HNMs and the future of FFXI

[FrankReynolds]

My first inclination was to stay out of this pathetic excuse for a thread. The arguments themselves are so absurd that no one with any sense would take them at face value.

Sparthos pretty much nails it, though. However, I'd say these people are conflating difficulty with exclusivity rather than confusing the two. To them, nothing could have been worse than the concept of Abyssea, where everyone has a shot at getting or building strong weapons/armor if they want to do so. If these "elitists", for lack of a better term, had their way their sensei--he who dares not be named--would be requested to take away all atmas, triple the HP of every NM, make them time spawn every 3-5 days, and drop only crystals/logs/ores at the end of the 99% of the fights. If these folks had their way AF3+2 would be little better than Relic armor and the items to build the armor would take weeks/months to get (see Dynamis circa 2006). People like Dazusu, Arcon, Winrie, and others simply cannot stand the fact that Abyssea completely wrecked their concept of good equipment going only to those who "deserve" them (i.e. kiss enough behind to make mid-level corporate climbers look askance).

I have a different theory. I think they are pissed because they used to be able to watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch marathons all day while their Bot camped NMs for them, but now they have to somewhat pay attention in abbysea / vnm / NI 2.0 to get the best gear. I think they are pissed because they have to work now. They just pull the "I like competition" and "Camping NMs is hard work" cards so that they don't sound like they are just as lazy as the casuals.

[Randwolf]

I think Habu is right that people would do both. However, I think there would be very few who did both the HNM and the other way of getting the drops. And, the majority would do anything that didn't involve the traditional HNM. Of course, S/E might look at that and say, "Why would we create two systems that drop the exact same gear?" I think the fact that they had to add those drops to Odin in the first place says something about the HNM system. But, as before, if S/E makes the HNM drops occur elsewhere, I don't care if they add them

[Habu]

I have a different theory. I think they are pissed because they used to be able to watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch marathons all day while their Bot camped NMs for them, but now they have to somewhat pay attention in abbysea / vnm / NI 2.0 to get the best gear. I think they are pissed because they have to work now. They just pull the "I like competition" and "Camping NMs is hard work" cards so that they don't sound like they are just as lazy as the casuals.

Your post and the one before it just makes my head hurt... we're lazy and don't want to work yet "most" of the "elite" still have the best gear, regardless of how much we have to "work" for it. You know that kind os defines the term "elite" having the best gear possible or damn near it, and since we have "no lives" we have infinite time to do all this "work". Seriously enough with the bot garbage, not everyone who claimed/did HNMs botted, that's just a poor excuse for a person who either A. just got outclaimed or B. doesn't like HNMs.

[Habu]

I think Habu is right that people would do both. However, I think there would be very few who did both the HNM and the other way of getting the drops. And, the majority would do anything that didn't involve the traditional HNM. Of course, S/E might look at that and say, "Why would we create two systems that drop the exact same gear?" I think the fact that they had to add those drops to Odin in the first place says something about the HNM system. But, as before, if S/E makes the HNM drops occur elsewhere, I don't care if they add them

Why can't more people be like you <3

[Winrie]

I have a different theory. I think they are pissed because they used to be able to watch Sabrina the Teenage Witch marathons all day while their Bot camped NMs for them, but now they have to somewhat pay attention in abbysea / vnm / NI 2.0 to get the best gear. I think they are pissed because they have to work now. They just pull the "I like competition" and "Camping NMs is hard work" cards so that they don't sound like they are just as lazy as the casuals.

Abyssea ect takes work? last i checked i can auto attack kill anything in the game lately.
Challenge please

[Sparthos]

Your post and the one before it just makes my head hurt... we're lazy and don't want to work yet "most" of the "elite" still have the best gear, regardless of how much we have to "work" for it. You know that kind os defines the term "elite" having the best gear possible or damn near it, and since we have "no lives" we have infinite time to do all this "work". Seriously enough with the bot garbage, not everyone who claimed/did HNMs botted, that's just a poor excuse for a person who either A. just got outclaimed or B. doesn't like HNMs.

And yet at the end of the day world spawns are still garbage no matter how much nostalgia attempts to coat the harsh reality of an archaic system in a delicious vanilla coating. Many who disagree either had a vested interest in monopolizing these monsters (herpaderp kings are easy when you're using bots), has been taken over by their inner masochist (too much exposure to Tanaka) or simply cannot see the reality of how negatively such a system impacted FFXI.

You want something that caters to not only casuals but the hardcore? I have 3 solutions that make world spawns seem the maniacal ravings of a lunatic madman more concerned with keeping people on the hamster wheel in utter frustration rather than creating a game that people are supposed to enjoy.

1. Hakutaku/Alastor Antlion/Shen style spawns.
Remember the humble Hakutaku? How you had to travel around the world and get drops to create a trigger for him? This would work wonderfully for new HNMs and not only encourage people to play (by farming items) but also drum up a market for those who simply wanted to buy the pop items and spawn some mobs.

Casuals would focus on getting supplies to market, Hardcores would spread their wealth down by purchasing items from those who farmed and this would give everyone a 'chance' to spawn that NM with the shines on a level playing field.

