Adjust methods for obtaining Kings gear

[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.

[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.

[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?

[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.

[HFX7686]

The only issue, and really the only reason botshells even camp that nowadays is to sell the BB items from what I seen. Idk how drastically reducing the spawn time is going to affect that. SE seems to be leaning towards keeping Blackbelt kind of an exclusive item. And on that, they may just fudge the whole reduced timer thing for.

Black belts are rare? Everyone I know who has played MNK for a year or two has one.

They might be difficult to get for someone who bandwagons MNK to 90 in a week but for someone who actually plays the job regularly they're not that hard.

[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.

[Auredant]

This has been asked for for years: More ways to obtain items from "ground kings" (Fafnir/Nidhogg, Behemoth/King Behemoth, Adamantoise/Aspidochelone). First it was heavy competition, and then heavy competition + botting. The third party claiming tools were still reasonably easy to beat with normal claiming methods. Then, more advanced third party tools were introduced and pretty much killed legit king camping.

SE's response to this has been wide and sweeping over the years, but never actually addressed the issue (both in terms of making the content more available or curbing the third party tools used to claim those mobs). They added Limbus, ZNMs, Nyzul Isle Assault, Salvage, Einherjar, SCNMs, VNMs, and finally Abyssea.

With the ability to upgrade older gear via Synergy approaching, there should be alternate ways to obtain the drops from kings. The current alternate methods don't work. For instance: 2-3 Earthen Abj: Body dropping in Einherjar per real calender year if you participate twice a week, every week for 52 weeks is not a reasonable drop rate.

And I mean all the items available from kings. Equipment, abjurations, Black Belt quest items. While BB items are somewhat easier to obtain provided you have hundreds of Kindred Seals, it's still a terrible drop rate.

So I would like to see an adjustment to the spawn/respawn conditions of kings from days to a matter of a couple hours. Or introduce force spawned mobs that drop those items. Or make them drops from existing battlefields and increase their drop rates in Einherjar.

Perhaps it's somehow not common knowledge to Square that the only way to obtain items from kings is to "purchase" them from linkshells that exist exclusively for the purpose of claiming NMs with third party tools ("botshells") for several million gil apiece.

I'd really like to see king camping come back. The only way this can or will happen is if it was made so that botshells would have difficulty monopolizing the mobs. The respawn timers need to be reduced to 1-2 hours, and the lottery for "HQ" mobs needs to be randomized, but adjusted to at least twice a day, instead of once every 3-5 days. Or making kings forced popped by farming specific items/key items.

Linkshells do not like camping NMs for several hours with the chance of not getting claim (well, more like "with zero chance of getting claim" as the situation dictates these days). This is not the same as spending 3 hours farming pops for an SCNM or Abyssea NM, or for a VNM Abyssite color change. At least players have a guaranteed opportunity to fight the mob in question, regardless of what drops it may give.

So, I've seen this topic discussed more than six dozen times in threads ranging from 2004 to 2009~ (give or take) when most normal endgame shells finally just gave up camping those mobs altogether.

Instead of interpreting that as a lack of interest in the content, it should've provoked a need to investigate the situation and provide reasonable measures to make that content available to everyone.

Oh and please don't turn this into a trollfest. Everyone knows the situation; I've summed it up pretty well. No need to write a thesis on the ethics of botting and turn this into a BG thread. It's aimed at devs and those that have valid opinions on the subject matter, thanks!

Oh and if it's been covered in update notes buried somewhere in the land of Twitter and then linked to in 2 other places, which is enough to bring the "it's been posted in 15 quadrillion places!!" trolls out, cool. Link that content here instead of posting a cool story.

I fully endorse this message. Botting has been a problem in abbyssea as well but not on the scale as it with Kings. My group was camping the frog NM in Abby Misaraeux when an LS, notorious known for using botting, taunted us by saying things like "you really wanna go up against us?" and then use their bots to claim the nm. And as we walk away, to further taunt us, they call for help on the mob and start saying "Please help us kill...blah blah blah" Very annoying.