Monstrosity Wish List ( º x º )

I've personally been loving monstrosity more and more with each update, so I wanted to start a thread of wish list items.

My top 5:
1. Parties! Being a monipulator is currently a very lonely road. I would at the very least love to be able to xp with other monipulators (in or outside of pvp zones). Being able to xp with adventurers would be great as well, which segues into...

2. Beastmasters and Monipulators, a match made in Heaven('s tower)! If not becoming full fledged party members with adventurers, I think it would be really cool to allow a monipulator into an adventurer's party as long as there is a beastmaster present for each monipulator. The beastmaster's role would largely remain the same– they can use their same job abilities, rewards and such to aid the monipulator, and likewise the monipulator's AOE buffs could extend to the beastmaster (or ideally entire party). I think if allowed to events like wildskeeper rieves, this would be a fun mechanic.

3. More Desirable Rewards for Adventurers! While I think the current pvp system is designed very well, I notice very few gladiators participating in it. Some extra incentives might help.

4. Uncapped PvP Zone(s). Another reason I think there is a lack of gladiators is because they can't take full advantage of their fancy item level equipment or level 99 job abilities.

5. More content Monipulators can participate in. I can totally see many reasons to exclude monipulators from content such as Dynamis, Salvage, Voidwatch, Abyssea etc, however it would be nice if monipulators could participate in some of the more casual content like rieves, campaign battle, and besieged.

Pretty much completely agree with you.

1.) Parties, prioritize this please. Exping in a group in any way would be so much nicer.

2.) Partying with Adventurers, could be fun, and I'd even accept the probably necessary rule of (One monster in the party = No loot other than crystals and seals for anyone.) While I get that it's neat and flavorful for a Beastmaster to be linked, I think ultimately this would just be a pain and don't think it should be required.

3.) A thousand times this, reward adventurers better, reward monipulator's "main characters" in some way for doing all the monster levelling, I know this system is meant to be and end unto itself, but it doesn't feel like it should be. I put forth a "Monstrosity as Merits" idea before, but a gear reward would be acceptable as well.

4.) I think this is a good idea, to those saying the playing field would be imbalanced, it already is.

5.) In addition to quests or BCNMs that can only be done as a party of monsters, that drops perhaps "matching" rewards, (For example, I kill a Bugard in a Monster BCNM, it drops some loot that we all lot on for our adventurers to use, and we all obtain some Instinct for beating the battle.) I would also like to see Monipulators available to participate in more content.

More Job Coverage: As more monster are added, be creative about their jobs and job combinations. Summmoners, Blue Mage, Beastmasters, etc. Eventually I'd like to see all the jobs and job combinations represented. Really try not to limit the amount of job abilities we have access to where possible.

Full TP Movelists: There are SO many missing TP moves. Almost every monster is missing at least one. Sometimes more. Floral Bouquet for Rafflesia, Call of The Moon for Gnole, Grim Glower for Peistes, etc etc. Whether we unlock these via spending large amounts of Infamy like we have to to unlock certain sub-species or perhaps from quests of some sort or from reaching level 99 with a particular monster, they're still missing. Please don't forget about them.

Full Monster Family List: Out of just the initial families released, we're missing; Yztarg, Twitherym, Mantid, Chapuli, Apian Beasts, Raaz, Matamata, Gabbrath, Cehuetzi, Bztavian, Yggdreant, Belladonna, Snapweed, Leafkin and any associated subspecies. I'd like to see the monster family lists filled out. I imagine you have plans to do so already (in particular for the Naakual, who I imagine will require a rather large time and/or Infamy cost to unlock), so this is just a reminder to not forgot about all these guys.

Classic and Modern NM/HNM Traits: I'd like to see En-enfeeble effects, auras, withdrawing into shells (similar to Aspidochelone), absorbing certain elements to heal, Draw-in, summoning additional monsters (Like Alpha Gnole Anders), or other traits that NMs have that make them difficult/tactically interesting. This can really add an extra layer of depth when Mon Vs. MON is released. You could even allow us to mix and match different traits. (Within reason of course. I know it'd be pretty hard to make things like withdrawing into shells available to most monipulators. Things like that could be more HNM or sub-species specific.)

Mon Vs Mon PVP:So far, the PVP elements have been centred around Gla Vs Mon. I think it's going to be almost impossible to balance job classes Vs Monipulators and you wouldn't really want to balance that much for it anyway because first priority is balancing the job classes with the rest of the game, not Monstrosity. We're just going to be spinning our wheels trying to get that right. No, as far as PVP goes, the better one, in my mind, is going to be Mon Vs Mon. We need to get this implemented as soon as possible. Mon Vs Mon allows you to start with more of a blank slate of sorts where you can fine tune less balanced aspects of ability within combatants. We'd have a sort of Pokemon-esque battle system here if done right.

