NM Battles Fights and the end result

[Zhyrios]

"Risk vs Reward".

What "Risk" are we talking about exactly? The current NMs aren't that hard. They're pretty much accessible to everyone and repop often (which is great, mind you).
They have absolutely nothing to do with the endless camps/grind of FFXI.

i cant go on experience personally but the OP said he watched videos of a 15-30 minute fight with relatively good players. IF that's true i understand his point at not getting any drops, even if not 100% battles should atleast give a consolation prize(yagudo NMs in Oztroja Castle anyone? xD) if they're going to be that lengthy.

But i guess from what i hear elsewhere, they're not that hard, but i guess it certainly depends, ive also heard some of them arent exactly a walk in the park. atleast not solo anyway, as they are higher-rank NMs or something *shrug*

[Abriael]

i cant go on experience personally but the OP said he watched videos of a 15-30 minute fight with relatively good players. IF that's true i understand his point at not getting any drops, even if not 100% battles should atleast give a consolation prize(yagudo NMs in Oztroja Castle anyone? xD) if they're going to be that lengthy.

But i guess from what i hear elsewhere, they're not that hard, but i guess it certainly depends, ive also heard some of them arent exactly a walk in the park. atleast not solo anyway, as they are higher-rank NMs or something *shrug*

Of course, they aren't meant to be soloed (the only reason why some can solo is due to the exploit of a skill). They can be lowmanned rather easily, though, especially when you get the hang of an encounter.

The drop rate isn't that low. A decent LS NM run can easily consist of doing 5-6 NMs (i mean the old high level ones of course, not the new mid-level) in a couple hours or little more, and I've never once seen one of those come out without multiple drops.

The only drop rate that I consider rather low, at the moment, is that of the chest runestones for faction NMs (considering you need 400 faction points each), but that's hardly a terrible problem.