[dev1009] Seriously.... how could you make the HNM system worse...

[Dazusu]

I think you'll find, Arcon, the new system is a lot worse. Not only do you have to farm seals for 8-10 hours, but in addition to this you have to find the motivation to do it. That's going to be the hard part.

Sitting my character in a zone for 3 hours once a day is much easier, and gets much better results than 8-10 hours of monotonous grinding against EP/TWs

I thought the whole idea with SE lately was to spend more time away from the game, ie, AFK leeching in Abyssea, 1-90 in 2-3 days, etc etc. Now they want us to sit and farm for 8-10 hours for what is going to arguably be gear that is even more redundant once this update hits than it is now?

People argued against the HNM system, got the change they wanted. Can't say I'm particularly pleased with it - and I bet the ones who argued for this change aren't pleased either.

[xiozen]

That doesn't mean shit... Who has the time to sit and farm KS's off retarded mobs to get people to drag them out to a KS99 to kill for a pop to pop a NQ to pop an HQ to do that all over... At least the time was spanned over HQ/NQ days. People cried about 3hours... congrats spending even more time trying to get a pop for a effing HNM that's going to be 10x more pain in the ass to get an item off of.

Honestly, I fail to see the problem... if you want a Black belt, do what you need to do to acquire the freakin item... last time I looked FFXI was and still is an MMO... Massively Multiplayer Online game... time sinks are where its at. Granted... the current development team has been more than generous (for obvious reasons) as to decrease the time sinks across the board for a g-enormous amount of things (quests, missions, items etc)... this item... the ever uber Black Belt is one which I can't possibly see them making "easy to get"... until something else trumps this item; I say, "WORK for it." If you REALLY REALLY want it... put on your gloves and do the work. Get people to help you if need be.. but to sit back and whine about having to farm kindred seals, pleassssee... /wrist

[xiozen]

As it is right now, I have no chance at a Defending Ring (except for Bonanza maybe). And this new system doesn't sound like a small chance, it sounds like an incredible chance, or at least an incredible improvement in overall drop rate. Right now there's what, 1 Defending Ring a year? What are the chances of you obtaining it? This may require 8 hours of effort, may even require 100 hours of effort, it would still greatly improve your chances. 100 hours to get a 5% chance for the drop, compare that with right now, ~100 hour average spawn (optimistically speaking), 50% claim chance (as if), 5% drop rate, 20% lot chance (vs. 4 people.. as if). That means you'll get a Defending Ring after roughly 20,000 hours. Assuming this new system takes a 100 hours effort (farming + KS99 fight + several NQ fights, which is still a pessimistic estimate), 5% drop rate, that's a Defending Ring after 2,000 hours. Even with these ridiculous estimates, the new system is 10 times better than the old. And you don't have to lot against others, because everyone can bring their own trig. No outlotting, no claimwars, that will increase your chances drastically.

The only thing I dislike is farming stuff for countless hours, personally I prefer lazy camping, even if there's less chance of obtaining an item. I'm a bit disappointed that the countless of anti-grinding threads, especially promoted by Abyssea, seem to have fallen on deaf ears at the development team. I can even see BB items increasing in drop rate, unless the new drop rate is incredibly low (like 10% for or something).



I would prefer that also, but if you think about i, people would be claimbotting those 24/7. Would be worse than ground kings pre-Abyssea.

In any case, unless the new trigger/item droprates are really low, it should increase the drop rate overall. It may be more annoying to obtain, but it's faster and easier, and not as many frustrations for getting outclaimed after camping for three hours straight for three days.

QFT... finally someone who understands that this change is a welcome relief to a system which is outdated and to this day, has ousted anyone who has a full-time job, or go to school full-time and can't devote 24-72 hours sitting in the game waiting for a mob to spawn only to have it taken away by a botter... come-on people--this system is akin to what SE is doing to address RMT-fishing schemes... it will require work on the part of the person/persons who REALLY want the items that drop but guess what...you'll finally get a chance. Prior to this, you DON'T have a snowball's chance in hell, now you do... /cheers!

[Juilan]

What I see in every one of these threads is 3 types of people:

1) People who look at each change and decide whether the change is good, bad, or not really either.

