Monstrosity Feedback

[Byrth]

I'd just like something that actually gives monstrosity value. As it stands, it's essentially an isolated system. It was fun for a while, but the novelty has worn off and I can't really make myself kill thousands of monsters to level a new species at this point for no real rewards.

Player vs. Monster was an ideal solution to this, because people could participate in Monstrosity if they wanted (as monsters) or they could just do it as players. Unfortunately, there are massive problems with the implementation including but not limited to:
1) Balance - Monsters curbstomp players right now. I have a dozen or so monsters at 99, and I'm confident that I could pretty much two-shot any player at any level cap on any of them.
2) Level Caps - This is a terrible idea. People hate level caps because it gimps all the gear they spent time making. Considering the balance issues, you should have made at least one uncapped zone.
3) Lack of Rewards - The sum total of useful Monstrosity rewards at the moment amount to an Avatar MAB+5 Torque. This is pitiful.
4) Unrewarding for Monsters - Unless I missed something, the main thing you gain as a monster for fending off players is . . . . you get to keep your Infamy.
5) No motivation to form parties - Only the person who lands the killshot is rewarded, so what motivation is there to party up? Considering the balance issues, SE could have given party rewards.

Future Problem:
6) No real way to address iLevel gear - This is going to be an issue if you uncap the system. You developed Monstrosity and the iLevel system in tandem... so why is there no real way to address the Acc / Evasion / etc. issues created by iLevel gear? Like, are you going to give us Instincts with +200 Evasion so that THF type monsters can actually evade players with Delve weapons?

[dasva]

2 shot is something of a large overstatement lol. Unless you mean in buriburi where belligerance let's you increase your faculty points by almost 200%. Really should have had the increase to points be based on zone. But anyways at 90 lets say most mobs just meleeing take a good 20-30 hits to kill a falcoor with no pet gear. If it wasn't for the fact I'm told ochain for some reason just doesn't work in monstrosity (hasn't tested it myself) a pld could probably do well. And if they haven't fixed it if the master stays out of range you can't target the pet for some reason. Even if you could dawn muslum forever lol.

But a bit of the issue is the caps mentioned. No one really has good lower level gear sets. And we all know just how horribly higher level gear syncs down. Oh that level 91 armor had 100 def and +20 str well synced down to 90 it now has 30 def and +5 str. I think the real concern with uncapped is with ilvl since a 119 player should curb stomp a level 99 monster. Hopefully there is a way to take away the "ilvl" stats and basically make any ilvl gear basically have similar really good lvl 99 stats. Hell maybe even impliment a system like the faculties where a gladiator in monstrosity can earn or upgrade gear for monstrosity?

[Demonjustin]

Not saying you're wrong about 2 shotting in general, but the majority of mobs have a nuking main or sub-job in their family line, 2 nukes can lay out a level 90 with decent instincts, even 10~15 levels under the player. My level 87 Adamantoise claimed a few lives on its way to 87, mostly through the use of Stonega~Stoneja spells, though admittedly, I never once fought a player using a pet job, only PLDs, DRKs, RDMs, BLMs, and a SCH.

[dasva]

Well part of that is probably gearing. I doubt most people come in with capped mdt and some mdb in case. Or any for that matter. Which is another thing given the strength disparity there shouldn't be a restriction on equipment changing. But say against your adamantoise an aegis, unless they completely make it's ability not work, would laugh at nukes. Old school rdm, blm, schs could kite you for hours till you finally die like we used to on nms lol.

[Mefuki]

It bugs me because seeing how popular Monstrosity still is, even with no content available to use our monsters on, imagine how truly popular it would be if we WOULD be given content to do.

I still maintain that Mon Vs Mon is where the real balancing and battle depth will take place. I guess I'm just having a hard time seeing how Gla Vs Mon will ever be balanced. At least with Mon Vs Mon each monster can have pro's and con's and SE can use each monster's abilities and traits to balance each other, again, like Pokemon. So for example, let's take Elasmoth's Souleater. As it stands now, there's a concern that when it comes to the future MON Vs. MON fights, or just about every PVP fight, everyone will just say, "I'll just use Elasmoth for everything. It's the win button." However, instead of just applying straight penalties to Souleater thereby making it all but useless, you can use monsters themselves to balance player choices. For example, if Sibilus has Oppressive Gaze suddenly you've now got a direct counter to this tactic with Elasmoth and now players start thinking to themselves, "I can't always rely on Elasmoth because there might be a Sibilus out there. Maybe I should try bringing a mage monster to counter the Sibilus.", and the cycle continues kind of like that.

