Lets discuss NMs again, as well as other forms of Open World content.

Hey everyone, I know this is a topic most people flinch at because not every likes NMs, and some people even think it could end up as Hunts and we all know that Drama train, right? But, I've been thinking about how they could implement Open-World NMs without them being a completely ridiculous crap fest. They already have systems in place that help prevent a lot of issues games like XI had with NMs, so bare with me here and read a paragraph or two before you decide. I welcome any informed, constructive criticism, but I also want to put emphasis on "informed". I'm not asking to bring back XI's system, I'm not asking for HNMs, I'm not asking for Raid-tier and needed gear from these systems I propose... so seriously, bare with me, read it, and make an informed post regarding it. Please!

I love the look of a lot of these zones, but I find I lack reasons to go to them. We have Hunts but all of you know the drama crap fest that they are, and FATEs are mostly for exp grinding, and I'd consider them more of a "from spot to spot" rather than a reason to look at nooks and crannies of these remarkable landscapes. Theres many solution but I want to address just two today, two that I think with proper care would work quite well in XI. Open World NMs and Chests. Open world NMs have always been one of my favorite past times in XI. It didn't matter what they dropped, it was just the fun of hunting them, even if it took a long time, I talked to friends, I killed surrounding wildlife like it was my purpose in life to extinct that species, and so on. Most of the time the NMs I camped were obscure out of the way NMs who dropped items most would consider useless (and were). I mean, I had things like this, this, stuff like that. Useless stuff but unique none the less.

Now, A lot of you like Vanity armor, weapons, and so forth. Things that most players would scoff at but some players might really like to collect. So I would propose open world NMs drop Level 1 (Or higher, like the Behemoth stuff) Vanity armor and weapons with unique skins, that are dye-able, or Untradeable Mounts/Minions. Basically, they would drop things that wouldn't be considered "End game", but would be really nice for collectors, and for unique skins and such. I thought about perhaps having them drop materials so it could support crafters, but then it would effect the market and I know a lot of you wouldn't like that.

Still if given the option, I would enjoy it some NMs dropped materials used to craft unique vanity items, so we could throw crafters a bone with the system too. Anyway, down to the nuts and bolts of it.

===The System for Spawning, and how they should handle drops===

The system for NMs should be something like a Mix of what XI had plus some features for XIV.

1) NMs should spawn in specific locations, unlike Hunts. So theres no "HOLD THE HUNT" drama to follow it. Half the drama with hunts is they're timed and can spawn pretty much anywhere blah blah. This would not happen. If you want the NM, go camp it, thats the idea.

2) NMs could be either timed or Lottery, with Lottery ones having a ceiling pop of about an hour, but they could balance that however they want.

3) Claiming. In XIV we already have a claim system that would make bots worthless and that mistake would never surface, claim wars would not exist. Everyone can hit the enemy.

4) Its difficulty. Based no its level, but should have more HP than surrounding enemies by a generous enough margin.

5) Drops. Now for everyones worry, the claiming and the loot distribution, I propose they take a page from "Voidwatch" Chest systems in XI. When an NM is defeated, everyone who participated in the fight will be able to click a chest that spawns at the enemies location. It can contain whatever they want it too, anywhere from 200 gil to Synth-Material from the monster (I.E if you killed a Wyrm NM it can drop Dragon Skin and such), and the chest would also have a chance of that NMs rare drop. I won't touch % drop rates and such as SE should balance those as the system progresses like ANY SYSTEM EVER.

So thats that. XIV is a game where It would not be wise to add Raid-level gear to the open world, because thats not in Yoshi's vision and I can respect that. I think a good start would be simply adding about 1-2 NMs over a few of the new zones, don't need to rush things... could even just give them a specific token like how some FATEs work, though I'd prefer it just be a direct drop from the NM's chest, as the "Omg, I got the item!" is like, 95% of the adrenaline from defeating an NM, its far less exciting to walk a "EX Egg +1" to an NPC to trade said item...

