INCAP love [DEV1027]

[Rydin]

I really do enjoy incaps.... It's a great system....

How do incaps work?
It's easy really.... Stand in the appropriate place on the appropriate MOB and use the appropriate weaponskill to do the appropriate amount of damage and you will incapacitate that part.

That sounds complicated
It's not really... once you start doing it, it's pretty simple

OK, Mr Smug.... So what place, MOB and weaponskill are appropriate?
I'll let SE tell you that
http://lodestone.finalfantasyxiv.com.../battle02.html
Lodestone incap page, A good page to bookmark

There are 7 categories of breakable monster parts
The head Need to be standing in FRONT of MOB
Left Arm Standing on the MOB's LEFT
Right Arm Standing on the MOBs RIGHT
Lower (legs) Standing anywhere in range of the MOB
Left Other Standing on the MOB's LEFT
Right Other Standing on the MOBs RIGHT
Outer Other Standing at the REAR of the MOB... pervert

I'm still confused... I need an example
ok... Let's look at an Opo-Opo (Which means the Opo-Opo family, all monkey looking MOBs, so Lemur's and Galago also)
Let's use this on a Lemur near Treespeak in The Black Shroud
On the bottom table of the Lodestone incap page, we see Lemurs (Opo-Opo) have 2 incaps.... HEAD and LEGS

Let's aim for the head
To hit the head you have to stand in front of the Lemur. You 'll know you're in the front because your damage will say "Normal Attack hits Lemur from the front for 58 damage"

What weaponskill am I using again?
On the second to last table on that page, we see that 3 classes have head incap moves.... Pugilist has Concussive Blow, Marauder has Skull Sunder and Archers have Bloodletter

That doesn't sound too tough...
Its not... stand in front of a Lemur and use Concussive Blow. The text will say "Your Concussive Blow hits the Lemur's Head for 211 damage"

So his head should be incapped, right?
Maybe.... Each breakable part on each MOB has a different amount of damage that needs to be done to incap that part. So you may have to execute more than 1 Concussive Blow to break the head. The amount of damage needed to incap a certain part is now referred to as the "Damage threshold."

How do I know when it's done?
The text will say "Lemur's Head is incapacitated"

OK, that was fun but now I have a ton of questions for you
1.Does the incap increase Drop rates for certain or all loot?
2. Does it open up an entirely new loot pool, like a rare drop is ONLY OBTAINED with the right incap?
3. Does it limit certain weaponskills or abilities that the MOB could use?
4. Does it lower any of the MOB's stats, such as lowering defense or attack?

I'll be honest... in a perfect world, each incap should do any combination of those 4 things. I call these "The 4 possible results of Incaps"

That is one of the issues with incaps. This one might not be a flaw though. Every incap could definitely do at least one of those things... we just don't know...
From my experience, breaking the horns off of a goat (HEAD incap) definitely makes horns drop more often....
and breaking the ore cluster on a Doblyn (Outer Other incap) seems to make them weaker, but none of this is backed by empirical data
If all (or at least most) incaps don't have one of the 4 effects, then I think they really should
If all incaps already have one of the 4 results and we just have yet to prove it or figure it out, then I'd be fine.
SE, you don't have to give us specifics, I'd be fine if Yoshi-P just said "Yes, all incaps serve a purpose and fall into at least one of the 4 results"

Anything you'd change to make incaps better?
Yes, Incaps should be more visible.
When you break horns on goats or buffalo, head on skeletons, ore cluster on Doblyns and a few others, you can see the visual effects of the incap
But break the head on a Goblin, the legs on a Dodo, the shell of crab, all incaps for human and beast tribe... and MANY MANY MORE.... you see absolutely no physical difference... This is one I'd like to borrow from Monster Hunter. There is a dragon called "Rathalos" and when you break its head, the scales on it just look a little damaged or broken just on the actual head of the wyvern though.
I would love to break an Amalj'aa's right arm and just see lacerations and such to show that it has been broken.... Maybe a limp when the legs have been broken
Edit: as of 1.19 Beastman (Amalj'aa, Ixali, Goblin, Kobold, Sylph, Skeleton and Humanoid) can longer be incapped but the idea remains the same...

One last thing to keep in mind, I am unsure of how MOB's with regen work with incaps. This is mainly in regards to the NM's. I've killed all of them quite a few times and have received every rare drop. I've incapped every part possible on the big NM's.

With that being said, the following is supposition and not at all tested or proven so take it with a grain of salt... or call me an idiot for believing this, I don't mind...
It seems as if the amount of damage needed for an INCAP regens if the monsters HP regens.

What does that mean for us?
It just means for the big NM's, you want to do all the incap damage in rapid succession...
For instance, say the buffalo horn needs 1000 hp worth of damage to break, you do 800 damage to the right horn and then later in the fight do another 200 damage to the right horn, you may not break it because the horn's damage threshold has regened...