As I said on BG, I want to battle other people's monsters, party up with them and have some content to use my monipulators on as well as some decent rewards to keep people interested. SE's got something good here but they need to be a tad more proactive about making the content deep and relevant.

I guess I'm just concerned that people will slowly stop doing Monstrosity and then SE saying, "Well, I guess people don't like it anymore. We'll just stop updating it.", all the while not realizing it would be their fault for not giving people the content, battle systems and depth that Monstrosity sorely needs to be truly popular. Monstrosity is far and away my favourite content in the game so I'd really hate for that to happen.

[Selindrile]

I've stopped doing monstrosity because it's unrewarding, I still care about the content and think it has great potential, but there needs to be a reason to do it beyond "because it's fun", because as Byrth said, the novelty wears off quickly. Useful rewards give longevity.

[dasva]

Even without rewards it could still be fun if it wasn't a non stop solo against monster fest. But as it is there is basically nothing but grinding solo ad naseum and discovering new moves. Which doesn't really work in an MMO heck it doesn't really work in actual solo games either

[KorPoni]

I created a thread for belts bought using infamy. I haven't thought of any other rewards yet, except those bought with infamy or prestige, which there are neck pieces you can buy for prestige.

[Karbuncle]

I'd just like something that actually gives monstrosity value. As it stands, it's essentially an isolated system. It was fun for a while, but the novelty has worn off and I can't really make myself kill thousands of monsters to level a new species at this point for no real rewards.

Player vs. Monster was an ideal solution to this, because people could participate in Monstrosity if they wanted (as monsters) or they could just do it as players. Unfortunately, there are massive problems with the implementation including but not limited to:
1) Balance - Monsters curbstomp players right now. I have a dozen or so monsters at 99, and I'm confident that I could pretty much two-shot any player at any level cap on any of them.
2) Level Caps - This is a terrible idea. People hate level caps because it gimps all the gear they spent time making. Considering the balance issues, you should have made at least one uncapped zone.
3) Lack of Rewards - The sum total of useful Monstrosity rewards at the moment amount to an Avatar MAB+5 Torque. This is pitiful.
4) Unrewarding for Monsters - Unless I missed something, the main thing you gain as a monster for fending off players is . . . . you get to keep your Infamy.
5) No motivation to form parties - Only the person who lands the killshot is rewarded, so what motivation is there to party up? Considering the balance issues, SE could have given party rewards.

Future Problem:
6) No real way to address iLevel gear - This is going to be an issue if you uncap the system. You developed Monstrosity and the iLevel system in tandem... so why is there no real way to address the Acc / Evasion / etc. issues created by iLevel gear? Like, are you going to give us Instincts with +200 Evasion so that THF type monsters can actually evade players with Delve weapons?

It'd be nice if they could give level 99 Monstrosity mobs a Merit system than allows us to "level up" Beyond 99. Keep the cap at 99, but say, every 10k exp like a Merit, we gain the ability to be an "I.lv" higher. I.E after 30k exp we'll be level 103, but only during Belligerency, as to not make us to OP when it comes to normal mobs.

Or give us access to SoA zones and let us Level up Belligerency or not! Can have us cap out at level 125 or 120 or so.... Or just 119 like players. Either way, it would be a simple fix and I imagine that monsters go up to level 120+ so under Monstrosity, it shouldn't be too difficult to allow us to level up beyond 99 for monsters.

Edit: summed up - Add a merit type or a simple progression system to allow monsters to reach higher "Item levels", up to level 119 or higher.

[Louispv]

There's a few things I'd like to suggest.

•Could you make it so players can grind instincts on monsters they prefer to use?
I'm willing to suffer through a grind to get to a monster I like, but I wish i didn't have to grind every other monster I don't care about to 60/90 just to improve the ones I like or play around with different stat builds.

They did that on purpose. The far weaker, worthless monsters no one wants to play as have the best instincts, and the ones everyone wants to play as have just okay to terrible instincts. (Or good instincts, but they're the final reward for leveling everything else in the family to 75 first.) Otherwise why even add the other monsters at all, and just let everyone have behemoths and adamantoises straight from the start?