2) People who aren't satisfied unless the game reverts to the way it was pre-Abyssea, complete with all the ridiculous roadblocks

3) People who want to log in and be given level 99 on all jobs, plus all their equipment, and all quests, missions, and mobs must be solo-able (a slight exaggeration)

im not either of them, i just think they're fixing a working system by throwing a rabid monkey at it, yes it could use some improvements, but when people stopped camping these monsters after abyssea came out, they did that because the abjurations were no long worth buying the cursed gear for. if they really wanted to change things up, give them new items and a shorter spawn window, give us an HQ ever 3 hours, you'd still have a lot of people not camping it, or better yet, slightly increase drop rates and change it like dynamis, dont make the players farm stuff for the same or worse drop rate so they can NPC a lot of junk that they made obsolete by adding them into gold chests

[LeaderofAtlantis]

Ok first let me say that, as someone who hates sitting around for 3 hours, I like their idea. I never really joined a HNM LS (unless friends in one invited me a long with their LS). So while I understand this process takes a bit more actually effort (since you can't bot anymore if you were a botter), it gives people like me a chance to fight things we've never fought before. Yeah I've fought Adamantoise (in Nyzul and VoS), Behemoth (Nyzul only), and Fafnir (Nyzul only), but I've never had the pleasure of fighting the HQ forms of these.

As for Black Belt seekers, I kind of understand being upset about them removing those items from the drop pool of the NQ versions, but nothing was said to indicate those items would be removed from the KS99 fights, so with more people probably wanting to do those, you still have pretty good hope. Also, to make the Black Belt any easier to obtain than it is right now would take away something I think. I mean, no other melee job has a belt that's even on par with it.

Finally, for all we know, with the introduction of the Kindred's Crest and HKC storage system, they may also introduce a system in which we can trade these like we do with Imperial Coins. 1 HKC = 5 KC; 1 KC = 5 KS; 1 KS = 5 BS - that seems the most reasonable to me. We just don't know what other crazy things they have coming down the pipe.

[Arcon]

I think you'll find, Arcon, the new system is a lot worse. Not only do you have to farm seals for 8-10 hours, but in addition to this you have to find the motivation to do it. That's going to be the hard part.

I know, and I definitely agree, that's why I said I wasn't really too happy about it personally. I absolutely hate grinding, it's why I won't ever bother with an empyrean weapon, I don't like the idea of mindlessly killing mobs every 5min for some stupid seals, especially with my permanent inventory issues.

But overall I think most people won't mind. I really don't know why, but many people seem to be rather content with the grinding system, just look at all the people doing ridiculous trials, kill 500 mobs in weather, kill 600 without, etc., I think many people will embrace that system. Who knows, maybe even they will get tired of it eventually, but I'm pretty sure we'll see the number of Defending Rings go up drastically soon, and that will help motivate more people.

I guess SE relies on grinding to extend this game's lifetime, if people want a Defending Ring, that will keep them busy for days and weeks, possibly months, same (but to lower extent) goes for Black Belt items. It's the only explanation I can come up with why they're doing something like this.

I honestly don't know what to think of it, it's the trade off between tons of effort vs. tons of luck. It may sound stupid, but I was always more of an advocate for the luck category, although if possible I would prefer tons of challenge instead. But that's something SE has been ignoring for some time now.

I know I'll blow the Kindred's Seals I have on this, see how far it gets me, but I doubt it'll be enough for a Defending Ring. Let's just see how this turns out.

[Kiine]

See that bright red ribbon on the horizon? It's comprised entirely of angry monks without Black Belts who are now carrying torches. Some DEV clarification (and/or re-thought) on the fate of the three items most people care about from the Ground Kings would be a good idea.

[Natenn]

I'm sorry but all i see is ppl qqing that drops aren't being handed to em. But hey, you guys all cried about not wanting to fight for claim over HNM, there you go. You have just made it even more inconvenient and ruined sentimental value for Defending Ring since now everyone will be popping KB. But with this move i have a strong feeling that new kings with 21hr to 24hr will be added at Lv99 to replace old kings.

[Arcon]

I'm sorry but all i see is ppl qqing that drops aren't being handed to em. But hey, you guys all cried about not wanting to fight for claim over HNM, there you go. You have just made it even more inconvenient and ruined sentimental value for Defending Ring since now everyone will be popping KB. But with this move i have a strong feeling that new kings with 21hr to 24hr will be added at Lv99 to replace old kings.

Now this is something I would just love to see. And more than just three, want more real NMs to fight.

[Glamdring]

I can't believe you guys are seriously complaining about this, you can get KS off any mob 50+ and with a 90 you could go to Monastic caverns and pick up enough in about an hour. Crests drop so much I've been throwing them all away for the last 2 months (and I still have 10 stacks of normal and 3 stacks of HQ saved just in case they ever get useful). I love this change. Now maybe someone on Caitsith will get a chance to get Behemoth instead of (I think) Amonk and his LS, I've got leather to make and I refuse to reward these monopolists with my $, so I get my mats from other sources (or simply do synths that don't involve behemoth parts).

For that matter-prepare for a revolutionary concept-level a lower level job and get your seals the old-fashioned way, by earning them! This is especially easy if you solo (I'm currently sitting on 1300 KS with the Storage NPC, and that's with frequently tossing the things in the field if I get a drop that's worth more than 100 gil to NPC and need the space), since everything that drops is yours. Bust out your thief, put on a crow's set, head to monastic caverns and go nuts.