Basically, making the items from open world content be Untrade-able and such would eliminate a lot of the problems XI NMs had, the way XIV's claim system works would eliminate most others, and with NMs having chest spawn, that would eliminate pretty much the last remaining issue with the problems XI's system had. You wouldn't be competing against the person camping the same NM as you, in fact it would benefit you both to work together. It would not be remotely the same hateful experience as Hunts or XI NMs. The system would make it as enjoyable a possible for those involved. Some of you might think they would be like the Odin/etc FATEs who have similar concepts. I'd have to disagree, they wouldn't be 24hr+ spawns, they'd be relatively short spawns so it wouldn't be such a blinding crap fest. I've thought a lot on this and while during the first couple weeks of introduction it might be pretty busy in some zones... It would never be a matter of claim wars and such like old Aery days.

===Treasure Chests and Treasure Coffers, an Open world content idea===

The idea for this one would be borrowing a lot from Destiny and Guild Wars II. They could handle open world Chests/Coffers in either of those ways honestly, but I think the most solid method would be the Destiny Method as it would be easier to implement in XIV. This being that chests respawn quickly, and can be opened by anyone, but once opened, they remain there for a time before despawning and respawning somewhere else, allowing other people to open them as well. I think with XIV, once opened, they should stay there for about 3 minutes before despawning, and repop immediately in a new location.

Treasure Chests and Coffers in XI could contain many things. I think a good start would be like making them less-loot heavy Treasure Maps, with each zone that contains a chest/coffer having 1 Unique rare item. For instance, Dravanian Hinterlands (the forest one,IDK) could have a chance of giving the player the "Chocobo Card" for Triple Triad, where as the Churning Mists could have a chance for the "Blue Dragon" Card. They could even make zones with special FATEs (Prey Online, etc) have chests that rarely load one of those Exclusive/Untradeable items (Exoplating for Prey Online) in place of one of the other materials you might get.

Since these chests would contain loot that some would consider valuable, they should have a restriction on how often you can open them. I would propose a timer similar to maps, but perhaps 12 hours would be a good time. This would be necessary to prevent just massive amounts of RMT farming chests or some other such worry players might have. So add the, but restrict them slightly.

As for zones that contain them. I think i should be limited to maybe 1 zone per "Region". an "Ul'dah" region, so forth. But i dont think every single zone should have an open world chest.

Now, this system would be similar to Maps, but consider them "Daily" Maps that you don't need to spend gil on, with a chance at a rare item for each zone.

I am kinda satisfied with hunts so I won't comment on that suggestion.
But the chests are definitely a good idea. I even liked the system in LII, where you had to have a key, there were multiple chests but there was a lower chance that it would give a drop.

Every suggestion that will make people roam these beautiful locations is welcome.

I think the hunts are fine as is. It's just SE's poor implementation of bottle necking content into it. It's like they didn't see what happened in 2.3. Your idea sounds like a refined hunt with a tangible reward, which sounds pretty good, but with any new content it will always be a zergfest followed by drama. Not to mention the community will work together to figure it out similar to the "Let's talk about Hunts" thread. The main issue is that they die so fast you don't get to see any of the mark's attacks. Imo if you want NM's to be more proactive/threatening there needs to be an "Enrage" mechanic.


Here's how it works:

-NM spawns and people start to congregate.
-Someone decides to "early pull" and dies.
-NM gains a 10 min "Rage" buff to dmg, def, and hp (10%/stack) to a max of 10 (x2 hp). Rage is gained if the NM kills its target.
-Players are now prepared to fight it (full parties/alliance). If any player dies to any attack of the NM it gains a stack of "Threatening" up to 10 that increase frequency of special attacks and evasion (at 10 stacks will require acc cap of hardest content in game to not miss).
-While fighting more people show up and start attacking. A built-in parser on the NM will dictate the next enrage. If the players exceed the dps ceiling fixed for that NM regardless of amount of people fighting it, the NM enrages again.
-NM enters a transition phase (becomes invulnerable) and doubles current hp/attack, "Threatening" and "Rage" stacks up to a maximum of 10.
-Players now need to co-ordinate tank swaps/splitting damage to survive as NM can now potentially OHKO.
-Players have 5 min to kill the NM before it fully enrages and kills everyone that fought it.
-If players fail a chest still drops but with poor loot. If players succeed loot drops as normal.

