Bring back 1.0 Notorious Monsters please.

[Arkine]

Unique monsters that appear in the middle of group of mobs of the same family. (A big Bat in the middle of a group of bats) That we can kill to get special items of various levels from.

1.0 rules: pops every 5-10 minutes, but won't pop if nobody kills the mobs in its location to spawn it, and it has a chance of dropping the loot.(25-100% depending)

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This would be fun to have as it would give players more ways to obtain leveling equipment and weapons. We can also have some high lvl ones with higher level items that don't compete with endgame loot. (Like lets say a Lv48 item that is iLv62) and of course glamor gear.

Those aren't hard to implement, so it can also introduce gear to carry people over to the new set of content. (NM Goblin, needs 2-3 people to kill, drops a Lv51 iLv95 Chest maybe? green quality, can't be sold or desynthed)

Equipment doesn't have to belong to sets, it can be just a unique item: NM A drops a helmet for WAR and nothing else, while NM B drops a Spear etc.

This system was replaced by FATEs when XIV came out and lets face it, nobody likes those.

I'd love to see NMs back!

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Oh Ark! Please no! FFXI NMs were terrible!

I know right? That's why this thread is asking for NMs that are under FFXIV 1.0 rules, with maybe a little dash of FFXI blended in to keep things interesting.

*Low Respawn times OR force spawns.
*High or 100% Drop rates.
*Unique loot of all levels and styles to help with lvling, catching up with new content, and glamor.
*NMs will have special abilities or have strange properties to make the fights interesting.

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But Ark! We have HUNTs!

Hunts only serve Lv50 player and anybody under 50 who manages to get into a PT. The respawns on S and A ranks take too long, and cause drama with how every player on the server wants to get in on this.

NMs by comparision are less dramatic and serves a wider player base.

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Useful stuff to read.
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BlaiseArath Wrote a nice example of how this could work!

that would be worse than XI's system , however I more than appreciate you making a suggestion and compromise ^^

Daily however, wouldn't be too bad. However, A force pop system might work. There's just not enough "Go solo stuff" content, and NMs could be that solo content. Dungeons you can technically enter solo and roulettes, but its all partied stuff. I don't want everything in this game for DoW/DoM to be solo, but some real tangible solo content, open world or not, could give a lot of people something to do when they just don't want to run the same dungeon for the 30th time. NMs were always more of a "Well, I don't want to do anything end-gamey right now" thing in XI, at least for me... and they were a nice distraction even if they were useless.

I think XIV has the potential to add NMs in a way that won't be too horrible for people who are cautious against the idea, but in a way that makes it fun enough that those who crave an NM type experience will enjoy it. I know I've posted examples before, but I'll do it again to show some of you how it might be handled in a way that won't interfere too much with the status quo but add variety and life to the open world as solo content, or even small group content. Let me just paint a picture by showing you what I mean.

-Example NMs-
Panzer Percival:

Beetle NM in Middle LN, timed spawn 5-10 minutes. Spawns near the level 3~ Beetles. Is level 5 and can drop one of 3 items.
*Level 5 Pink Tier Daggers - I'd rather see green unique gear instead of rehashed pink stuff personally - Arkine
*Level 5 Pink Tier Great Axe -
*Level 5 Pink tier Grimoire -

Elder Goobbue:

NM Goobbue, timed spawn 10~minutes, can spawn in any of the "Farms" near the crystal in Middle LN. Is level 20. It can drop up to two items
*Level 20 Pink DoM Head armor (75%)
*Level 20(I.lv25) Green armor: "Elder Robe", DoM - Has Earth Resistance +2 as a unique bonus among the other stats. (25%)

Though that doesn't mean they have to be only non-endgame soloable content.... If we want to think outside the box.

