Monstrosity is incredible

I just discovered this like 2 nights ago and have been having a great time ever since.^^ Not to mention the screenshots I get to make my friends jealous with, and getting newbies to chase me around the city gates ：Ｄ I know it's not fully fleshed out yet but that just adds more to look forward to! Cheers to all those on the XI team

Please SE update this ;;

Please make October Monstrosity month!!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mitruya

Please make October Monstrosity month!!

---

YES. Double EXP and new species + skins at least. And add partying for monipulators!!! At least duos.

Maybe even allow us to get NM bonuses outside of belligerency.

Monstrosity is unique in that it's extremely fun even without giving practical rewards. Even though I can't use Cerberus outside of monstrosity, unlocking Cerberus is one of the most memorable and awesome moments I've had in FFXI. Walking around, so gigantic, so powerful, it was awesome.

I think it's kind of like what made Pokemon addictive as a kid, but in Monstrosity, you actually get to directly control the monsters, and you have to play as them to earn more, so it's not just collecting sprites and adding them to a list like in Pokemon. You actually use the monsters and get to experience moving as them, fighting as them, growing as them.

Arguably one of the biggest draws to the Final Fantasy series as a whole is how interesting and iconic a lot of the enemy types and bosses are, but no matter what the game, you only ever interact with them by summoning them or curbstombing them for delicious loot and EXP. Monstrosity is not just a neat and different idea, this is the first time someone opened the door to the idea of switching sides, being able to live the life of the cool enemies and bosses, and letting monsters be more than just loot pinatas.

If you told me back in FF VII I could BE the Midgar Zolom, or in VIII that I could BE XATM092, I wouldn't have believed you for one, and two, I wouldn't have a head anymore because it would have exploded from sheer awesomeness. Monstrosity is one the coolest things to ever happen in the entire FF series let alone XI and thankfully, so far it's one of the few things in this game that doesn't exist as another shameless, soulless gear grind, (although the devs could put a bit more effort into creating appealing yet non-important trinkets to lure in Gladiators with so that Monipulators can have something fun to eat for a change).

I just wish the devs would spend more time on it and realize that no, level grinding is not proper content and no, switching species doesn't reset the boringness of grinding past level 50 for the thousandth time like it does the EXP bar.

Seasonally, October would be the perfect month for a Monstrosity extravaganza. (Not to mention some jack o'lanterns for our Mog Garden)
Bring on the arcana, demon and undead families!
Give us access to more areas! (like all or most of the RoE conquest areas) Large MONs need some love especially.
Double XP events!
More Belligerency areas! I don't want to be stuck in Uleguerand Range from ~54-99 in order to take advantage of extra RoEs.
Partying!

Hmm. Well the POL page for Monstrosity says cooperative play is on their schedule (really looking forward to that!)... but how long has it been since its had an update?

I enjoy this content, give me a reason to do it... I want real main-character rewards from monstrosity. Otherwise I just feel like... "Welllll.... I should really be doing dynamis" etc

Also parties and perhaps quests plz.

I don't think it's had one in at least 6 or so months sadly. I hope I'm wrong about that, but I don't think I am. Party play was brought up not long after release, and it's release was more than a year ago, and since we've had no news on anything Monstrosity related in quite a while it's getting quite disheartening.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Selindrile

I enjoy this content, give me a reason to do it... I want real main-character rewards from monstrosity.

---

Cackling into the night while you stomp those lesser, smaller monsters into the ground isn't enough?

More seriously... I think I like this more than playing my main character. ：Ｄ Now if only I could be a black mage rabbit or white mage roc full time...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ris

Cackling into the night while you stomp those lesser, smaller monsters into the ground isn't enough?

---

No, sadly, the novelty wears off quickly when you realize there's no depth to it, and it doesn't tie in to the main game. But it was very fun for a very short amount of time, if I felt like it was fun, AND productive, we'd have something.

Hmm. I'm also enjoying all the abilities and spells, but that might just be me not having anything to 99 yet >.> <.<

While I love the casual aspect to monstrosity, and how you can (on many mobs) kill large groups on mobs at the same time without too much difficulty; I just can't help but thinking how I could just be killing Drachenlizards with my trusts out with the same ease, while making 1 million gil per hour at the same time...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Demonjustin

I don't think it's had one in at least 6 or so months sadly.