Now the problem with this idea is that it will still gate it behind hardcore players/ls that specifically do this content but at least it would make it more fun.

Personally I would like the fates to be more proactive. Like you said, it more of a "spot to spot" xp grind. Would be cool if some of the bosses in Fates would go looking for players. For example if the Dzu in the "I fought a Dzu" fate didn't die or the fate timed out, the next time it spawned it will start at its same place but he will move up towards the camp or until he aggros the first player to get caught in the fate area. It can even be a programmed route similar to the Behemoth fates in Coerthas. This is all wishful thinking though

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Originally Posted by BlaiseArath

1) NMs should spawn in specific locations, unlike Hunts. So theres no "HOLD THE HUNT" drama to follow it. Half the drama with hunts is they're timed and can spawn pretty much anywhere blah blah. This would not happen. If you want the NM, go camp it, thats the idea.

2) NMs could be either timed or Lottery, with Lottery ones having a ceiling pop of about an hour, but they could balance that however they want.

3) Claiming. In XIV we already have a claim system that would make bots worthless and that mistake would never surface, claim wars would not exist. Everyone can hit the enemy.

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So instead of a active chat we would have hundreds of players standing around of the spawn spot, waiting for some hours watching the screen in silence

NMs are basically FF version of world bosses right?

Miss my emperor's hairpin...

Am I the first to ask what NM stands for in this context?

There seems to be this limit to how many people get hit by a particular move. As long as that exists, no mob will be able to hold their own against a zergfest for long.

I think stuff like coffers was a step in the right direction. Perhaps make it something like ZNM in FFXI, where there is a string of bosses linked by spawning items. Starting from soloable bosses, to those that require a party, and finally those that need an alliance.

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Originally Posted by Moonleg

Am I the first to ask what NM stands for in this context?

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"Named Monster" or "Named Mob" I do believe. For example, a lizard mob named Leaping Lizzie. Or in the world of XIV and hunts, it'd be a Tyranosaur named "The Scarcrow". Just a term used to differentiate between normal mobs and the special hunt mobs in this game.

NM stood for Notorious Monster in FFXI

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Originally Posted by Xensai

NM stood for Notorious Monster in FFXI

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Oh wow, really? Huh, I called them "named monsters" even in that game....of course that was also 12 years ago and I was 14 at the time haha. Learn something new every day I suppose!

Yeah, to me in AO, WoW, Rift etc. they've always just been 'named'.

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Originally Posted by Moonleg

Yeah, to me in AO, WoW, Rift etc. they've always just been 'named'.

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WoW was rare spawn. They had a silver dragon on the portrait as opposed to a gold elite dragon.

There are NMs, sure they are Fates but they are still NMs. The problem with having just NMs is the claiming. The claiming was never about who could hit it, it was about the drops. Whoever had claim had the drops, this is still the case today in this game. Whoever has primary aggro gets all the drops. On a proper NM this would be no different. It's why NMs were turned into Fates, so everyone willing to put in an effort would be able to get a reward, not just whoever grabbed and held aggro. Yes, more open world content would be nice but NMs are best left as Fates so we can keep as far from the claim mechanic as possible. And before you go point out Hunts, those are clearly treated as uncapped, unmarked Fates as their mechanics are incredibly similar to NM Fates. The rewards from them are even tiered like Fates.

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Originally Posted by Terribad

NMs are basically FF version of world bosses right?

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Kinda. They're actually name is "Notorious Monster". Basically, they were harder enemies that existed amongst several members or their family, or not, which had a unique drop or characteristic or lore purpose. Some of them had unique AI and actions as well but most were pretty much just "Stronger" enemies with specific names. Though how much stronger varied greatly, some could probably murder you without lifting a finger and others would be a challenge just above the normal fauna in the area.

