[dev1012] New monster placement

Alright, so I just went down to Zeruhn mines to see examples of what had changed, only to find the majority of the place repurposed for GoV...Interesting......same mob types, same placement, just different names and much higher levels. I've also heard reports of mobs aggroing 89-90 in places like Horutoto. Again, interesting......I don't usually like to be a negative Nancy about these things, but there are still some relatively low level content designed for these areas. Seems counterproductive and counterintuitive to have a zone where you jump 70 levels worth of mobs in just a few feet, especially when you're about to bring out another iteration of the Vana'diel collection, and presumably somebody who's never played the game before (shaky proposition at this point, I know) being told by a mission to go and do something in these areas.

Now before people start flaming, I know this isn't the end of the world that you may have to put sneak and invis up in these areas to get to random trial nm #4767976....it just doesn't sit well with me for some reason--especially where there had been a dev post made about adjusting aggro post-75 for stuff like Robber Crabs.

tl;dr current mob placement in dungeons is off-putting.

haven't had a chance to go exploring myself yet either, but I was a bit concerned about this as well. not only from the lower player aspect, but there is also the possibility of a market impact as well. The ruins were a popular place for farming onions...wonder what impact this may have on the already inflated prices of not only this item and items made from it, but other items commonly farmed in other areas (like scorpion and lizard items and such).

Yeah, I mean I'd have been perfectly fine with them putting the new mobs in a deep dark corner, but repurposing what seems to be over half of most dungeons at the very least seems asinine.

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Originally Posted by Seyomeyo

Yeah, I mean I'd have been perfectly fine with them putting the new mobs in a deep dark corner, but repurposing what seems to be over half of most dungeons at the very least seems asinine.

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They want new players out of the dungeons. They want the dungeons to be an encroachment of the higher-level monsters as part of a perceived continuing "threat" to Vana'diel.

Like if they took a room or two in a dungeon and made the mobs there higher level and faster respawning, I'd be down for that. But yeah... moving from level 30 to level 80 mobs is kiiinda drastic.

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Originally Posted by Starcade

They want new players out of the dungeons. They want the dungeons to be an encroachment of the higher-level monsters as part of a perceived continuing "threat" to Vana'diel.

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If they want to pull a Cataclysm, then they need to redo all of those quests/missions/etc. Its just lazy, and poor design if they intended it to be this way and didn't think about doing so.

Thumbs up. I agree with the OP completely on this point.

Agree completely. Although this is anecdotal from your perspective, a level 90 PLD/DNC friend of mine walked into Garlaige Citadel, fell through the floor, and got eaten alive by one of the beetles. If I'm not mistaken, lower level characters need to go through that section of Garlaige to fight mobs for their AF Coffer Keys. My first concern then is for a friend of mine who just joined the game. How is he going to get his AF if he needs a party of level 90 friends to survive farming for it? It was annoying enough to farm keys, pop coffers, and survive afterwards with mob levels the way they were. Now it's going to be nigh impossible.

Two thumbs down for this tweak.

I have to agree that I'm concerned for anyone who needs coffer keys or coffers in these zones. P.S. I like the Prowess/Mini-Atma thing, but I feel like all zones that have training tomes should have this at this point in the game.

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Originally Posted by Starcade

They want new players out of the dungeons. They want the dungeons to be an encroachment of the higher-level monsters as part of a perceived continuing "threat" to Vana'diel.

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Then tehy could move the low~mid level quest to another zone before doing this ><

A few thoughts I have on this:

1 ) The new monsters should either not aggro (their danger would only be to those who want to fight them and from careless Area of Effect attacks)
OR
2 ) They should have at least positioned the aggro monsters away from quest areas and paths of necessary travel that they KNOW people will be traveling.

3 ) If they're feeling exceptionally motivated to get people into the new Grounds of Valor and at the same time keep the areas safe for their previous functions, they should have made all the new monsters like a massive voidwalker invasion. I'm fairly sure the decision to require hunting the NMs via resting/popping was to allow the placement of the original Voidwalker NMs (extremely powerful NMs) in low level zones without interfering with their intended purposes. Continue this line of reasoning!
* People should be unable to interact with the invading monsters unless their spectral alignment is right (on a Grounds of Valor page quest), thus making them invisible except to those under the new status for those new Voidstone battles. Just to point out the relationship between Voidwalker NMs and this system: I'm not saying to make spawning the normal monsters require hunting down and resting and then hunting... just invisible to players they don't interact with.
* This could potentially allow use of the new mini-atma effects as additional buffs.
* In this way, they could tie the new monsters in with the NM battle system by allowing people to build their spectral alignments on fodder monsters through staggers (like in the new Dynamis areas - I know the treasure caskets in these areas drop the new voidwalker cells, but those have a cap), which would make it possible for the actual NM battles to be more challenging: Rather than "try to keep the NM alive long enough to get enough staggers for drops"... the staggers become a method of weakening the NMs that would otherwise be overwhelmingly powerful. NM battles could be faster and more dangerous.

I guess it may be too late to implement this concept... but it's worth noting.

I don't know why you are all complaining now. It was very apparent when they mentioned where these changes were going to be that SE was going to screw this up big time. Almost every area they mentioned had important low level content, and this would royally screw that up. Should have made them aware of it.