---

I got back from Afghanistan in April and there's certainly been no updates since then.

Monstrosity is one of my favorite parts of the game in a long time, I only wish some of the updates they'd promised would be followed through upon.

It's certainly a fun event, I enjoyed it a ton. The issue is when you do it for a long enough period you become bored. At first it's easy to enjoy, I actually enjoyed it until I had my first 4~5 monsters to around 60. Once XP got slower and it started to get repetitive with monsters often having the same job sets(WAR/WAR & BLM/WAR anyone?) I really just started to lose my patience with it. Throw in some of the really eh aspects to it like the fact you're forced to constantly solo, the fact only three belligerency areas exist still, and the fact that on some mobs you're stuck moving slow as **** really drag down the experience. Starting out, it was one of my favorite events in the game, if they updated the event then it'd probably still be high up there, but for now I'm burnt out on it and don't care much anymore sadly. It feels like SE just forgot, or that since the PvP aspect sucked so badly they considered it a failure despite the love for it so many people had outside of that one terrible aspect.

Hmm. I guess I'll see where I am with it in a few weeks...

Yeah I'd do belligerancy as a non monster except:

a) I'd need to form a party or it would be monstrously unfair for me (can you even use trusts now?) and with "c" its unlikely anyone would be interested
b) it messes me up when I want to dyna it won't let me enter unless I go to the trouble of removing monstrosity before I go to do dyna
c) there are no compelling rewards (honestly I could live with this if "a" and "b" were dealt with)

I have over a thousand combined monstrosity levels and just cannot find any reason to do the event anymore. It desperately needs a functional tie-in with the rest of the game or to become a more complete game itself.

For instance, having pan-world uncapped MvM duels with real rewards would be pretty cool. Make it Andoulin themed and give two HP Bayld per win or something

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Olor

Yeah I'd do belligerancy as a non monster except:

a) I'd need to form a party or it would be monstrously unfair for me (can you even use trusts now?) and with "c" its unlikely anyone would be interested
b) it messes me up when I want to dyna it won't let me enter unless I go to the trouble of removing monstrosity before I go to do dyna
c) there are no compelling rewards (honestly I could live with this if "a" and "b" were dealt with)

---

You can't use trusts in a belligerency area if you are participating in it.

one of the barriers for me is you're prevented from riding chocobos anywhere (not just within or into related areas) as long as you have the gladiator writ.

I don't mind that many monsters are difficult to face without multiple people, but the penalty for losing is one of the primary causes for aversion to participation. You shouldn't steal your opponents points. You should maybe lose a small amount while the othe person gains much more. Currently the system is too punishing for the high risk- gladiators find it hard to build up points without simply farming normal mobs in a belligerency area (due to the high risk of losses when fighting a monipulator), while Monipulators don't want to lose their NM/HNM status by dying.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Olor

a) I'd need to form a party or it would be monstrously unfair for me (can you even use trusts now?) and with "c" its unlikely anyone would be interested

---

I don't know... maybe it's not realistic with the game's current population, but I would actually really like take on a party of adventurers as a monster^^; It sounds like it could be a lot of fun, even if I lost!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ris

I don't know... maybe it's not realistic with the game's current population, but I would actually really like take on a party of adventurers as a monster^^; It sounds like it could be a lot of fun, even if I lost!

---

I'd be into being in the party fighting the mon... except as people noted above - no one wants to lose the points, and there are no reasons to actually do this because it hampers you entirely.

I mean, if I could at least use trusts, I'd consider it, because then I could level in those areas without it being horrible pain grind... but its just way too unrewarding and inconvenient at the moment.

I did a whole lot of Monstrosity earlier this year when I had nothing better to do. I made a goal of both getting Toad 90 (for the awesome instinct) and unlocking Orthrus. I got Toad to 90 and Orthrus up to about 81, but I can barely muster interest in Monstrosity any more because there's so little to do with it. It's kinda fun playing as a big bad three headed beast, but the novelty wears off kinda quick when you see there's not really anything to do except walk around biting things.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ris

I don't know... maybe it's not realistic with the game's current population, but I would actually really like take on a party of adventurers as a monster^^; It sounds like it could be a lot of fun, even if I lost!