As far as the strict definition of content goes:

NM/HNM PvE: Whether we can get teleported to a special arena, have them spawn in the Feretory or be given the ability to actually go to the zone itself and pop the NM as a Monipulator, it'd be great to be able to fight, let's say, Bukhis, Tsui-Goab, Umagrhk, or Medusa for examples. You COULD make them drop their associated rewards or something else entirely since when we're under the effects of Belligerency things DO drop to us so we know it's possible. Of course, I leave that up to you on how to balance rewards and such. I mostly just want to pit my monster(s) against some past NM/HNM's and tough monsters.

BCNM Access: I'd also like to participate in BCNM. Maybe we'd have to pay the cost with the appropriate item (Cloud Evokers, the appropriate Orbs, etc) beforehand or something. Maybe we could get something for clearing certain tiers of BCNM. Maybe at the end, we could even be given the chance to re-fight mission and end expansion bosses that we've already beaten (Ouryu, Ark Angels, Promathia, Shinryu, Provenance Watcher, etc) and get a reward for beating that. Maybe we'd unlock a special pygmy skin of some of the end bosses for beating them (Ok, that last one is a long shot even with pipe dream thinking :P)


Lastly but very importantly, this is something that has to happen to keep the content relevant:

Reward Improvements: Improve the quality of rewards that can be gained from PvP as well as future MONvMON content. Doesn't have to be the best gear in the game necessarily but I think you know the importance of proper incentive by now, SE. Gladiators need reasons to go NM hunting and NM's need reasons to hunt/stick around to fight Gladiators.

Some of the things you can buy can even be "show off" gear that you can buy once a Gladiator has beaten, let's say, 50, 100 and 200 HNM Monipulators in battle. The same can be applied to Monipulators.
What about being able to buy a special Monipulator slaying title with Prestige? One that is available, again, once you've been a number of opponents. The same can be applied to Monipulators here too.

Those are just some superfluous, fringe things that could be made available but, really, I think the heart of it is the gear has to be reasonable good enough to bother working on from the gladiator side. Monipulators need incentives too. Why are we going to stick around to fight other players? What do we spend our Infamy on? For ideas on that, see point 2 and 4 of this post.

Necro-bump!

New species are nice in the most recent update, new solo zones are nice, my 2 cents on what would be even nicer:

-Other content you can bring a monipulator to. I understand balance might be difficult for content like delve, but how about rieves (wkr and other), campaign and besieged? It would be nice to stomp around as a monipulator for some content that would be of some (even if limited) benefit to my adventurer counterpart.
-Uncapped pvp zone!
-More (not necessarily better) rewards! With /lockstyle I'm sure some vanity pieces would be all the rage. I mean, who wouldn't want to wear an apkallu hat?

I support this thread. I like monstrosity but with my limited playtime it hasn't made a lot of sense to spend time on it. And being alone (without even trust NPCs) is no fun!

One other piece of feedback I think is worth mentioning- gladiator participation could be made simpler/more enticing.

After me talking about monstrosity over and over in my linkshell, one person decided to try fighting me as a gladiator. The conversation went roughly like this:
<Lsmember>: Alright, how to I fight against you in monstrosity?
<Vivivivi>: If you haven't unlocked it, take the vw warp to Pash Marshlands, talk to the npc there. Then talk to the suspicious taru in Port Windy warp 3, and trade them a lizard tail.
<Vivivivi>: And then talk to the taru again to get gladitorial writ of summoning key item.
<Lsmember>: Ok. Where can we do battle?
<Vivivivi>: Bub. Penn. at level 30 cap, Xarc at level 60 and Ule at level 90.
<Lsmember>: There's no level 99 zone? <_<;
<Vivivivi>: Nope. :(
<Lsmember>: Ok. Will this npc warp me to those places?
<Vivivivi>: Nope :(
<Lsmember>: Ugh. Ok. I'll take VW warp to Ule.
---Level 90 Dancer vs Level 90 Elasmoth---
No dancer steps or violent flourish stuns landed, each melee hit from Elasmoth took off about 10-20% health. Battle was over in under two minutes.
<Lsmember>: I see why no one does this! Are there rewards for gladiators?
<Vivivivi>: Yeah, but you have to rank up to open chests that might drop. Otherwise you can xp in the beligerency zones and get points that way.
---Lsmember goes to Bub. to fight normal mobs for points, immediately gets crushed by other players---
<Lsmember>: Screw this!