My issue is, why the hell did they not adjust in wotg, you know that expansion that hardly anyone ever goes that are screaming for some type of help? and has major areas they could have done this and negatively affected nothing.

personally I htink they have gotten very lazy and they know the game is almost done. these new devs with this patch proved to me they are as stupid and ignorant of this game as the last group. kudos guys.

i noticed this yesterday.as i neared the area in dangruf wadi to get my wadi stone for blu quest,all the gobs and etc around there were dc-em to me as a 90whm.

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Originally Posted by xbobx

I don't know why you are all complaining now. It was very apparent when they mentioned where these changes were going to be that SE was going to screw this up big time. Almost every area they mentioned had important low level content, and this would royally screw that up. Should have made them aware of it.

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Because they said in the Dev post 1012:

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Originally Posted by Gildrein

The level of monsters near the entrance of affected areas will remain unchanged. However, players will encounter higher level monsters as they venture deeper.

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"Venture deeper" was thought to mean how they updated Phomunia Aqueducts with a few non-aggro enemies in out-of-the-way corners of the map, or the non-aggro birds right outside Tavnazia safehold, or the high level Dragons in Riverne Site B02.

In none of those previous cases were the new monsters an issue. Now that we've seen how they did things this time, causing massive problems with old (yet important) content, there is reason to point it out. Yelling at them about this before seeing where they actually put monsters wouldn't have done much good; they'd just say "wait and see" essentially, and now... We've waited, and we see problems.

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Originally Posted by Seyomeyo

If they want to pull a Cataclysm, then they need to redo all of those quests/missions/etc. Its just lazy, and poor design if they intended it to be this way and didn't think about doing so.

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I think they wanted to pull a Cataclysm with as little effort as possible, and you basically reported on the result.

Can't confirm anything other than Crawler's Nest and portions of Eldieme Necropolis, but the higher level mobs in these dungeons were only located in certain areas, not the entire dungeon.

In CN the only area I saw level 90 mobs was the old rumble/exoray/fly camp south-east of the sack-room. I know this because, as people are discussing, I had to help a new friend get his CN coffer key and then find the coffer. Since the new, higher-level mobs were only located in one room, this was no problem at all. It merely gives 90's an option other than Abyssea.

Same story for EN. I had to help the same new player find a key and a coffer. This dungeon was slightly different, as there were roughly four rooms with the higher level mobs in it. However, they were not encroaching upon the entire dungeon, as some people might be thinking. They were very easily avoidable and not any more of a threat than the already sneak/invisible-worthy enemies that have infested these dungeons since day one.

Just figured I would chyme in as this thread was seaming to go more speculative rather than fact-driven.

My first post here but figured this was important but i can confirm that the new high level mobs are indeed on the way to the Glacier zone-line in Ranguemont Pass. Tripped me up as I went to Fei Yin to assist a low lvl friend with BST AF helm. I find it a problem due to the fact that Ranguemont is the only way to get to Glacier barring OP warp and Vahzl Tele both of which require that you traverse the Ranguemont prior to having access. i am aware the Lycopodium in the WotG era helps to zone into glacier from Batallia but most new players who need assistance won't have the requisites for even that method.

Lest of course they are returning players who know what they are doing. Doesn't help matters that Invis scroll goes for 40kish last i looked here on Asura so even players who have WHM leveled to avoid dealing with the prices for silent oils and prism powders have roadblocks on that front. I was simply surprised that they placed the mobs in Ranguemont right in the way to Glacier. I understand it makes sense since there is a book at the Glacier zone-line but since the general idea of the mobs to begin with was "venture deeper encounter stronger mobs" I don't see how they couldn't have placed the book in an out of the way place nearby the monsters that were implied to be placed in out of the way areas of the zones they listed wanted GoV changes to occur.

Granted it would be annoying with the GoV tome being out of the way but that's what rewards are for, to entice players to spend their time and effort in such a way.

As for the mobs encountered there were some from the Hecteyes mob family on the off beaten path (i made a wrong turn so i encountered them. Used to be where the scorpion was all by its lonesome) but as I made my way on the correct path to Beaucidine I noticed high lvl Bats, Gobs and Floating Eyes.

Just a quick note, the fastest way to Glacier (IMO) is to hit the Batallia maw, then activate the lycopodium warp quest to get up the one-way cliff in northwest Batallia Downs. Much quicker and less dangerous than Rangeaumont. Just make sure you grab some flowers from M&P market, conveniently located in Upper Jeuno by the door out to Batallia.

What irks me is that some of the camps are completely gone now. I'm fine with them adding higher lvl mobs to older zone, but some of the zone they could of easily put them in a corner out of the way somewhere, both crawler nest and garlaige are big enough they could of put the mobs somewhere out of the way and not take out camps.

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Originally Posted by Kisuke

Just a quick note, the fastest way to Glacier (IMO) is to hit the Batallia maw, then activate the lycopodium warp quest to get up the one-way cliff in northwest Batallia Downs. Much quicker and less dangerous than Rangeaumont. Just make sure you grab some flowers from M&P market, conveniently located in Upper Jeuno by the door out to Batallia.

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Right I addressed that while also stating how unlikely it is for a new player to have maw access and the lycopodium quest done in the Shadowreign Era.

Of course unless SE is simply designing the game with the idea in mind that all new players are either returning players/starting over players, or they are players who have friends who can hold their hand and have them get the ycopodium quest done and activate the maws for them or stealth them through Ranguemont.

Granted if the above is correct I'd find it a tad shortsighted of them to have that kind of an idea in mind when they were designing those revamps