Claim system, should it really dissappear?

[Aratharn]

I say go back to FFXI's claim system, whatever you claim in party is red and can give you SP/loot... since they are going to 8 man parties, bring back the option to add parties to an alliance.

Also I'd like to be able to add an LS member who just came online in the middle of an end game event/fight. I believe the reason you can't add people mid fight is to prevent people from dropping from the party and touching the Aethryte to get HP/MP back and re-joining... so just take away the ability of Aethryte's restoring HP/MP. Now that there is auto-mp regen it shouldn't be a big deal. I would still keep the ability to restore HP/MP when you launch/finish a guild leve but I would say nothing outside of that and give us the ability to add players/alliances mid fight.

This way if a party needs help you have the option of adding more players/parties as needed.

Like most of you I hate the idea of anyone being able to attack any monster claimed. Seems new and challenging content would just get zerged. Imagine seeing a brand new open world HNM roaming around and every high end linkshell gathered around to check it out... all engaging and just overpowering with sheer numbers...

The system worked almost perfect in FFXI why not bring it back??

[yukikaze_yanagi]

Because the overcamping and solo-claiming it's the welcome door for bots, and camping hours so you MAYBE can claim a nm and MAYBE drop something it's the only thing i really hated in ffxi. I'd wealcome a change in claiming system

[Xenor]

The claim system definitely needs changes but I'm not sure what the best way to go is. Allowing you to get SP off any mobs regardless of it being claimed would result in XI style parties where you round up dozens of mobs and kill them for insane SP. We don't want that in FFXIV, especially when mob density is higher in this game. I'm also totally against allowing multiple parties to engage a mob.

They need to fix the exploit where a party can keep a mob claimed even though the whole party has died as it's becoming a problem with NMs. I can see it getting worse in the future if it isn't fixed. When the party fighting a mob loses hate the monster should go unclaimed, not reset the rage timer and give you another 30 minutes to try again. Mobs should also be able to draw you in if you try to hold them outside their territory.

[Reika]

I would not like to see exp (and definitely not loot) split between ungrouped people attacking the target. That just leads to kill stealing and loot stealing. Say Group A started engaging a NM and has been for 3 minutes, then group B comes along, With a bigger group and bigger guns and outdamages your group and gets all the loot. that would suck and I would not want to see it happen. Outside of Guildleves and Behests, there NEEDS to be a claiming system for whoever attacked first. INSIDE of guildleves and behests, there need be no claiming system because your party already has automatic claim on all the monsters in the guildleve or behest.

[Jibe]

The thing that most people are pissed about, myself included has already been mention on this thread a few times. Don't penalize us for killing a monster using AoE or other tactics. Just because we have engaged one and it is red, shouldn't mean we can't kill any other mob and get SP for it.

[Reika]

The thing that most people are pissed about, myself included has already been mention on this thread a few times. Don't penalize us for killing a monster using AoE or other tactics. Just because we have engaged one and it is red, shouldn't mean we can't kill any other mob and get SP for it.

That is what I was getting at, but it only needs to be for behests and guildleves. Open world monsters there should still be a claim system. Also, If a monster comes up and hits you and a party member (A field monster) It should be claimable by your group, or automatically claimed when it hits you, as a free claim.

[weeble]

i think this will be horrible idea, looks like they turning this game into allods. for one thing se has made this game so there is never enough mobs for the people. least not always, the idea that someone can come and jump in and take away your sp is a bs idea. in allods people sorta respected it, if u hit a mob people usually stayed away, but then there were the asses who would still just kill your shit. you have a nuke on way and it lands and they finish it off or vise versa.

though in ffxi we "Mostly" were respectful of camps outside of there just not being any other camps open then it was like sorry. this game has lost that so far, everyone seems to just camp over each other that i've been seeing. and that is a rather horrible way to play, camps don't become camps they become zones where many people just fight over mobs like in allods. it can be entertaining and fighting for the mobs can be more exiting then the actual killing of the mobs but still not all the time, just that once in while when u get a dick only.

if it becomes only the one with most damage it is horrible, if u get to split the sp it will be horrible>< ...the first hit claim was already at it's best and shouldn't be changed. make more camps, rather then work a new claim system. as for the reason of endgame figure out a better way.

also i agree with what naylia has writen as well that is the funnest way to do it, and more logical. just fix it so we can't do things like summoner cheats. can't believe how far off the devs go in "trying to prevent" things when there are simple solutions that won't ruin the game.

[Lusavari]

One thing I wanna know... Are we all interpreting the question the same? Because when I answered the question, I read it as "How do you want this handled in raids?"

And when I thought of that, I thought of Dynamis. Ok, if we're in a multi-party raid like Dynamis, then hells ya I think loot should be evenly split among everyone involved in the raid, just like in Dynamis (which is why Dynamis linkshell formed.)

But if you're talking about NM and anything outside of an instanced raid, removing the claim system is rather silly.

So I think the team needs to specify what they were asking a little.

[Lusavari]

Alright. After getting a better idea of what's going on... I think I can pose an informed opinion. This is really long winded but try to stick with me please. I'll have a summary down below if you're not a fan of reading.

Alright, so, for me, the current system is fine in terms of claiming. I do agree not getting points for aoe abilities defeats the purpose of having them. Especially since I make a great deal of use out of things like Broad Swing and Brandish.

One of the major issues that has plagued this game since the ALPHA stages has been a lack of a clear way to grind. During the Alpha, Leves recycled and refreshed hourly. However, you didn't get the benefits you get now. so my friend and I would simply fight Chigoes until we hit rank 20. The things respawned every 30 seconds, and gave 1050 xp a kill, so it wasn't hard to do. However MP management was a lot more important as the MP restore abilities had 30 minute timers, but restored 100% of MP. However, XP didn't divide out by party members, it was a flat rate to everyone, and the skill system was almost the same as what we had on release.

