Question On HNM's

[Shipp]

No, you're painting a very limited "larger picture" and are thus arguing a false dichotomy.

Remember how it was handled in FFXI with rare/ex items? They put rare/ex versions of items (Emperor Hairpin, etc) on the world mobs and placed the non rare/ex versions as possible rewards in BCNMs. Both had the same stats. Both required effort to obtain, both did not have a 100% chance of dropping. No one was "forced" to camp NMs to get one.

Oh, I'm sorry. While you were camping the "HNM" Valk Emperor, I was on REAL HNMs like KB, Fafhogg, etc. Valk was not an HNM, nor was LL. Those changes happened after like 3-4 years, also. Before those changes, you HAD to camp the NM, and you were considered gimp if you didn't have those items on certain jobs. So yes, if you wanted to play a certain class and actually fight against real kings, you were FORCED to camp certain NMs. I was forced to camp the moldy earring for BLM.

I stated already in this thread that comparable pieces of gear could drop from two different sources, each with a unique look, etc to at least set it apart from the other. Those who'd prefer instanced HNM battles, such as a hyper Ifrit type battle, would have that option. Those who'd prefer to chase down, camp and compete over world-spawn HNMs would have the option.

The only reason some people prefer the world HNMs on ridiculous spawns at all was because of the rivalry. Linkshells would get together and you'd have entertaining drama, MPK, etc. That was the only thing that was entertaining to me about the whole thing. Fighting those monsters was not hard, just time consuming, and the claim came down to who in the zone had the best bot and best latency. That's not challenging at all. It gave you a reason to see and become involved with your server's endgame community. Very few people actually like the spawn mechanics. I liked going to HNMs, but it wasn't because of the HNM itself, it was because of the interactions there. If you offer an instanced version along with a world spawn on a stupidly long timer, the majority of people will do the instance because it is faster. When the majority of people do the instance, only the minority is left camping the spawn. Yeah... so far sitting there waiting for a spawn with absolutely no competition for a fight that you could have just gone into an instance to fight anyway.

That's not a "False dichotomy," it's the reality of the situation and you can see this in XI when they finally started adding some of the HNM drops to KS90 and some of the ToAU stuff. I walked to KB's and Tiamat's area one day and they were both just sitting up. King Behemoth just sitting there and the only other person in the zone was an AFK'd Japanese guy who was likely asleep. Before the materials for crafting and the gear dropped from other areas that were more accessible, it would have been a cold day in Hell before King Behemoth was just chilling out and walking around the snow.

This way you, as the person doing the instanced HNM fight, and the person hunting the world-spawn HNM both have a difficult task to overcome to obtain the item. The item can have a lower drop rate, thus insuring that it remains a rare item, and not one that everyone and their uncle can obtain within a few days of it being implemented.

Abysmally low drop rates for "necessary" gear (Necessary as in the playerbase thinks you should have it), no thank you. Stuff like Dynamis Lord drops, I agree with. Regular endgame bosses, no. Nothing like getting a fire crystal from Tiamat after an hour of fighting!

I really don't know if some people here simply don't realize that there are other options to make both camps happy so neither one has to be excluded... or if they're deliberately ignoring that there are other options, simply because the idea of others enjoying content they don't like is unacceptable to them.

I notice a trend with you. You seem to make these false assumptions about what people find fun based on what they are arguing. I stated I liked HNMs. I would do it again, though never an all the time thing like I did in XI. However I also can see that there really is no happy medium in this situation, not because of my personal wants, but because of logic and the previous example of what happened to XI after HNMs after world spawns weren't the only source for a lot of those items anymore.

Look at WoW as another example if you think this is only exclusive to XI. When given a choice between 10 or 25 man raids (of the exact same raid), most players choose the 10 man raid over the 25 man. Why is this? Because it's easier to organize and it's just more convenient than having to shout for 24 other people instead of 9. The time vs. reward ratio is better for 10 mans than 25 mans, unless you're in a guild which is doing 25mans. Even a lot of guilds separate into two or three raids and do 10 mans instead of all going for the 25 mans instead.

Most people will gravitate towards that which is faster to accomplish.

If everyone's playing the same game, buying the same box and paying the same sub fee, then there's absolutely no reason for the non-instanced HNM camp to have to "go without", just as there's no reason for the instanced HNM camp to go without.

They could add HNMs with equal gear as instanced counter-parts. I don't mind. Maybe then people will realize that 90% of the player base isn't going to be camping HNMs like they did in XI.

