Play as a Monster Camps

[Evviva]

Our current PvP is some of the most in-depth and nuanced PvP in any online game ever. Other games you mash 3 buttons and jump around in circles like a tard until the enemy dies, in this game you have an ever-changing strategy that shifts moment to moment and forces the players to quickly counter their enemies' abilities and respond with their own to achieve victory.

The really sad thing about it is the devs won't take it anywhere, despite it being one of the best aspects of the entire game. There is no greater challenge than the one another player can present to you, and that's exactly why the devs do not want. They can't control every aspect 100% due to the player variable and they don't want to admit it. Community whining about x and y job being better than others is cause for concern too, because then they would have to actually balance the jobs rather than doing random adjustments and calling it balance.

Personally I think this event is going to suck gobby sack, SE only wants us to PvP the way they feel we should, with a timesink and a bunch of convoluted rules and limitations thrown in to cut back on the inevitable sea of complaints about RDM being so broken in PvP yet being terrible at everything else. I think that speaks volumes about SE's balance issues by itself, that job is a poster child for neglectful parenting.

Outstanding post.

[Dohati]

first SE removes MPK only to later introduce it and make it easier than ever before!

[Psxpert2011]

Greetings! (Sorry for the necrobump.)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

I’d like to share a bit of information about the “Play as a Monster” (working title) content that is currently in development, so let’s take a brief look at an example…

Let’s pretend my big behemoth self turns into a different monster like this rabbit here.

Now, let's say you wanted to stay being a behemoth, couldn't you become a mini-behemoth?

How many choices do you have in becoming a monster, what will the lore entitle?

The name is not the player's name as you can see, and it is displayed in the log as “Rabbit” as well.

Once you become a monster, there will be a “monster skill” option added to your action command menu. (Apologies that the below is only in Japanese, but the highlighted option is “monster skill”)



From this option you can select and execute abilities, which will require and consume TP.



Currently the rabbit’s level is pretty low, so I only have Foot Kick at my disposal, which is why I am out here fighting this mandragora. Once I level up I’ll start learning Whirl Claws and other abilities.

We wanted to become a really sweet monster and show off how you can fight against other players, but the PvP battle system is still being worked on, so we were unable to do it at this time.



It’s also possible to upgrade (evolve?) to a Black Rabbit or a White Rabbit. Depending on what kind you become the abilities will differ. For example, the White Rabbit will learn Snow Cloud.

While I am sure a great deal of players are in fact looking forward to having a new PvP aspect added to the game, those who do not fancy PvP much will still be able to enjoy this content (i.e. changing into a variety of different monsters). However, since part of a monster’s daily activity is to battle with adventurers, there is a high possibility that we will not be making it so you can completely avoid PvP on the monster-side.

Will other monster-players be able to link to you as monster do tend to link with mobs their own kind?

Even if you are not actively picking fights, you may be attacked, so in these cases you can either try to resist as much as possible or throw in the towel. Don’t worry though, there *will not be any death penalty, so just repop and keep on trucking. We would like the “Play as a Monster” PvP to be content that is enjoyable and does not disturb relationships with friends.

On another note, when becoming a monster **you will not be able to form parties with other monster players or adventurers. The main reason why it will not be possible to do the former is because adventurers will not be able to defeat an alliance of fully developed monsters. We also don’t want to make it so you ***get head hunted while playing solo either when you are not in a party, and would like to keep it easy to play without this stress. For the latter, as I mentioned above, part of a monster’s life is to fight adventurers, so we want to keep the ****hostile relationship between adventurers and monster intact.

The development team is powering forward to make this content ready for testing on the Test Server, and actually a portion of the data has already been put onto the Test Server last week. We will have some more information on the overall system soon enough to share with you all!

*Please keep in mind that the above is all in development and can possibly change.

*What reward other than exp. would a monster-player get for defeating an adventurer?

**Can you 'aggro' and adventure or link to another monster-play(same monster) engaged or same rules applied when a target is claimed?