I realize Monstrosity isn't the primary content focus of the game, and for what it is, it's incredibly fun, but I think more people would check out the pvp aspect of it if there was a little more balance and worthwhile rewards (even vanity rewards). PvP balance might even be as simple as iLVL 119 vs level 99 MON. Currently monsters are superior overpowered when facing even up to 6 gladiators (which is incredibly difficult to get even one other person to join).

Just some constructive feedback based on experience! Excited to see where this content goes.

*I'd like access to Reives (Wildskeeper and otherwise) campaign and besieged. but also:

SE could tie real endgame gear acquisition into Monstrosity. Like, I don't know, maybe we could have the ability to buy fragments of Delve/other content weapons and armor as a monster with PvP wins + Infamy? This would be important to give incentive to not only collect Infamy but also to stick around and fight battles to the end. And then, in order to fuse the parts into something usable, we'd have to challenge a version of the NM that drops that particular piece of gear that is scaled for MON Vs. MON combat?

Would it take longer to get the gear from monstrosity? Ideally, yes so as to not take TOO much attention from doing content with our characters but it should be completely possible to gain gear and other rewards from this incredibly fun system. People like this system a lot, they just need reason to do it.

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Originally Posted by Vivivivi

One other piece of feedback I think is worth mentioning- gladiator participation could be made simpler/more enticing.

After me talking about monstrosity over and over in my linkshell, one person decided to try fighting me as a gladiator. The conversation went roughly like this:

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It looks like stats for Monstrosity are balanced for a monipulator vs a party of 6 Gladiators. Solo isn't very fair unless you don't equip any instincts, and even then probably isn't giving a decent chance for the Gladiator to win.

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Originally Posted by bungiefanNA

It looks like stats for Monstrosity are balanced for a monipulator vs a party of 6 Gladiators. Solo isn't very fair unless you don't equip any instincts, and even then probably isn't giving a decent chance for the Gladiator to win.

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yeah this is silly, cause the chances of that happening are slim to none. I think they should allow uncapped folks in at least one area.

You could do it as an LS event... The problem is it lowers the points each gladiator gets, as they are divided evenly between the party members. Monipulators have little incentive to risk losing their points when they can only use them to unlock other Monipulators and some instincts, while Gladiators get gear they can use outside the event.

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Originally Posted by bungiefanNA

You could do it as an LS event... The problem is it lowers the points each gladiator gets, as they are divided evenly between the party members. Monipulators have little incentive to risk losing their points when they can only use them to unlock other Monipulators and some instincts, while Gladiators get gear they can use outside the event.

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Neither side has incentive, which is why I only level in Belligerency anymore besides level 1~10 personally. Monsters have being much more powerful and a higher cap to their infamy as their benefit to participation, while there is great risk to get that benefit. At the same time, players have next to no reason to kill monsters, the gear is lackluster beyond compare and you would need so many points to get a single good piece of gear that it's just not worth the time to farm up with or without fighting other players.

By that logic people have no incentives to play as monster in the first place!

Oh, wait.

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Originally Posted by Selindrile

By that logic people have no incentives to play as monster in the first place!

Oh, wait.

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That's partially true. Fighting monster players is so unbalanced that everyone I have ever tried to get into it has instantly quit due to the imbalance, besides the fun aspect PvP has literally go benefit for players outside of Monstrosity besides the gear which is so bad it's not worth the time. The reward ratio for Monstrosity PvP is even worse than Job Points are right now, and that's saying something. When it comes to Monstrosity as a whole while the main part of it is for fun it can also be used to farm Sparks effectivly, I can farm up a ton of Sparks in no time via RoE by simply FCing a zone of my choosing with my Coeurl 99 due to -ga spam which completes Monstrosity & Total kills as well as 500+ DMG multiple times in a short period. I often can farm 5k Sparks in roughly 10 or less minutes if I try to which is quite fast, especially when you factor in I move faster than a normal player does.

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4.) I think this is a good idea, to those saying the playing field would be imbalanced, it already is.

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Under most circumstances, especially at the lower caps, monstrosity pvp is hugely stacked in favor of the monipulator. Monipulators gain substantial bonuses as they achieve NM or HNM status, while gladiators get absolutely nothing from their CG or HCG status except the ability to open chests. Even as a party, at the lower caps it is extremely difficult, because unlike a normal monster, a player knows who to take down first. Uncapped play would level the playing field, moreso if monipulator parties were allowed; but at lower level caps, letting monipulators party would make it impossible to be a gladiator.

That being said, I don't want to see monipulators get nerfed, but rather something done to improve the gladiator experience, like special buffs available at CG and HCG tiers that increase movement speed or confer other benefits to account for the huge advantages certain monster types in particular have.

(Note: at lv30 cap, I have been unable to take down any monipulator alone unless they were AFK with the pvp flag on- now that I have earned HCG status, I avoid participating because I don't want to lose it)