Adjust methods for obtaining Kings gear

[Vold]

All of your arguments were valid... before Abyssea. I can walk up to any king right now and claim it if I was so inclined to do so with very minimum competition. So exactly why would SE bother touching it? These monsters are the kings of beastmen. And you want 1-2 hour pops...with HQs being at least twice a day? Whaaaaat???? For someone that's so quick to yell at another person to go play WoW, you sure are asking for the WoW treatment here.

My opinion is to increase pop timers to make them less predictable and less attractive for botters to try to profit off of, assuming they're ever worth camping again. This method keeps them at a "prestige" level instead of the "joke" level you're suggesting with 1 hour spawns. Killing these things used to mean something. They'll just be another everyday monster if you can walk up in their town and kill them whenever you please.

Throw some new drops on them, increase their spawn windows(I could see a 12-24 hour respawn working out great but hey, I could live with force pops too, Sky gods are force pop what the hell does it matter if ground kings are? throw in some NMs to kill for pop items for competition sake) perhaps spread out their pop radius if they even have the room for it, and we'll see a comeback of serious business king camping. But what you're suggesting is silver platter business. No one likes camping these things and losing claim. But that is what makes the gear special to begin with... because it takes time to obtain the gear. Half the fun in RPGs is getting those pieces of gear that are hard to get. No one ever died of excitement for obtaining a bronze harness. As good as the Abyssea gear was when Visions came out, no one ever really felt special in their new uber gear because the stuff is easily obtainable. Everyone had it. Many still use it.

Am I just talking to myself here or am I really not the only one who plays this game because it feels damn good to obtain a rare item from a boss fight that puts me ahead of the average Joe? Kings reward determination, and things should remain that way. And it is because of that fact that you even care in the slightest to kill them. If they weren't difficult to kill in comparison to a lizard outside Bastok with rewards to back up the difficulty you wouldn't ever care.

I understand the logic behind your request. I'm not against that logic, just how you want to go about it. And you know what? I'm not 100% against 1 hour respawns. I could be happy with 1 hour respawns... as long as the King got a significant boost in strength and forced you to bring more than a duo or trio to kill it. To me a really strong boss or a really rare boss serve the same purpose - beating them means something, whether by a difficult battle or difficult claim.

[Auredant]

All of your arguments were valid... before Abyssea. I can walk up to any king right now and claim it if I was so inclined to do so with very minimum competition. So exactly why would SE bother touching it? These monsters are the kings of beastmen. And you want 1-2 hour pops...with HQs being at least twice a day? Whaaaaat???? For someone that's so quick to yell at another person to go play WoW, you sure are asking for the WoW treatment here.

My opinion is to increase pop timers to make them less predictable and less attractive for botters to try to profit off of, assuming they're ever worth camping again. This method keeps them at a "prestige" level instead of the "joke" level you're suggesting with 1 hour spawns. Killing these things used to mean something. They'll just be another everyday monster if you can walk up in their town and kill them whenever you please.

Throw some new drops on them, increase their spawn windows(I could see a 12-24 hour respawn working out great but hey, I could live with force pops too, Sky gods are force pop what the hell does it matter if ground kings are? throw in some NMs to kill for pop items for competition sake) perhaps spread out their pop radius if they even have the room for it, and we'll see a comeback of serious business king camping. But what you're suggesting is silver platter business. No one likes camping these things and losing claim. But that is what makes the gear special to begin with... because it takes time to obtain the gear. Half the fun in RPGs is getting those pieces of gear that are hard to get. No one ever died of excitement for obtaining a bronze harness. As good as the Abyssea gear was when Visions came out, no one ever really felt special in their new uber gear because the stuff is easily obtainable. Everyone had it. Many still use it.

Am I just talking to myself here or am I really not the only one who plays this game because it feels damn good to obtain a rare item from a boss fight that puts me ahead of the average Joe? Kings reward determination, and things should remain that way. And it is because of that fact that you even care in the slightest to kill them. If they weren't difficult to kill in comparison to a lizard outside Bastok with rewards to back up the difficulty you wouldn't ever care.