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Originally Posted by Felis

So instead of a active chat we would have hundreds of players standing around of the spawn spot, waiting for some hours watching the screen in silence

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I mean, in the first day, Maybe? But I said that like a paragraph below the things you quoted... Yeah, some of the ones that are more popular with weapon or armor designs for popular jobs, they might be camped like that on the first day or week, but It wouldn't be forever like Hunts, because they're not there for constant grinding like hunts. they're there for one-off drops with unique purposes, which people would

There would also be many of them so maybe not all of them would be as popular. Hunts are uniformly important for the same thing. Repeated farming for specific Currency which makes them hunted almost 24/7, their use does not dwindle as much. these would not, they would have finite drop pools, but would still be there for new players and new characters down the line to hunt and enjoy, maybe those who didn't drill through them in the first day (don't you people here always say to slow down on content..? I imagine that would be beneficial for this type of content).

Theres a large difference between them and what Hunts are, and I think you know that.

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he problem with having just NMs is the claiming. The claiming was never about who could hit it, it was about the drops

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did you even read it ^^;;? Sorry not trying to be sarcastic here at all but here, point 5 in my post.

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Drops. Now for everyones worry, the claiming and the loot distribution, I propose they take a page from "Voidwatch" Chest systems in XI. When an NM is defeated, everyone who participated in the fight will be able to click a chest that spawns at the enemies location.

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If XI can program something like that I like to think XIV can pull it off. But if they went back and added unique vanity drops and such to every "NM" FATE, That'd be... kinda okay in my book. but it really throws away the fun of hunting an NM when the NM is marked with a huge red marker on your map. IDK if I can adequately explain my thought by that. Plus FATEs scale and such which means it wouldn't be very solo friendly sometimes, which is what i'd propose the NMs to be.

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There seems to be this limit to how many people get hit by a particular move. As long as that exists, no mob will be able to hold their own against a zergfest for long.

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The idea isn't to make them dangerous killing machines. Its okay if they're zerged the first few days in my eyes, its once the newness wears off and people move on to other things that they'll still be there. Enjoyable hunting content for new players and so on. That will never get outdated with the passage of time because they would drop Vanity gear and Minions and Mounts and such. Plus they'd be solo friendly unlike those 30 minute FATEs with horrible killing machine bosses. The idea is it would create content, open world content, that wouldn't be outdated with each level cap.

As for Hunts, I think the implementation on that was just to terrible to adequately fix and will always be a drama train where people complain about early pulls... So I wanted this to be separate from that and have ways to adjust how they spawn to lessen that. No, you can't eliminate whining, we never will, just lessen it. But I wouldn't complain if each specific Hunt had its own unique drop that you could randomly obtain like a log. That way you could still "Camp" the NM by picking a zone and looking for it, adding to the thrill.

Lastly, for the Chests, I appreciate the warm welcome for that. I think the concept of having "Lost Treasures" in these big zones like in Heavensward would be really fun to go around and hunt down every day or so, or just target ones you specifically want a drop from, so on.

Thanks for the feedback so far, No idea an expect to be complete unless challenged and tuned. So keep it coming.

Basically, you're looking to add a mob of similar strength to B rank Hunts, with the primary difference being that it has a fixed spawn location, and it's reward is RNG dependent to encourage long term camping, right? That's something I'd be interested in, I'm quite fond of hunting down glamours and minions. I do feel, however, that it could be tough to implement alongside Hunts without it feeling somewhat recycled. We already have a system that involves scouring the map for rare monsters, the only difference here is it drops a chest and you stay for a while once you find it.

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Originally Posted by Magis

WoW was rare spawn. They had a silver dragon on the portrait as opposed to a gold elite dragon.

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Most people I played with on WoW just called em named. Came from Everquest though and they were called named because the majority of the mobs in the world were "an angry knoll" and then you had "Fippy Darkpaw" which was just the same model but with better stats. I used Fippy as an example, as a level 1 the angry knolls are not too tough to kill, but Fippy would wipe the floor with you up to about level 5 (this is of course early EQ days, not current where you walk outside, sneeze on something and get level 15.)