-Example "HNM"-
Krabkatoa:

forced pop Mini-crab NM, can be spawned using Quu Stew, a level 50 1 star culinary dish. (http://wiki.ffxiclopedia.org/wiki/Krabkatoa) - Is level 90, About on par in HP and attack as Fenrir. It will have access to a unique AoE TP move called "Venom Shower", deals moderate amount of damage and inflicts a poison effect that can stack multiple times. Also uses "Mega Scissors", which is conal and has no ground marker, but will reduce anyone whos hit to 10% of their max HP and reduce their enmity. Among those offensive abilities, It can use "Bubble Curtain" and "Scissor Guard" once every seconds which will cycle it between -50% melee damage and -50% magic damage. Only one can be up at a time. Can drop up to 2 of 4 items.
Blue Tier Level 95 DoM Pants - Unique attribute Water Resist +3
Blue Tier Level 95 DoW Pants - Unique Attribute Water Resist +3
Blue Tier Level 95 DoM Ring - Unique Attribute Poison Resist +2
Blue Tier Level 95 DoW Ring - Unique Attribute Poison Resist +2
Unique Drop: Half full Quu Stew (25%)(See West. LN)

Krabimanjaro:

What can be considered an "HNM", an open world coil-type boss. Popped by trading a Half-Full Quu Stew to one of (5?) ??? near the Ship Graveyard. As far as power, is about on par with ~Turn 6 boss in terms of HP and attack potency. Has same abilities as Krabkatoa, however, will now have access to "Giga Scissors", which is now a mid-range AoE instead of conal, and reduces everyone hit to 5%... This move will only be used after "Venom Shower" at 75%, 50%, and 25% HP.
**Phase 1 of this fight will consist of him switching between Bubble Curtain and Scissor Guard every 30 seconds, which has the same effect as Krabkatoa. It will use Mega Scissors in this phase, as well as Bubble Rinse, a short range AoE that removes up to 3 buffs on a player and deals 500 damage for each buff removed.

**Phase 2 begins at 75% HP, it will use Venom Shower followed by Giga Scissors, this will reduce anyone in range to 5% HP, and the poison of Venom shower will kill them off in 1-2 ticks, it repeats this at 50% and 25%. During Phase 2, he will now use Bubble Curtain or Scissor guard every 20 seconds, and gains access to Brine Shower, a mid range AoE that can inflict Paralyze and Blind as well as Poison. During this phase, he will mark 1 target, shortly after he will turn and use an Instant cast Mega Scissors in the direction of that target.

**Phase 3 begins at 25% HP, It will spawn 2 Krabkin, which will have a Cover effect on Krabimanjaro. They are relatively weak, but when they are spawned, Krabimanjaro will begin readying Krabtastrophe, which will draw in anyone fighting it and inflict a powerful gravity. The only way to interrupt his casting is to defeat the adds and damage him before it can go off (similar to 100,000 needles). If successful, he will resume his normal Phase1/2 patterns. It will also gain one new mechanic. Every so often it will mark 2 players, they will be bound in place after 5 seconds, and 2 Krabnami's will spawn on the NM and walk toward them slowly. If they reach their target, they will use a TP move called "Wave of Destruction", which will KO the target and deal damage to other players in range equal to half of that players maximum HP.

**He can drop up to 3 of the following 5 items. All have a unique attribute of "Water Resistance +5" and "Poison Resistance +5" on top of their normal 4 stats.
*Item level 110 DEX Ring
*Item Level 110 STR Ring
*Item level 110 VIT ring
*Item level 110 PLD/WAR Body
*Item Level 110 ROG/MNK Body

(The Body armor will look something like this ^^ : http://www.ffxiah.com/screenshots/29547)
Hint: ITS CRAB ARMOR

What this does is add another avenue of gear for players, as well as give SE more chances to introduce a variety of sub stats for jobs to make them happy. For instance, SMNs being upset at the slew of Spell Speed on coil gear could opt for NMs which might have DET instead, or Crit. In the same way ROG who don't like the Skill speed on some of the Gloam gear can opt for the NM/HNM route for gear with maybe crit rate. It would let SE add more variety in sub stats by adding more than 2 armor choices for end game.

The difference between endgame and mid game NMs:

Mid/Low game NMs would be timed spawn, every 5-10 minutes or so, and drop reasonable and level smart gear for players who wish to boost their low level performance, but not offer such drastic bonuses over normal gear. Much like how dungeon gear works now compared to HQ crafted/Meld.