I understand the logic behind your request. I'm not against that logic, just how you want to go about it. And you know what? I'm not 100% against 1 hour respawns. I could be happy with 1 hour respawns... as long as the King got a significant boost in strength and forced you to bring more than a duo or trio to kill it. To me a really strong boss or a really rare boss serve the same purpose - beating them means something, whether by a difficult battle or difficult claim.

I think a compromise could be to make it a force pop but allow everyone in the alliance to participate in the fight to not be able to pop for another 3 days or so. Sure people could get around this by having a person sit out, but if the NM difficulty was ramped up then they'd need more to participate and while that person could pop, the others who fought would still be unable to engage the mob for 3 days. Just a thought.

[ruch]

It begs the question: If you were around before Abyssea, what was the original draw to FFXI that got you hooked? For me, it WAS the competition for claiming, the friends teaming up to fight the boss atmosphere, and the great mission storylines.

Also, did you even read the original post? I want the respawn timers lowered to less than a couple hours, or changed to force pops.

I would definitely like to see a revival of "friendly competition", where all the players are on a level playing field competing against each other for claims, and there weren't game balance destroying bot tools. Really wish SE had invested more time in anti-bot research 5 1/2 years ago when it first started to really become an issue.

The same reason man. I loved claiming any killing, I totally agree. I was implying it has been discussed in the past and never touched. Id love to see force spawn fafhogg aspid and kb. However it wasn't patched years ago why change it now?

[Chocobits]

I understand the logic behind your request. I'm not against that logic, just how you want to go about it. And you know what? I'm not 100% against 1 hour respawns. I could be happy with 1 hour respawns... as long as the King got a significant boost in strength and forced you to bring more than a duo or trio to kill it. To me a really strong boss or a really rare boss serve the same purpose - beating them means something, whether by a difficult battle or difficult claim.

I think this is a very elegant solution. One of the recommendations I was making several years ago was increasing the difficulty of ground kings, and it was met with mild enthusiasm.

I would love to see content outside of Abyssea scaled up in difficulty to account for higher level cap.

If we were doing this, I'd like to see new items available from the Cop wyrms and the Ouryu and Bahamut BCNMs, as well as an increase in levels/stats/abilities for those mobs.

And you're absolutely right about the rewarding feeling of obtaining a rare item.

I think making content more available, but more challenging would be a positive trend and breathe new life outside of Abyssea.

[Dazusu]

Can we have some legacy kept in the game please? Leave kings as they are.

[ruch]

Can we have some legacy kept in the game please? Leave kings as they are.

Your mule has afk claimed using third party tool.

[Dazusu]

Your mule has afk claimed using third party tool.

You just ooze eloquency. I see you're also the authority to judge who's using third-party tools, and who isn't.

[Runespider]

If they boost king respawns they destroy einherjar more than they already have. The better way to let people get the outdated gear easier is to fix Ein, adding some BB items too and leave kings as the outdated horror they always have been.

I spent years in the HNM scene and although it was fun and exciting at the start once I realised the amount of botting that went on and how many shells turned into RMT it just got silly. Ultimately they were probably the worst content Square ever added, I hope they never add anything like it again. The current "cheating is ok, i do it so i can have fun doing the stuff I want to do!" attitude was fostered widely in endgamers due to the stupid kings system forcing them to bot, if they changed it now after people trying to put up with it for so long it would be a slap in the face.

They never fixed them when they were important so just leave them as a relic of stupid game design never to be repeated now.

[Starcade]

You just ooze eloquency. I see you're also the authority to judge who's using third-party tools, and who isn't.

Here's a hint:

The next person most people see actually doing Kings without someone in the shell using third-party tools will be the FIRST person most people see actually doing Kings without illegal tools at all!

In most, if not all cases:

Kings = illegal tools. Such is one of the dirty secrets of FFXI.

[Wheels]

3 ebodys a year from einherjar? are you serious? my ls has tossed numerous ebodys cause of 2 dropping alot. i would say i have seen atleast 15+ a year doing 2 runs a week and this was before abyssea was released. take in 3-4 mules as feather holders for all 9 and cycle them out for odin access. as for king camping pretty much all the king gear is replaced and the stats from synergy synth i doubt will make them top gear again.