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Originally Posted by Seryl199

Basically, you're looking to add a mob of similar strength to B rank Hunts, with the primary difference being that it has a fixed spawn location, and it's reward is RNG dependent to encourage long term camping, right? That's something I'd be interested in, I'm quite fond of hunting down glamours and minions. I do feel, however, that it could be tough to implement alongside Hunts without it feeling somewhat recycled. We already have a system that involves scouring the map for rare monsters, the only difference here is it drops a chest and you stay for a while once you find it.

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Yah, Essentially what I'm asking. Though as a difference to Hunts their locations would be more specific to an area. For instance, An Ixali NMs could only spawn in their Cortheas Stronghold area, but anywhere within there, not the whole map.

I agree with it being alongside Hunts it would need something different to feel different. This is why I proposed Direct drops rather than Trade in drops, also Hunts fill a purpose well (Currency farming), where as NMs would satiate another, slightly different purpose. The only reason I'd want to not involve Hunts is because of how they work. Zone wide pops, etc. it would just be another drama train if they could spawn anywhere in the zone. if it spawns at one place only on a lottery or Low-Timed pop (Like 1.0 NMs, I think were 15 minutes? Though I think it would be nice if they varied a bit) there would be less an excuse to not be there when it spawns, hopefully staving some of the drama of "early pulls" hunts have. Plus, the system itself would be a bit different in terms of execution and reward claiming :D

This system was riddled with drama, harassment and abuse in FFXI.

It can stay there please. Hunts are bad enough.

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Originally Posted by Felis

So instead of a active chat we would have hundreds of players standing around of the spawn spot, waiting for some hours watching the screen in silence

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Have you done the fates for Animus books, pre-nerf? That's about what we did.

And yet, that's still better than hunts, because everyone who wants it can access it guaranteed.

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Originally Posted by m3eansean

This system was riddled with drama, harassment and abuse in FFXI.

It can stay there please. Hunts are bad enough.

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this game isnt exactly a happy friendly paradise as is without it. ... but, please, tell me how it would possibly be the same as it was in XI with the precautions to the system I outlined in my OP, which I trust you read. Like 90% of XI NM Drama was botting and being outclaimed... which... I address in my OP.

Just because something was bad in one game doesnt mean it will be bad in another...

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Originally Posted by BlaiseArath

this game isnt exactly a happy friendly paradise as is without it. ... but, please, tell me how it would possibly be the same as it was in XI with the precautions to the system I outlined in my OP, which I trust you read. Like 90% of XI NM Drama was botting and being outclaimed... which... I address in my OP.

Just because something was bad in one game doesnt mean it will be bad in another...

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Hunts showed the flaws with trying to bring NMs into the FFXIV arena. Add claiming and RNG drops would only increase the problem ten fold. The problem is people hated FATE without really understand why they hate FATE. XP FATE serve they're purpose for what they are, xp. Notorious FATE that only pop in a rare event gave the people a glimpse at the other end.

If you really want rare mobs the uses RNG to drop a rare item, FATE is really the only way to do it in FFXIV. You can have them appear on maps only when you as the player are close and they can randomly give loot to random players that kill it, see atma and alex.

IMHO they should create "hard" NMs ... bare with me.

Current Jobs are designed to work in a raid group where everyone is shackled to each other. They aren't designed to handle challenging solo content nor "play it by the ear" group content like Hunts.

I have proposed in the past that Classes should be put to used in some way.

My suggestion is to,

• make raids Job-only
• create cross-class skills usable only by (specific) classes and are not tied to any class, instead you learn them from Grimoires/Allagan Tomestones (i.e. "skill books") acquired by quest, bought with seals, or dropped by NMs

This way you can customise your Class with unique abilities that allow you to fight said NMs. Depending on NM you will pick different cross-class skills (and maybe even traits) and different gear - this will give crafting something to do too; as they can create gear that is maybe resistent to dragon fire or something.

