NEW NM system

[radar]

I think this system is good:

Positives:
It gives all players something to do, that is low stakes (this is very important, a lot of players simply had nothing to do outside of big events).
The key system was really cool.
It drives a lot of interest in the community, to find the NM, to figure out what drops what, to argue about the stats etc
It allows player interaction, grouping up for these is a good thing even if it's just random chitchat while camping.
I like that the lower NM are timed, and the higher ones are lottery.

I hope you add more NM like this (even to Escha, Reisenjima etc), even to other areas. Things like earrings, neck pieces etc, other armor sets

Negatives:
There is no current word on the augment system, there really does need to be (even if just a teaser). Especially if this idea was dropped, cause a lot of people camped them specifically because of that, so they will be very annoyed if it's not happening.
They look the same as older gear, not even a recolor. This reduces the excitement of it, cause you've seen your character wearing it before.

I hope we can use different colors of this armor when we augment it, this would be very important (maybe with aptants). The other color variants already exist, red / black / white variants are already there.

I hope the augment system requires drops, that also come from the same NM and work like dark matter (but with different augments, based on the type of gear). That way the small community interaction aspect continues, and newer players can still get help to camp/kill them. Some randomness in min/max stats (and maybe some rare stats, like refresh 2 on escha gear) makes sure everyone doesn't just cap them in a week and never goes near them again.

I think it needs to be kept in mind that corsair and ranger are often used as a melee job now, with savage blade. So those jobs should probably be added to Olorun.

[Dragoy]

I didn't know some of them are lottery. I did try that with some of the early areas though, funny enough.

I'm not going to do more until I can store the gear away...

Though, I might hunt out for more of them just for fun, trying to find them without spoilers.

That's my main incentive. I doubt they'll be useful for me at this point, but I do find nice that they are doing it at all. I bet it is something someone wanted to do for so long, and now they got the chance. :]

I'd use the time for some other things, fer sure, but well, I'll not be complaining.

I'm not sure I'd go for the random aspect.

Why not rather do the gradual thing they did with the last (for now!) ultimate weapons stage, and Unity augments? That is, gradual upgrades the more you trade in items.

Random never was a friend of mine...

[radar]

I really wish they would use the HQ rare chest for these things, using the basic chests reduces the fun of it somewhat, should drop a gold relic chest.

https://i.ibb.co/CpJTmbNS/chest.jpg

[radar]

<Message from Taniguchi-san, dev of the gear> From a long time ago, we had NMs that popped with similar conditions to these and heard from a lot of players saying that they wanted a similar type of challenge that avoided the bloodthirsty situation that we had in the past.

People who played awhile ago might feel a bit of nostalgia for these types of NMs.

Since this is just the “surface” (of the earth), please look forward to seeing many more NMs in the future. (it’s a pun saying that it’s the “surface” of the plans, but also “surface of the earth”; implying NMs in underground areas next).



We’re enjoying seeing players working together and overcoming some of that stiffness that you feel when you join up with people you don’t know.

We want more and more players to group up to take down the NMs. When we were planning them, we wanted to make sure that we could do what we were able to reduce points where players might fight and instead create ways for them to cooperate.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ffxi/comments/1vuva11/822_aman_live_translation_thread/

[radar]

Only problem with these NM is within a month, most people will have the drops and there is no longer any reason to camp them. Let alone to group up and camp them, which was actually quite a nice thing with it.

If they add a dark matter type system to the gear with rare high augments, and the items needed drop from the NM for each piece then they will continue to be relevant for a long time.

Remains to be seen if they are going to be reforged, or augmented though.

[Alhanelem]

I saw they added new NMs for TOAU areas, but can you enlighten me on what is "new" in the system? how do they spawn, what do you get, etc.... I looked once soon after the update and I hadn't seen any pages on the wikis calling out the new NMs or pages for each specific one with locations, etc. so I don't really know anything yet.

[radar]

https://www.bg-wiki.com/ffxi/August_2026_Version_Update_Changes

They added lots of new nm that drop basic 119 gear, that they plan to reforge / augment later. The lower tier NM are straight up timed pops, the body are lottery pops.

Players have been forming alliances, or parties for them but as more people have the drops this is coming to an end and it's a solo affair. Regardless when it dies you open the chest and get a chance at loot, you can also buy a key in western adoulin (1 per hour) that allows a second try at the chest.

[Doctrine]

it always amazes me how out of touch SE is these days

any new nm's should be force popped always.
a once a game day 10k gil key that has a high probablity to giving nothing but vendor trash that wont even recoup the cost never should have happened

chocobo digging almost every day in VB, when the ONLY time choco digging is even remotely tolerable is during the hyper digging campaign

a triple layer crap sandwich of a grind in limbus, when virtually their entire playerbase is telling them its a bad idea

matters being required for accessory and armor upgrades NOT being a 100% drop AND requiring 30 of them PER PIECE is complete horsepuckey

STILL no way to turn in excess sortie mats for galli or even cases

empy armor upgrades and prime weapons being on the same currency, and for absolutely ridiculous amounts




and that's just recently

[radar]

If you add a force pop system, you just move the resistance from the pop condition to the difficulty to obtain the item. No thank you.

[Alhanelem]

The point of force pops isn't about decreasing (or increasing) barriers, it's about reducing player conflict, i.e. different people fighting over the same NM spawn.

[radar]

There is no fighting over these NM, you can team up with 17 other players and it's still the same loot chance because a chest drops anyone can open.

Players outside of the alliance can even open the box with a key if they didn't even kill it.

If the NM dies and you're there, you can loot it no matter what.

[Doctrine]

strang happenings was the proper way to do this

not whatever this trash is

[Uroah]

strang happenings was the proper way to do this

not whatever this trash is

Correct answer

Strange Happenings already had the answer. These NM could have enhanced that gear instead. But no.

[Dragoy]

Well yeah, this is like Strange things, but you have the addition of TWO chances of getting... nothing.

While the other one always did give something.

But it wouldn't be FFXI if it always did give something, right? :]

[radar]

Ppl complaining, I assume cause you're mad it didn't give you bacon from pressing the button?

The point of this was to give casual players something to do, not only did it do that but it gave them an opportunity to group up. This is a good thing, the only complaints are a lack of information on the upgrade system and that it's short term grouping.

If they add some kind of dark matter system, and the items needed drop from the same NM then it will be evergreen content (depending on rare augs)

The mysterious happenings thing was good for what it was, but it wasn't good unless people kept doing it. If enough didn't keep doing it, those NM has so much hp it would take you 4 hours to kill it solo.

[Alhanelem]

Strange Happenings already had the answer. These NM could have enhanced that gear instead. But no. Pretty silly thing to say. Why would this content enhance gear from some other content? And what exact enhancements do the revived RSE items need anyway?

From the descriptions i've been given, it's more or less just like the strange happenings fights, as anyone there can open the chest. It seems like a pretty damn good deal to me, drop rates aside.



The point of this was to give casual players something to do, not only did it do that but it gave them an opportunity to group up. This is a good thing, the only complaints are a lack of information on the upgrade system and that it's short term grouping.This is the correct response to this.

One could make the case for an upgrade system, but that doesn't really have anything to do with the NM system itself, which, based on what I've been told here, is actually quite sound. Enhnacing gear is really a separate issue.