---

You haven't lived until you've caught a player stuck in an animation with your gigantic super move, the satisfaction is like no other.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Olor

I'd be into being in the party fighting the mon... except as people noted above - no one wants to lose the points, and there are no reasons to actually do this because it hampers you entirely.

I mean, if I could at least use trusts, I'd consider it, because then I could level in those areas without it being horrible pain grind... but its just way too unrewarding and inconvenient at the moment.

---

Those seem like good points... well, next time this gets an update, let's see if they ease up on those things a bit.

Considering how much SE is always looking to keep us busy with content, I find it really strange that they don't see MvM as what it is: Semi-automatically renewing content in the form of PvP, ala Pokemon.

SE has already gone on record saying they're going to add more(we've been stressing to them, better) rewards, a MON Vs MON PvP system, party mechanics for monsters, exclusive content and special battles for monsters and more special traits and modes for certain monsters to make them closer to how they behave when we fight them(the examples SE gave were traits based on moon phase for Gnoles and flight for Wyrms).


I kind of have this vision for the future of Monstrosity in my head. After the release of all these systems, if you put them all together, I could see really dynamic battles taking place and for decent rewards if done right. Imagine, say, a 3 on 3 MON Vs MON battle:

"Elasmoth comes out of the gate with Blood Weapon and Souleater!"
"But wait, Sibilus stops it in it's tracks with Oppressive Gaze!"
"Here comes Amphiptere. He uses Reaving Wind to gain it's Knockback aura and bats the Sibilus away, freeing Elasmoth!"
"But Amphiptere is weak to Bind and Boil stops him from wreaking havoc with it's Epoxy Spread!"
"Oh, and now a surprise SA Pit Ambush from Onyx Antlion while it was burrowed. Too bad Boil can't fly, it would have be able to avoid that!"
"Ladybug goes in for a SA on Elasmoth but it counters with Kick Out!"
etc, etc

Then one of the teams win and you gain decent rewards. And then maybe after so many PvP wins, you might be able to(as an example of "special battles for monsters") have access to a special battle that lets you re-fight mission bosses you've already beaten on your character or something. I don't know, that just sounds so fun and the idea that such a thing might be possible had me extremely excited...

Will that ever happen? At this point, I'm not so sure...What a terrible waste of a potentially good system.

Quote:

---

Considering how much SE is always looking to keep us busy with content, I find it really strange that they don't see MvM as what it is: Semi-automatically renewing content in the form of PvP, ala Pokemon.

---

Except that's not really what it is, because nobody does the pvp part. I'd actually be happier if people did tbh.

Half of the issue with Gladiator, from what I've experienced so far, is that you can't run straight to Uleguerand range without having to get through a level-capped Xarcabard first!

That's a big part of what it WOULD be if SE updated it like they said they would. I have very little hope that GladiatorVMon will ever be balanced but MonVMon is a different story.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mefuki

I have very little hope that GladiatorVMon will ever be balanced but MonVMon is a different story.

---

What do you mean by balanced? Just my $.02 but a big powerful monster shouldn't be soloable by an adventurer at the same level, IMO...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ris

What do you mean by balanced? Just my $.02 but a big powerful monster shouldn't be soloable by an adventurer at the same level, IMO...

---

On one hand I agree with you - on the other - if it isn't balanced for solo play the chances of Mon vs player pvp ever taking off are extremely low. They would need to add some awesome rewards for chars to bother building a level 90 cap gear set and form parties to take MONs down.

Currently PvM only rewards whichever player gets the killshot, so it discourages cooperative play. That was a major design flaw with the system, but it ended up not mattering because there wasn't any reward from it that was worth getting anyway.

Also, the best XP/Hr for Monipulators is in Buburimu Peninsula, where they have a massive advantage over monsters (and players) due to their extra HNM Instinct points.