All in all I LOVE incaps, it gives us something to aim for in big battles... It's fun and it's just the right mix of simplicity and complexity
I would love to see how combos, battle regimen and incapacitation fit in with the new battle system...

Lastly, sorry this took so long... but LIKE THIS if you want SE to create more visual cues for incaps, and make it so all incaps result in one of the big 4 results

[Honz]

What is the point of your thread again? Only suggestion I saw was making incapacitation more visible on certain mobs. Everything else is in the game already. I really don't understand what you're trying to say.

[Rydin]

What is the point of your thread again? Only suggestion I saw was making incapacitation more visible on certain mobs. Everything else is in the game already. I really don't understand what you're trying to say.

A lot of people are unclear on incaps.... so my suggestion doesn't make sense if you don't understand the system...
and more importantly, I wanted to show incaps some love...
I have to explain it to about 3 or 4 people a week in game... so I figured there was a need

btw, grats on all melee to 50... I'm coming

[viion]

I like the system but its so restricting, a lot of the specific skills you have to do just suck, though im hoping this changes with the battle system update. Even so unless those skills that do the incap get any good, then people are just going to stick to others.

I dont mind the whole having specific class to incap because it adds some diversity to choosing who you want, but then its like "stand there and do that skill only, and be quiet". Its also very pointless on a lot of mobs. You do it on NM's just for the drop but that's it really.

[Rydin]

I like the system but its so restricting, a lot of the specific skills you have to do just suck, though im hoping this changes with the battle system update. Even so unless those skills that do the incap get any good, then people are just going to stick to others.

I dont mind the whole having specific class to incap because it adds some diversity to choosing who you want, but then its like "stand there and do that skill only, and be quiet". Its also very pointless on a lot of mobs. You do it on NM's just for the drop but that's it really.

I agree... thats why I'd like to know that incaps affect the stats or weaponskills of a MOB...
Also are all incaps proven to increase drops? I feel like they do, but It could be a big placebo effect, so I'm open to all possibilities
hahaha... you got Iron Lake to the lance timed down to the second... thats funny.... How long did you wait on the ferry?

[Honz]

Well I always thought the current system works just fine, I have not met anyone in game that needed explaining. Once in a while people might refer to the lodestone chart to see which weapon skills incaps which part, other than that I think the system is pretty straight forward. I would like more visual effects though. ie incap a goblin's right arm and they drop their weapon, or have the weapon look shattered and destroyed.

[Rydin]

Well I always thought the current system works just fine, I have not met anyone in game that needed explaining. Once in a while people might refer to the lodestone chart to see which weapon skills incaps which part, other than that I think the system is pretty straight forward. I would like more visual effects though. ie incap a goblin's right arm and they drop their weapon, or have the weapon look shattered and destroyed.

I agree... It is pretty straightforward.. yet I find myself explaining it all the time...
At the very least it will point people towards the page with the chart on it....
And yes.. incaps just need to be so much more visible... not talking about the message that you incapped... but the actual incap itself...
Maybe we should give examples like that of what you'd expect to see in an incap...
like
1. Crab shells should have, at the very least, cracks in them when you incap the shell
.
2. Ahriman can blink... When you incap their eye, it should stay closed

3. Drake tail should go bye bye when you incap it

[Teknoman]

I agree... It is pretty straightforward.. yet I find myself explaining it all the time...
At the very least it will point people towards the page with the chart on it....
And yes.. incaps just need to be so much more visible... not talking about the message that you incapped... but the actual incap itself...
Maybe we should give examples like that of what you'd expect to see in an incap...
like
1. Crab shells should have, at the very least, cracks in them when you incap the shell
.
2. Ahriman can blink... When you incap their eye, it should stay closed

3. Drake tail should go bye bye when you incap it

I second this. Use the Crystal Tools engine polygon shaving techniques you used with the armor to change the monster models depending on the incap.

Even Coblyns already have something like this in effect when the crystals get broken.

[Dreadnought]

Well I always thought the current system works just fine, I have not met anyone in game that needed explaining. Once in a while people might refer to the lodestone chart to see which weapon skills incaps which part, other than that I think the system is pretty straight forward. I would like more visual effects though. ie incap a goblin's right arm and they drop their weapon, or have the weapon look shattered and destroyed.

ive been playing since open beta and did not know to this detail of incaps, infact i didnt know they were called incaps till just now.
yeah i think they should definitely be more visible.

[Zenaku]

When they add HNM they should allow us to hit diff part of there body and each part have it own HP but it still the NM overall HP bar. Like old school FF Like you hit the horn and you can break it then the HNM wont use horn attack. You attack to tail and it would stop using tail attack and so on i alway though that was what ffxiv and ffxi was missing.