and do so on an unpredictable schedule. The World Pop versions would show up as randomly as possible across the vast open areas of the world and bring with them high drop rates for their R/E treasures.

But there would also be a Guild/faction/whateverleve version of the mob, where you're sent to a special instanced area(i.e. not just invisible to others, but a completely different area) to kill it whenever you want, but doing it this way would have a much lower chance of dropping the desired items. But being a Leve, you'd get Cash, Faction, Guild and increased Skill rewards for winning, so it's not a total loss.

A system like this would prevent botting because you'd really need to warp hack to get close enough to claim the mob, which is easy for SE to find and ban and it would prevent the "need" for camping since if you really wanted it you could just do the Leve quest until the item drops. I'm sure many superhardcores would still waste their lives trying to catch, claim, kill and monopolize the worldspawn versions, but in the end, there are other ways for players to obtain the same items so the demand for camping just wouldn't be as strong.

This system might be a little too complex for simple, smaller NMs, but they should only drop mediocre, not-in-high-demand items to begin with. But for bigger things, I personally feel a system like this would be great.

No AoE hate tools though, so it will be tough. For that matter, why hasn't SE given us the ability to AoE Mocking Provoke or Provoke?

http://www.eorzeapedia.com/wiki/en/Warmonger ?

I would love to see more of these party vs party fights as well, with many of Marauder's abilities involving physical AoEs, it would make them absolute beasts.

[shepardG]

I can see it now, the bad asses are just chilling in town, crafting some armor or something, and making fun of newbs, when suddenly a shout goes up in the guildleve house, "FAFNIRATTACKCAMPBENTWOOD!!!!!"...

[Krandor]

World Spawn NMs with good loot = No, just No.

If you think any part of that system was a good idea, you're insane. Simple as that. And the "epeen" argument is null and void. If I walked by someone sporting a Koenig Body (which for the sake of reference I never even rolled on since it was fucking worthless), is it more/less epeen then when I walk by someone in WoW with my Kingslayer title? I'd be inclined to say no, both serve the purpose of showing "yo I kill serious stuff."

The NM/HNM system present in FFXI was and always be completely and utterly broken and retarded. It's only benefit was fueling the drama llama, it has no redeeming values for actual game play purposes.

[Syntex]

World Spawn NMs with good loot = No, just No.

If you think any part of that system was a good idea, you're insane. Simple as that. And the "epeen" argument is null and void. If I walked by someone sporting a Koenig Body (which for the sake of reference I never even rolled on since it was fucking worthless), is it more/less epeen then when I walk by someone in WoW with my Kingslayer title? I'd be inclined to say no, both serve the purpose of showing "yo I kill serious stuff."

The NM/HNM system present in FFXI was and always be completely and utterly broken and retarded. It's only benefit was fueling the drama llama, it has no redeeming values for actual game play purposes.

World spawns with loot is FINE the problem is how it was executed in FFXI in the later stages which set a place for botters/hackers to THRIVE and that was the issue.

Back when the NA were still leveling which was the first 3 years of the game the 3 kings would be up for weeks until someone killed them and thats how SE imagined it because who could kill king behemoth with just AF gear? That caused them to not be camped and any group who did was the only people who killed him, got the loot they wanted and moved on. Arthars is a good example of how it worked then since he played since the Japanese release and thats how it played out with him and his LS at that time.

Now comes the NA crew who are a lot more competitive and now the endgame shells outnumbered the rate he spawned on top of a rare spawn(KB/Nid/Aspid) which dropped the desired loot and you weren't competing for a mob once a day but once a week with low drop rates(ridill/dring/ect) which are the best and low drop rates combined with the face they never got a replacement. In WOW there is a reason why people don't run Molten Core for gear unless they want the cool looking thunderfury or something for looks but not use and its designed that way to let people see new content and not a Dragons Aery 6 years after it first showed up.