I think it's pretty funny how the point penalty was added as an incentive for people to "fight seriously", but in reality, it's one of the biggest turn offs to the system. It just sets both participants' progress back so far in a system where non-PVP progress comes from an EXP grind that's somehow managed to be far worse than ordinary EXP grinding and the goals you're trying to make progress towards aren't even that big of a deal to warrant such a slog. I'm just trying to unlock a cool alt skin with the hopes it's not WAR/WAR again guys, not complete a Magian Trial.

Honestly, if they removed the Infamy/Prestige loss, I'd be even more inclined to "fight seriously" because that means I could be far more reckless and varied with my monster choices and playstyle. I'd be able to sit my monsters out in the most Gladiator-friendly parts of Xarc and Uleg all day, everyday without having to feel like "if I don't check the screen every 2 minutes I'm gonna come back to seeing my NM stars knocked off my icon."

All this wasted potential in Monstrosity is bumming me out super bad, man.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Olor

On one hand I agree with you - on the other - if it isn't balanced for solo play the chances of Mon vs player pvp ever taking off are extremely low. They would need to add some awesome rewards for chars to bother building a level 90 cap gear set and form parties to take MONs down.

---

due to the way monipulator's damage works, many monsters that seem impossible in Buburimu are actually quite possible to beat alone in ulegurand range (at least, on certain jobs).

It's interesting that they bothered to devote resources and development time into Mog Garden monster raising when there's clearly a demand for Monstrosity updates.

^This. The novelty wore off it really quick. There's no cross-connection or benefit at all.

I'm big on doing all the little extras in games but was overwhelmed coming back and starting form scratch. So it was taking me time to get around to Monstrosity. Then one day i was leaving Mhaura and there were 3 monsters sitting right outside. This insanely large tortoise towering over me, a lizard that seemed at least 30x my size in a beautiful array of colors, and a very nasty looking scorpion. My mindset was still in the last mmo i played (with open world pvp), so first instinct was to run. Then i quickly realized what i was seeing and started Monstrosity later that day. Now i have my own stable of creatures, none near a remarkable as the ones i saw that day... but one day... one day.

Really love the idea/feature and hope it can be expanded on in the future.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jybwee

I'm big on doing all the little extras in games but was overwhelmed coming back and starting form scratch. So it was taking me time to get around to Monstrosity. Then one day i was leaving Mhaura and there were 3 monsters sitting right outside. This insanely large tortoise towering over me, a lizard that seemed at least 30x my size in a beautiful array of colors, and a very nasty looking scorpion. My mindset was still in the last mmo i played (with open world pvp), so first instinct was to run. Then i quickly realized what i was seeing and started Monstrosity later that day. Now i have my own stable of creatures, none near a remarkable as the ones i saw that day... but one day... one day.

Really love the idea/feature and hope it can be expanded on in the future.

---

Unfortunately there is a MASSIVE drawback to monstrosity for new players...

Mainly the fact that you have to level any mage job and learn all the spells before you can use them as a monipulator of that job. Also, though not as important, if you take a monipulator to 75, but haven't taken that respective job (s) to 75, you lose out on the bonus from merit points.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bebekeke

Unfortunately there is a MASSIVE drawback to monstrosity for new players...

Mainly the fact that you have to level any mage job and learn all the spells before you can use them as a monipulator of that job. Also, though not as important, if you take a monipulator to 75, but haven't taken that respective job (s) to 75, you lose out on the bonus from merit points.

---

Oh wow, didn't know that about the mage jobs, ty. First job was whm 2nd was blm for a sub so... :). But very good to know.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bebekeke

Unfortunately there is a MASSIVE drawback to monstrosity for new players...

Mainly the fact that you have to level any mage job and learn all the spells before you can use them as a monipulator of that job. Also, though not as important, if you take a monipulator to 75, but haven't taken that respective job (s) to 75, you lose out on the bonus from merit points.

---

I just discovered this when I was playing monstrosity yesterday ; ;

Time to level BRD and BLM... :/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jybwee

This insanely large tortoise towering over me, a lizard that seemed at least 30x my size in a beautiful array of colors, and a very nasty looking scorpion. My mindset was still in the last mmo i played (with open world pvp), so first instinct was to run.

---

Hehehehe. If you ever come on Odin, let's camp city/town gates with our huge monsters when we get them, maybe chase some unsuspecting newbies around. ：Ｄ