High level NMs/HNMs would be forced pop with an item, one either gathered in a dungeon or crafted (Giving crafters something to benefit from here). These can range from level 90~100 catch up gear, all the way up to the same level as the current Item level gear. Obviously balance would be tantamount here, and perhaps a weekly restriction on the Higher item level NMs would be a great idea.

So, whats the benefit?

Open world challenging content that can be done solo by low levels, or even require groups for some of the harder stuff. All while offering another venue for Square to introduce Item level equipment with a variety of sub stats to hopefully keep everyone happy. For those scared of NMs, the harder ones could essentially be thought of as open-world coil bosses, that you pop using items gathered or crafted, or even dropped from other NMs, making it balanced would be the key here, and obviously things like daily/weekly lockouts for the higher tier NMs/Drops would not be a bad idea nor would I be against it.

The above text shows a good example of how NMs can be implemented.

While I'm not sure if NMs should have loot that is on par with raid gear, I'm sure it can be implemented in a fair way.

Maybe Mid range NMs can drop items that drop bigger ones.

[Arkine]

inb4whydothisjustputthestuffincashshop

[Amused]

Yes please! They would be great for open world dungeons (which I'm hoping they decide to do eventually) too, like King Ranperre's Tomb

[Enkidoh]

Unique monsters that appear in the middle of group of mobs of the same family. (A big Bat in the middle of a group of bats) That we can kill to get special items of various levels from.

1.0 rules: pops every 5-10 minutes, but won't pop if nobody kills the mobs in its location to spawn it, and it has a chance of dropping the loot.(25-100% depending)

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This would be fun to have as it would give players more ways to obtain leveling equipment and weapons. We can also have some high lvl ones with higher level items that don't compete with endgame loot. (Like lets say a Lv48 item that is iLv62) and of course glamor gear.

Those aren't hard to implement, so it can also introduce gear to carry people over to the new set of content. (NM Goblin, needs 2-3 people to kill, drops a Lv51 iLv95 Chest maybe? green quality, can't be sold or desynthed)

Equipment doesn't have to belong to sets, it can be just a unique item: NM A drops a helmet for WAR and nothing else, while NM B drops a Spear etc.

This system was replaced by FATEs when XIV came out and lets face it, nobody likes those.

I'd love to see NMs back!

After the crap that FFXI suffered from with this, I'm going to have to say a big resounding NO. Getting good gear from NMs was nice, buuuut, the really useful ones were either dropped by a NM with such a ridiculously low spawn rate (*cough* Roc and the Healing Staff *cough cough*), the item's drop rate was stupidly low (Mee Deggi and his stupid O Kote), heavily camped by bots, RMT and legitimate players (Charbdydis and the Joyuese), or, all of the above.

Case in point - Shikigami Weapon and the YingYang Robe, which on the old Midgardsormr server actually had a player linkshell set up exclusively to farm that one NM and they kept the NM's spawn window a closely guarded secret (they even named their ls after the NM, and boasted to anyone who would listen that they "guaranteed a YingYang Robe for all SMNs who join").

Anyone who wasn't in that ls who tried to camp the NM themselves would usually be MPKd by the members of that ls, and the GMs were powerless to act, explaining that legally they hadn't actually done anything wrong (keeping a spawn time secret is not a ToS violation, and the other players were so slippery, the ways they did their mpking were always just one step within the ToS).

The only time their evil monopoly was broken was when Midgardsormr was merged into Quetzalcoatl in 2010 - they tried to keep up their evil little cartel, but luckily Quetzalcoatl players didn't tolerate that kind of nonsense, and turned the tables back on them). But it's forever tainted FFXI for me and is a perfect example of why campable NMs which drop gear just doesn't work, and especially won't in FFXIV.

[Arkine]

After the crap that FFXI suffered from with this, I'm going to have to say a big resounding NO.

Yes, thats why I'm asking for FFXIV 1.0 NM system, which I explained how they worked in the OP. They pop fast enough and the drop rate is fairly high.