It's very traditional RPG gameplay.

The only thing you're changing about "NMs" over Hunts is 1) a smaller spawn area and 2) adding drops. All the bad stuff about hunts would still exist.

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Originally Posted by Dyvid

Hunts showed the flaws with trying to bring NMs into the FFXIV arena. Add claiming and RNG drops would only increase the problem ten fold.

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Thank you for your reply! I would like to clear up that i've not once suggested a "Claim" system like XI which is what i assume you mean by "Add Claiming". I have not suggested that these NMs should be "Claimable" and only available to the party of person who touched it first. I proposed a system which would enable anyone who participated in the fight (even curing) to have a chance to obtain spoils from the enemy. Meaning if 100 people fought the NM at one time, 23 of them could walk away with the drop, or 80, no one specific person would be selected for the drop, everyone would have equal chance. in XI, they did this, in a similar fashion, with "Voidwatch" chests. Where participants would all get their own loot pools.

as for Hunts, the problem they are now is because their drops continue to be useful time and time over as SE updates their tome rewards, its a currency that remains perpetually useful because of how SE updates it. NMs having a singular drop, would mean eventually, become less and less camped/needed because people would get the drop and move on.

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f you really want rare mobs the uses RNG to drop a rare item, FATE is really the only way to do it in FFXIV. You can have them appear on maps only when you as the player are close and they can randomly give loot to random players that kill it, see atma and alex.

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I think adding more rare items to FATEs would be a wonderful idea. Perhaps link it to how well you do. I want to name an example, there is a FATE with a mob "Simurgh" which spawns. in FFXI, Simurgh was actually a valuable HNM. in XIV, he's background decoration. But they could add a drop to his FATE that is a throw back to his use in XI, having him have a chance to drop "Strider's Boots". What stats they had in XIV or if they were just glamour Idc, but stuff like that I would not mind. I think I mentioned I would accept if FATEs had drops added, while it does kinda kill the thrill of camping an NM when its marked on the map from across the zone, Its not a bad start, and I agree that would probably be the best way to implement such a system into XIV.

In that light, I think it would do a lot to add flavor to a lot of the older dead FATE zones if some, a good portion of, the "NM" FATEs that spawned had a chance to drop interesting or unique vanity/mounts/etc. Again like the Big FATEs except well, more of them...

As for another point not related to your post... one that it would be cluttered. Everything new in an MMO is cluttered when its released, by this logic, kill the game and stop adding content because good god, imagine how many people will be doing it when its released!

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The only thing you're changing about "NMs" over Hunts is 1) a smaller spawn area and 2) adding drops. All the bad stuff about hunts would still exist.

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Which things would you believe still persist? The problems I think of when I think of Hunts are these:

1) Randomly spawning around the map means you can never "camp" one or guarantee you get its spawn. Which leads to point 2.
2) "Early Pull" Drama is because hunts all have the same value and similar spawn windows, so people are split across zones looking for them, so when one pops and people switch zones, it takes time to go to them.
3) Hunt trains are, again, a result of all hunts being universally important for the same thing. Seals and tokens, which are constantly updated to make every single individual A and S rank maintain the same value as when they were released, creating perpetual usefulness.

Each of these would be solved or lessened due to what I outlined in the OP. Them being confined to a small area eliminates point 1, which in turn will alleviate point 2. Each NM not being universally useful, I.E one may drop a Bow Skin, not everyone has BRD, and even if a lot of BRDs camped it for the skin, its a 1 time untradeable drop, they would have no reason to camp it after they got the item, means #3 would not be a problem either. Also, I made no specific mention of what the drop rate should be, you're the ones assuming it will be Kraken club of FFXI worthy. the Drop rate should obviously fit FFXIV.... which if you play Triple Triad I can imagine why you're afraid ^^;

So I don't see which problems you see still persisting. Please elaborate, I want to hear your opinions and qualms in better detail.