***This would feel like a rush, why take the fun out of being notorious!! ;D

****Hostility is a mutual relationship and can be taken up into stages! Wouldn't it be more fun to earn the same as most mobs and NMs and enjoy it?

[Luvbunny]

I feel that what they should do is combining Pankration and Colosseum with this.

Pankration: if you want to be certain monster, you must capture it via pankration and use the reward to buy that particular monster essence so to speak. So you can buy the basic rabbit essence and upgrade it to snow based bunny etc...

Then you level it via the normal PvP. And finally you use your levelled up monster to battle other player in Colosseum.

Colosseum: match is done instantly, you can select your opponent and rounds, and work on tournament. You can switch your monster essence before battle and can have 6 essences with you at all times and switch it out. Just copy the basic Pokemon, it is a good success for a reason. When you win you get points.

You can spend your points for basic accessories, which has 4 empty slots. Then you can fill those slots with monster essences to customize it. Say you have your basic ring, and you want to add STR, DEX, AGI, and Accuracy. Win more tournaments - spend your points for STR essence, upgrade to your slots to the max (say max STR6).

The Developers need to look at their past effort that failed spectacularly and figure out a way to revamp it with this new idea. Evolith is good in paper but executed miserably. Players need a new way to grind, why not give us a way to customize our own accessories. Put some limitation so we can choose the 3-4 stats we want to add to the slots. Say first slot we have to choose between HP, MP or Defense. Second and Third slots for stats (Str, Agi, Dex, Vit, etc) and last slots for others (evasion, accuracy, magic defense bonus, haste, damage taken).

Make it so that each monster family is good for certain stats correspond to the slots. Make players level that certain monsters and when hit max lvl, we can "sacrifice" it as monster essence and use it to customize our gears. So if you need certain stats, raise certain monsters and turn it into the essence you want.

This way, for example, a mage can make belt that hast stats of: 50MP, 10INT, 10MND, 5 Magic Att Bonus. Evasion melee can make: 50Def, 10Agi, 10Str, 10Eva. You get the idea.

[Stolas]

My main question/concern to this new feature, is how will enmity be applied in this situation?

Lets say for example I'm a Wyrm monster being engaged by a party of 6. Whats to stop me from ignoring the Paladin who wants to tank me and doing absolute terror and killing the whm instantly, going after every single squishier job besides the paladin until he's by himself?

Now granted I'm sure something like provoke forces the monster to attack you for a set amount of time will be implemented, but that will be a small comfort, and possibly force all the tankier DD jobs to have to sub war, which will take away from the dynamic gameplay of this event.

So the main point is, how will enmity affect this event, and what will maxing it out do on the monster if it even comes to that?

[Raseleanne]

Oh my god, I'm so glad you posted this! I was worried y'all had forgotten about it! I've been looking forward to Play as a Monster since the day it was announced. I absolutely cannot wait. Back when Pankration was put into the game, I leveled up mobs like crazy (my favorites were blue chigoes and golems). I always thought it'd be cool to take our leveled up monsters into the field, but actually PLAYING as a monster is infinitely better. Keep up the good work! I'm looking forward to it so, so much! <3

P.S. Requisite request for chair/bench furnishings.
P.P.S. On a second read through, there sure are a lot of negative nancys in this thread. How sad.

[odericko]

Looking forward to this feature.

[ManaKing]

I <3 Bunny! I am sadly excited about this. I hope this will be fun and will have a point. If nothing else it should allow you access to max level BST pets upon some level of achievement.

[Meyi]

This idea is like the bastard child of Beastmaster and Blue Mage. And since I love both jobs, I find this idea relevant to my interests.

[Vivivivi]

I reallllllllly hope this is the kind of thing we can do while waiting for a void watch group to gather.... you know, when like one person doesn't have the sky warp or whatever. It looks fun I am all for simple fun content to break up other end game activities.