These NMs can also have special abilities to make them more fun, like some would use abilities like Benediction, or have very strong attacks but hit very very slowly, or even fight in a special way like Stone Vigil HM's last boss.

And think of the loot! Who here wouldn't want a "Python Corselete" Color is metalic Green with 2 shoulder pads, Lv46, Ilv51, MNK/NIN Drops from the NM Ajatar, a Lv40 Snake in the jungle near Wineport, to Spawn him you trade A Lava toad to a "Suspicious Bush". His poison can't be Esuna'd and it stacks up to 5. making it a tough fight. So much fun!

[BlaiseArath]

.

As someone who hunted pretty much every NM in FFXI over their years in the game... Its not nearly as bad as you make it sound. Almost nowhere near as bad. You're describing HNMs, or NMs with 21-24 hour spawns or longer. Hes talking about 5-10minute repops. Huge difference.

HNM is not the same as NM, and 5-10 minutes is a far shot different than XI's NMs, all of which were generally either 1 hour~+ lottery or 21-24/3-7 day and such. (Its been a long time since i got my YYrobe actually, back when it was super heavily camped too.. never felt like i regretted camping it either, it was the most deliciously rewarding experience of my Summoner life)

Also, despite how badly some early HNMs were handled, I can't think of anyone who enjoyed FFXI for all those years would look back and say "Gee I wish FFXI never had open world NMs". A lot of people enjoyed the, even the obscure ones. I still have a f**kload of obscure NM items that had no real use. Bano Del Sol, Rain Hat, Mushroom Cap, Ascalon, are some of my most treasured and useless items... but I have plenty more, and theres no NM experience I think back on that was so awful I wish I had never done it. Even spending 7 hours camping that NM for Sirocco Kukri made it all the more sweeter when I had that weapon. Camping Mee Deggi and being outclaimed made it all the sweeter when I get the Ochimusha Kote them years later. Nothing about it I regret, and at the end of the day hunting obscure random useless NMs with my friends are some of my most charished memories of XI... and if adding them in XIV did nothing but help low level players and offer vanity gear, effectively making it optional for you... why would you care if they were added? What effect would they even have on your Dungeon runs or Coil?

None, literally none. Also, people liked 1.0 NMs, I admit just as many likely didn't like them, but they made the open world a bit more... living and exciting.

Its generally* not the same experience... Hunt = FATE ;(

Yah, Hunts are basically... FATEs without a circle on the map. A swarm of people murdering a mob who ultimately your actions mean very little is not what NMs are about, these things also offer no rewards outside of more token currency that dungeons offer. S ranks are actually a real neat idea too, special spawn conditions, tough, etc. They'd be pretty perfect if they rewarded you with something other than... a line of text patting you on the back with a handful of tomes, Yipeee... a dungeons worth of tomes... yay. (Don't get me wrong they're rewarding in their own right, just not in the way those requesting NMs are asking for. Now if those S-Ranks all had a unique Weapon/Armor drop? They'd be XIV's HNMs already).

I'd go for a decent boost of exp instead of gear drops. one can only grind fates and dungeons so much before we lose our minds.

Why not both ? Some low level NMs could just drop Pink Armor/Weapons instead of wholely unique items, making them a gearing alternative for some newbies. Though, perhaps people would camp them for Company seals, so maybe make the ones from NMs untradeable to GC's.

[Tupsi]

After the crap that FFXI suffered from with this, I'm going to have to say a big resounding NO.

Too bad XI used forced pops and 'instances' for majority of NMs that dropped sought after gear for over half of it's life span.

Anyone who wasn't in that ls who tried to camp the NM themselves would usually be MPKd by the members of that ls,

Dat 2003 experience that hasn't been true since the extremely early days of XI.

But it's forever tainted FFXI

Clearly since that hasn't been true for an extremely long time to the point XI handles itemization better than XIV does currently lol.

As someone who hunted pretty much every NM in FFXI over their years in the game... Its not nearly as bad as you make it sound.