When it moved into Closed Beta 1, that's when leves took over, but had the ridiculous 48 timers. That's when griding really became necessary. If you were solo, it was no biggie, but for parties... There was just no way to really grind most regular mobs in a party. The system was too awkward. The problem was a lot of input from people like me complaining over the core mechanics were overshadowed by UI complaints.

Now, from the direction they had stated they had wanted to do party v party combat. That's why there's such an emphasis on aoe moves. It makes things a lot more FF like. The problem was, they had a few key issues they NEVER fixed that I complained about numerous times. First off, the checking system... It's completely misleading. In XI, the system always checks a monster's strength in comparison to the individual. In XIV it shows it based on the Party's total power. So a monster that is IT to the individual player rates EP to a Duo. And Physical levels can even throw that off where an EP can still wipe the floor with a Duo. And then in leves, the opposite can be true where a EP to an individual can wipe the floor with 15 people (Impish Incantations anyone?)

So we don't have an accurate way to really gauge a single enemy, so how are we going to gauge several? And look at leves. They add up the full power of the enemy party. More annoying sometimes you can't even figure out Who pairs with who.

The next issue lies in the Mob AI. Sure, we will all admit it was REALLY cool and novel how much AI the monsters had. That they would stare at you and follow you around... But then we had the problem that they would follow you to much, can get you killed when you needed to AoE. Which brings up another major issue: The horrid distribution on monsters by level. The fact a rank 50 Pieste is wandering around the level 1 area just south of the camp is total bull shit. Hell, there's rank 40 drakes just outside of Ul'Dah's West Gate!! Why!? This seriously kills exploration. In XI, once I got level 10, I was invincible in my starting zone. Nothing could hurt me unless I went to the second floor of any of the local dungeons (I'm thinking of Dangruff Wadi and P. Mines here). Here, we get our asses handed to us at Rank 30 and 40 in our starting zones. I always though The Central areas of each starting rank should be applicable to 10, then the East and West camps good to 20, and any tertiary camps to 30. Then you should be forced out to Mor Dhona and Coerthas.

So we end up with absurd camp distribution. However, we end up with a LOT of places to camp. Except at launch there the mob populations were amazingly sparse. Sparse populations of monsters leads to extreme unlikeliness to ever fight multiple monsters. Where you did have several though, it was things like goats. And the only way anyone was ever going to party on multiple goats was if each member could solo one, and then a healer stood back and healed. Except you ended up with the fundamental issue of Skill points, which once again defeated the purpose of partying.

So, when we get down to the claim issue, if we're not doing a leve, a multi-hit swing doesn't claim the sub-targets. Well, a lot of times did we really want the claim right away? Some times it resulted in a non-aggressive monster that wandered into the path of our swing on 2 rats, and we kind of wanted someone to pull it off right? There's no Call for Help in this game. Of course, we all know the issues CFH caused in XI. So we're left at an impasse (sp? FireFox says impass is wrong)... How do we discourage people from stealing monsters we meant to claim, while getting them to help us if we get something we don't want.

First off, How to actually grind should be established, with monsters designed for both party and solo grinding. Of course, Party grinding monsters would be the focus, and would be far superior. Monsters need enough HP to last a while. With a party using only standard attacks it should last 90 seconds. Using a well defined strategy, the monster should only last 30-60 seconds. Then you should have some monsters that auto-link (party) that have designations for which ones come with it. For instance, you target one, and icons appear over its team mates. When you auto-link, just like in leves, you auto-claim.

Next, the problem is re-balancing AoEs. You do need the danger element involved to at times discourage over use. Really though, I'd rather have AoEs set so that they ONLY effect monsters you or your party members have engaged OR a monster that currently has you or a party member engaged. I'd much rather have it that way. I'm all against making everything easy mode, but sometimes you just have to concede a little to get something that works better. Other wise you have a lot of great abilities sitting around that never get used (like XI's Aga spells that never saw action in xp parties unless you had a REALLY good camp, or a lot of AoE WSes. When was the last time you requested your DRK use Spinning Scythe?)

When you think about it though, in the end, there will be plenty of opportunities to get yourself killed from the over use of AoE moves just from things you've claimed. But due to the nature of leves and how essential it can be to use aoe moves to survive, I don't think any of us are going to miss hitting monsters we didn't have claimed. It's funny the first time or 2 when the mage forgets to toggle AoE off, but that wears off REALLY fast.

If you need to claim several surrounding monsters, then I'm sure you can have abilities that ignore the Claim on AoE. Think of it as you have some Abilities that are like Fafnir Spike Flail and others that are like Nidhogg Spike Flail) That solves several problems. Or you could do it the old fashion way of using your single target move on every monster you want to claim, and then change to aoe.


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Summary: A lot of the problems are left over and unfixed things since Alpha.

A lack of a clear explanation or discernible method of grinding caused issues for even trying to party and made party v party battles impossible, especially with mob distributions

Monsters were never balanced to accommodate for party play. There should have monsters dedicated for party play, and monsters dedicated to solo play (IE, parties fight Malboros, crabs, Gnats, soloers fight goats, chigoes, and raptors)

Mob AI and placement in leves really hinders AoE moves

AoE moves should be rebalanced so as no to hit any non-target. Mages and non-tanks will still find ways to pill enmity from about 5 or 6 and get themselves killed even without adding new targets into the mix.

[Arcell]

How about this? In leves, quests and behests you can only claim/hurt/kill target monsters. You can claim more than one group, as long as they are objective targets. Outside of those circumstances, keep the current claiming system.