The world spawns which were not as bad as the kings were the 3 wyrms and TAOU kings and after that DI/SW but ill get to that in a minute. Tiamat/Khim/Cerb(only ones worth killing) were on such a long timer it made standing there for hours with your bot on not productive so everyone used spotters unless it had 2 hours left in the window and nothing else was up. This was enjoyable because it wasn't who could claim but who had the right setup to hold and even thought there was drama with MPK'ing and claiming/flailing issues I enjoyed it and that part of the HNM system wasn't broken but made for the most skilled/prepared players to win claims. Ever had a RDM tank and a BRD hold khim for 5 minutes and beat another LS who got their first because you got skilled people on your team? I have and its fun to rub it in their face. DI/SW were expanding on the idea if we move the HNM around or make some odd way to claim with the ash we might see less of the same people claim it and even the playing field vs bots but when people developed flee/scan bots then the issue didn't change too much because it came down to the best bot wins.

To sum up the last 3 paragraphs is that 3kings were fine when respawn times per week exceeded player interest but low drop rates and needing to kill the 'rare' spawn only lowered the availability of the said HNM and increased the demand which is exasperated the problem. The worst part was if you didn't claim a LARGE chunk of time was lost with no reward. TOAUkings and 3 wyrms lowered player interested due to being harder(not everyone can kill tia) and on such a long respawn allowing people to focus on other things and sometimes forget about them and some of them(hydra/jormy/ect) lowered players interest by offering no good rewards vs the trouble. DI/SW still had high player interest and low respawn but leveled the playing field because of how hard they were and how they spawned/were claimed. SE with the last few years worked around the bot system instead of fighting it by making Zeni HNM's and magian weapons so camping/claiming wasn't an issue which works but takes some of the fun of a world spawn out of the game.

So what am I saying? I am saying that world spawn HNM's with GOOD LOOT are fine to have but you need to do something to it to make it so people will kill it then MOVE ON. There is nothing wrong with people in Aery killing Fafnir, the problem is after 6 years its THE SAME people in Aery killing Fafnir. Higher drop rates / good but not end-all-be-all-nothing-better item drops / more frequent spawns(no rare lottery spawn on top of a rare spawn like kings did) and making it not super hard as to limit it being killed by only the best geared people in the game(AV ect) / and bigger spawn area, DA is not fun with a lotta people and promotes bot usage but spreading things out makes it harder.

We can have world spawns and they can be fun but they need to apply those ideas and if the idea of spreading out spawns like SW/DI doesn't work because "bots" will show up and just claim everything then the issue isn't the HNM system it's the bots ruining the game. Forced spawn mobs are fun but there is something about racing other people to a giant mob that we need to kill before they do thats just too fun to let die by making everything a force spawn or obtainable by some other arbitrary means.

Hell, make a ingame NPC say that "Something evil is approaching in X hours" or something like that so when Fafnir spawns outside of camp Brentbranch everyone on the server will be ready and play a fun "lets find the HNM" game which could be a lot of fun and level the playing field a little and limit botting because it can spawn anywhere.

Just something to consider.

[Vuitton]

I liked how WoW handled their open land bosses with the emerald dragons pre-BC. Didn't they all spawn at the same time? Spawn based off of the death of the last one? I think there was 4 of them and they were very very far apart and on different continents. That way one LS could never hope to claim all of them, unless they were the only LS pursuing them.

I guess this doesn't do much for claim holding though. Just have to hope they don't make it feasible.

[Nevex]

Hell, make a ingame NPC say that "Something evil is approaching in X hours" or something like that so when Fafnir spawns outside of camp Brentbranch everyone on the server will be ready and play a fun "lets find the HNM" game which could be a lot of fun and level the playing field a little and limit botting because it can spawn anywhere.

Be careful to what you ask because that's the logic behind Sandworm/Dark Ixion/Mog Tablets. Did they limit botting? Quite the opposite. Are they fun? No, not by a long shot.