There are people who do enjoy camping HNMs, successfully judging its spawn time, beating the competition to the claim and getting the drop. There is absolutely no good reason why those people can't have that kind of content if they enjoy it, simply because some people "don't like camping NMs". As long as there's an equal option available to both types of players, there should be no argument from either side.

Separate but equal never works. If world HNMs have superior rewards, people will feel forced into camping like XI. If they rewards are equal to that of the instanced version, most people are going to do that instead. I enjoyed HNM camping due to the linkshell drama and people stealing HNMs if they went unclaimed. Purely from a spectator standpoint. I did not care much for the actual camping of HNMs, the rampant botting, waiting for 3 hours in the Tree, etc.

Instead of thinking in binary terms of "one or the other" so only one camp is happy, how about more people start thinking in terms of how things can be done to include "one and the other" so both camps are happy?

Because it simply doesn't work in all situations. Ask your people who like camping HNMs what they liked about it. Then ask them what they didn't like. I guarantee botting and "stupid spawn timers" will be in the second list. You seem to be under the impression that people liked it for reasons opposite of why they actually liked it. If that was the case, world HNMs would have remained the popular choice instead of going to an instance to get the same item. Hardcore HNM campers who love every aspect of it and think it was perfect the way it was are the very vocal minority. That's wasted development time on aspects that will only be utilized by a small percent of the player base.

To be clear, since there are a lot of people in this thread thinking solely in terms of "Nope. I don't like it, so it shouldn't be in the game"... I didn't enjoy camping those HNMs for long hours either. In 7+ years of playing, I rarely ever even tried. Why? Because it was boring and I just never found it to be appealing to me. However, I knew plenty of people who loved doing that and genuinely enjoyed it.

I don't know one person who genuinely enjoyed camping HNMs for the actual camping. I do know people, like myself, who enjoyed it for the hilarious moments and the, "OH CRAP" factor when you saw someone training spiders to you, or the mob went unclaimed for just a second and you saw the other linkshell ported to jail when KB was at 10%, or when people speedhacked Tiamat to the zone line and the GM is completely oblivious to what the shell is doing. All of these were the funny moments that made camping HNMs worthwhile to me, and nearly everyone I know who enjoyed HNMs. We didn't care for sitting around for 3 hours before seeing a single sign of a monster.

I still think it would be a good idea to have them in as an option. Why? Because there are people who did enjoy camping the rare spawns, competing for the claim, the chance of getting the drop, etc. And, unlike many others around here (and in the MMO genre in general), I don't believe that my personal likes or dislikes should be a mandate for what content others do or don't get to enjoy.

I don't feel my personal likes or dislikes should be a mandate either.

Maybe I was just brought up in a different time, or with different values instilled in me. Maybe I just think differently, but I just cannot relate to something so selfish and self-centered as believing that others shouldn't have access to content they'd enjoy simply because I don't like it.

It's not that. It's that I have a hard time believing people genuinely enjoyed the -camping- aspect of HNM camping.

Now, say HNMs make a come-back but they spawn exactly 21 hours after they were killed last time, no stupid 3 hours window for them to possibly spawn at 30 minute intervals. I would be completely find with that. OP was asking more along the lines of how it worked in XI, which I'm completely opposed to. The spawn time is when most of the linkshell interactions happened anyway. If everyone knew that the HNM was spawning at exactly 3:00 pm, that would be a lot better than, "Oh, maybe 3:00, or 3:30, or 4:00, or 4:30..." etc.

However even this still begins to push people to bot.

[Preypacer]

- folks can read your post if they want to see everything you said -

Not going to respond to each point individually, because at the end of it, what you're basically doing is arguing against people having another option of how to obtain items, for no other reason than:

1) You were doing "real HNMs" while people were doing Valkurm Emperor - I have no idea how that's relevant at all to the conversation and, frankly, seems like gratuitous ego-stroking on your part. What you were camping or when has absolutely zero relevance to this discussion, or the suggestion I've put forth. How the drops were handled on the HNMs you fought back when you fought them is not the kind of system I'm suggesting.

2) You don't enjoy aspects of it yourself - You are not, nor do you represent everybody.

3) You don't know anyone who "genuinely enjoyed it" - Irrelevant. You do not know nor represent the preferences of every player on every server.

4) You can't imagine anyone enjoying the camping aspect of it - That's called an Appeal To Incredulity. It's a logical fallacy, not a valid counter-argument. That you can't imagine there's anyone who would enjoy it has no bearing on the fact that there are.