You will learn this very quickly about this community - Most that say they played XI usually are talking about the 2003-2004/5ish era of FFXI or only played till level 10 and quit and just go off what they read on sites like Bluegartr or Zam and make everything sound far worse than it truly was. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as she made it out, the only MPK that ever happened were at Ground Kings and that was only possible in the early days since SE changed the way not only hate works, but the claiming system thus MPKing became near impossible to do in the general format.

Heck, the 1.0 system was done using the changes they did to XI's system, which XI later did more changes as well.

Also no, Hunts aren't the same thing - When I kill Stinging Solphie, where's my dagger? When I kill Nahn where's my elegant sword that has poison addition effect on it? When I kill Naul where's my Wyvern Perch? So on and so forth.

[Violyre]

Case in point - Shikigami Weapon and the YingYang Robe, which on the old Midgardsormr server actually had a player linkshell set up exclusively to farm that one NM and they kept the NM's spawn window a closely guarded secret (they even named their ls after the NM, and boasted to anyone who would listen that they "guaranteed a YingYang Robe for all SMNs who join").

I seem to vaguely recall this. I remember the linkshell, at least, and I seem to recall being an ass to any of my LS that joined them, generally because my LS had bragging rights over Ullikummi for awhile. XD Who were you on Midgardsormr, if you don't mind me asking? I seem to vaguely recall someone with your forum name at least. No one I talked to like ever, but still. I was Achika.

[Enkidoh]

I seem to vaguely recall this. I remember the linkshell, at least, and I seem to recall being an ass to any of my LS that joined them, generally because my LS had bragging rights over Ullikummi for awhile. XD Who were you on Midgardsormr, if you don't mind me asking? I seem to vaguely recall someone with your forum name at least. No one I talked to like ever, but still. I was Achika.

That's right, my FFXI character's name is my forum handle's name (and my FFXIV's character's first name too for that matter ). I was on Midgard from the beginning of 2005 (when I first started in FFXI) til it was merged into Quetzalcoatl in 2010, which is still my FFXI server. I do seem to remember seeing a player named Achika in FFXI too - that's a really small world!

Anyway, for those wondering I wasn't trying to have a go at the members of that ls in my previous post, as it was so long ago now it's no longer relevant. I was just trying to point out that incident on FFXI as an example of why open world NMs who drop sort after equipment is not quite the great idea everyone has made it out to be.

[Nadrojj]

After the crap that FFXI suffered from with this, I'm going to have to say a big resounding NO. Getting good gear from NMs was nice, buuuut, the really useful ones were either dropped by a NM with such a ridiculously low spawn rate (*cough* Roc and the Healing Staff *cough cough*), the item's drop rate was stupidly low (Mee Deggi and his stupid O Kote), heavily camped by bots, RMT and legitimate players (Charbdydis and the Joyuese), or, all of the above.

Case in point - Shikigami Weapon and the YingYang Robe, which on the old Midgardsormr server actually had a player linkshell set up exclusively to farm that one NM and they kept the NM's spawn window a closely guarded secret (they even named their ls after the NM, and boasted to anyone who would listen that they "guaranteed a YingYang Robe for all SMNs who join").

Anyone who wasn't in that ls who tried to camp the NM themselves would usually be MPKd by the members of that ls, and the GMs were powerless to act, explaining that legally they hadn't actually done anything wrong (keeping a spawn time secret is not a ToS violation, and the other players were so slippery, the ways they did their mpking were always just one step within the ToS).

The only time their evil monopoly was broken was when Midgardsormr was merged into Quetzalcoatl in 2010 - they tried to keep up their evil little cartel, but luckily Quetzalcoatl players didn't tolerate that kind of nonsense, and turned the tables back on them). But it's forever tainted FFXI for me and is a perfect example of why campable NMs which drop gear just doesn't work, and especially won't in FFXIV.

Did you play 1.0 or even bother to ready his post?

1.0 rules: pops every 5-10 minutes

This lead to 0 monopolization because there the mob popped so frequently there was no market for the items, it did however give you the option for a rare item that was often better than what was currently available at that time. Jesus read before you respond.