I would only tolerate world HNM pops if drops are 100% for each party member and if they work like FFXI's Void NMs.

[Syntex]

Be careful to what you ask because that's the logic behind Sandworm/Dark Ixion/Mog Tablets. Did they limit botting? Quite the opposite. Are they fun? No, not by a long shot.

I would only tolerate world HNM pops if drops are 100% for each party member and if they work like FFXI's Void NMs.

They did limit botting for a while but the bots getting better to adapt only means one thing. No system outside of a zeni/magian/forced pop system will work if SE doesn't regulate and ban botting. Lets not blame a good system which went to hell because of botting and point the finger at the system when its the botting that destroyed it more then anything.

Botting destroys games plain and simple. No game ever made has had bots present, let them run their course, and done well at the end without something being adversely affected in some way(which could be economy/ranking/players playing ect).

Also shorter spawn windows would also help.

[miokomioko]

"ZNM/VNM-style" is most likely the way it's going to be via Faction leves or, maybe in the future, class-specific leves for War/Magic disciplines.

[Villian]

If anyone been playing FF11, Abyssea NMs is working well except for the low key item drops. ._.

[millionsknives]

NM's need to be pretty much a form of force pop'd. LL for example, you kill the PH for hours and a passer by can grab him - you can be doing all the work and someone can stand there and grab the reward.

This is how my LS always thought it should have worked in 11:
Taking LL again as an example, what if the game kept track of how many Lizzys you were killing in the zone. After the 50th Lizzy kill you (or your party?) make, you are guaranteed to get an item drop that will let you pop LL. Simple but effective.

1. It stops players congesting one place since you can kill that type of mob all over the zone.
2. You're guaranteed to get the pop item after x kills rather then relying on a 5% drop change which could take hours or minutes
3. And finally the NM is popped claimed by you.

The random drop rate of the actual NM can stay, but at least you know in x amount of kills you get to try again.

(Haven't played 11 since Abysseas release, so no idea if that system is similar)

[miokomioko]

If anyone been playing FF11, Abyssea NMs is working well except for the low key item drops. ._.

I think those NMs are only appearing to work because people's access to the zone is severely limited. If it was unlimited access, like the "open-world" NMs in discussion, there would be constant camping. In fact, it's Khalimari's Aery in there sometimes... which makes them suck because of your limited access.

[orson]

I have to disagree, kings style NMs were never and never will be a good idea. SE made monsters that they figured people would just "find" spawned. SE never thought at all that people would camp the kings for hrs and hrs every day. So to start out right away kings were a failure, the devs fucked up because they never wanted people to camp stuff.

The other way that the devs screwed up is that they never wanted more than a handful of people on a server with the rare drops like e.body, ridill, d.ring, etc. So they made the drop rates akin to lottery which is literally the most unfair way of earning gear. Sure it's cool to have small amount of chance in regard to getting gear but they should offer a quantified method to guarantee you get the gear in a reasonable period of time. Generally it causes far less drama and isn't nearly as frustrating.

Using cock block that only ever rewards maybe 1% of the total group at the time per kill (if only the drop rates were that good) is ridiculous. Stuff like einherjar was an excellent opportunity to make a perfect system but SE dropped the ball by not having every drop purchasable by ichor. There's 0 reason that once you beat Odin like 5 times it would unlock the option for you purchase e.body/a.body for like 100,000 ichor. Note they could still have the random drops off Odin to encourage groups to keep killing him. Though this isn't really a problem with just NMs and FFXI it's a big part of why kings and a lot of other conventions in FFXI sucked so badly.

I like the idea of world spawn NMs if you can can also get the same drops from instances and a point/badge system but why should the world spawns have the better drop rate? I never understand why idiots think it's a good idea to encourage your group to stay up til 4-5 am in the morning instead of just letting them play on their own schedule. Again this is just a frustrating and even unhealthy way of playing games.