So your entire argument is based around what you personally like or dislike, what you presume others like or don't like, and whether or not you can believe someone would like something you don't like.

The thing is.. people have stated - right in these forums - that they'd like to have that kind of content in the game. A few people I've spoken to in-game have noted that they'd like to have that kind of content in the game.

Even if they only accounted for 20% of the population, that's still 20% of the population who would have the option to partake in content they enjoy.

I absolutely can not understand what you would have against that... beyond not wanting content to be in the game unless you like it personally.

As for 1-to-1 matches hardly ever happening in rare drops...Whether or not you were fighting HNMs while others were fighting NMs, or when you were fighting them is, again, completely irrelevant to the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that a system such as that used for regular NM drops could also be implemented in XIV to the same effect - giving people the option of how they prefer to obtain a certain item which would have the same stats no matter how it's obtained.

A person with an Emperor Hairpin was statistically no better or worse off than someone with an Empress Hairpin. Outside the rare/ex status, they're identical. The only difference is how the item was obtained and that people had the option of how they preferred to get one for them self.

Despite your best efforts to paint yourself otherwise, despite all your rationalizations, your overall stance fits you squarely into the category of people I speak out against regularly... those who feel that because they don't like something, that it shouldn't exist - even if they have the option not to do it.

Edit: Just saw this post by you, Shipp, and it was so perfect that I just had to edit it in.. Consider it a reminder for you to not be a hypocrite, delivered in your own words.

[Amage]

If stuff is on a 24hour window like XI HNMs it won't be A-OK. The gear would have to be comparable to that of the 15 minute NMs. If it's stronger, then there is no point in having the 15 minute NMs. If it's the same strength as the gear from 15 minute NMs, nobody will do it.

People are missing that larger picture.

People dont understand the 5 min repopp nm's like daddy longlegs is geard more to 30's job ppl
other nm's that flying eye thing is all mats
hnm's im talking about would drop gear like 5min pops and have higher rewards for beating a difficult hnm w/ titles given just saying this game is lacking this where people only socialize with there respected linkshell mates and never wonder off
when i did kings and sky i have meet many long time friends and many others in game friends now a days people want to gather many ls's to kill something . the mentality is with this game is every shell have main of 8 ppl and when big stuff comes out ppl ally with other shells to kill it , then here you go the drama on that random drop loot or 1st pt action gets everything everyone else screwed

[Xatsh]

Game needs real NMs, the 5min spawns might have the ??? on them but they are no different then normal really.

I say add the 2-4 days spawns and add instance versions of them as well. So you have a choice you can camp them and be in direct competition or you can just do something like einherjar where you can do them with your ls only and avoid all competition and get the exact same things. Or you can do both and have 5xs as many opportunities but 4 of them you are going to have to get a lucky claim.

Add both make both groups happy, win win.

[Abauge_Goga]

OP,
I played FFXI and camped HNM's for hours. I got some and lost too many to botters, but that is not the point here.

I agree there has to be some competition amongst LS's, and you will probably have that with PvP. I don't think we should camp it for 6 hours and not get claim. That is not fun.

SE needs to implement the same system they had in FFXI or something better. You will still have competition amongst players on who has the best gear, first kill, etc. The hardcore people will easily distance themselves from the casual ones in time.

[Royal]

Please no multi day spawns. Those suck.

[Travesty]

I think a lot of the problems with the big HNMs in XI could be fixed by just making them spawn in random places, making them non-agressive, and not making the drops quite so valuable. That would end the botting issues, and personally, I think it would be pretty sweet to see something like Jormungand strolling by Black Brush.

[AdvancedWind]

ITT: People who believe botting contests and RNG are "hardcore".

[Jinko]

Hate FF11 style HNM spawns, I never wana see that in FFXIV.

Do that Yoshi-boy and I will leave :P

[Drako]

I think a HNM system could work. IDK how you guys would feel about this. But with the current claiming system they could change it so anyone that is battling HNMs will get rewards. That way everyone is excited about the event. Then the original group that did the claim, possibly give them a bonus, but insure everyone could get rewarded? That would be kinda cool imo. That way you still have a competitive atmosphere to get that bonus, but still wont be completely burned for the next 24-72 hrs. Before they changed XI(not that it really matters anymore to me) i was in a ls that was down right dedicated to getting that claim, but we weren't a LS that used bots so that amounted to like maybe one claim every 8 months or worse... It was pretty painful to experience after awhile.