2. Point systems.
This crap has been beaten to death already. If you create a point system where the XXX uber gear is at the top of the list you'd have many casuals quit before they ever amassed the points and all the hardcores looking to be gods among men could repeat whatever content it was that had the gear until they obtained the badass set of badassery.

Again, everyone has a fair opportunity to obtain items and the onus lay on the player to choose how far they want to take the pursuit of gear.

3. Tiered Progression
Yet another system where the lower tiers would be the realm of the casual player whereas the higher tier NMs would be difficult enough to keep most greenhorns out of action. Systems like ZNMs and Abyssea involved this type of progression where the lower tier monsters were easily accessible but as you climbed the ladder the need for more hardcore types to take control was needed if you wanted to stand a good chance of clearing content.

Yet again the player has options, the casual has the opportunity to access hardcore content if he/she chooses too all while the top tier players spin their genitals like a helicopter and dive headfirst into the pool of loot.

tl;dr - Kings were garbage and a lazy solution to true tiered content. HNM at best amounted to poor mans PVP where people talked trash, AFK'd for hours on end, bragged about not playing XI before AFKing in town with the cool guy gear all while pretending that running cheats or no-lifing took 'skill'.

Oh and yes, I too once took part in the 'fun' of the three-ring circus that was the almighty world spawns and I'll always look back upon it and say 'wow, this was a crock of shit'.

[Insaniac]

I still don't understand this need to feel superior to others by obtaining gear from things that require no skill to kill. It's just right place, right time, right cheats. If you need to feel like someone on the other side of the screen is raging or having less fun than you then you should get tested for chronic douche bag syndrome. HNMs bred A-holes and A-holes beget A-holes. Eventually all you have is 150 A-holes standing around for 3 hours calling other people A-holes for doing the same A-hole things they are doing.

[Habu]

3. Tiered Progression
Yet another system where the lower tiers would be the realm of the casual player whereas the higher tier NMs would be difficult enough to keep most greenhorns out of action. Systems like ZNMs and Abyssea involved this type of progression where the lower tier monsters were easily accessible but as you climbed the ladder the need for more hardcore types to take control was needed if you wanted to stand a good chance of clearing content.

You were doing good until you said this. Abyssea was never hard, and was generally just easy, repeated content. The only fun thing about it was racing to one of the time spawned NMs you needed to claim to pop the mob you actually wanted.

I still don't understand this need to feel superior to others by obtaining gear from things that require no skill to kill. It's just right place, right time, right cheats. If you need to feel like someone on the other side of the screen is raging or having less fun than you then you should get tested for chronic douche bag syndrome. HNMs bred A-holes and A-holes beget A-holes. Eventually all you have is 150 A-holes standing around for 3 hours calling other people A-holes for doing the same A-hole things they are doing.

And all was right in the world

[Sparthos]

You were doing good until you said this. Abyssea was never hard, and was generally just easy, repeated content. The only fun thing about it was racing to one of the time spawned NMs you needed to claim to pop the mob you actually wanted.

Glavoid wasn't hard at 80?
Bhukis at 85?
Apademak/Pantokrator/Rani at 90?

I think you're glossing over the fact that some of the Abyssea NMs were tough at their respective caps in order to tow the line that Abyssea had no challenges but I'll put that aside and throw out that even at their caps these NMs were tougher/more complex than the entire gamut of previous HNMs that dominated the game.

"Easily repeated content?"

That sounds alot like Kings or are you going to argue that these old worldspawns were more complex battles? The only difference between KB/Aspid/Nid and the Abyssean mobs is that you could pop them in a shorter timespan with the illusion of competition dispelled.

I say illusion because once the initial MPKing stopped and bots became entrenched pathetic efforts to claim something were futile unless you too joined the ranks and bot or got a lucky claim due to incompetence or wipes.

[Dazusu]

Quote from earlier in the thread:

But adding HNM with side-grades, or duplicate drops from other places - why not?

People like Dazusu ... simply cannot stand the fact that Abyssea completely wrecked their concept of good equipment going only to those who "deserve" them (i.e. kiss enough behind to make mid-level corporate climbers look askance).

How exactly did you draw that conclusion from what I posted?

Just because I enjoy HNM, doesn't mean I dislike Abyssea (even though it's stale). Not everyone who enjoyed HNM did so because of 'exclusivity' or 'elitist cliques'. It is completely unnecessary to pigeon-hole everyone that found enjoyment in such content.

As for Abyssea, at the time it was added it was a breath of fresh air, but as I've said before, there's no reason there can't be multiple types of content. If you don't like HNM - don't do them, but why shit your pants because other people might enjoy them (for whatever reason)?

Your post almost just sounds like sheer bitterness. Usually if someone has no interest in something, they just ignore it and go about their business - but its quite alarming the amount of people who just have to express their detest for content that they're never going to bother doing anyway.

Edit:

Sparthos, completely missed your post due to replying to Hayward above, but props to you sir. I'd actually prefer to see content like Hakutaku/Alastor Antlion/Shen or another Sea/Sky-like zone, or ZNM system. That shit would beat new HNM hands down. Sadly, that's even more unlikely to see daylight though.