Highly Notorious Monsters

[Xionraserei]

Exn I love your post and I agree.

[Cichy]

Yeah and a group without bots could come in and just claim a Fafnir Yay! No one would try to steal their claim or mpk them. They had fun!
You might be the most delusional and ignorant person in this thread yet.
You said you got plenty of claims, that means your linkshell botted, and your gear was obtained through bots.
Dont act like such a saint.
Every HNM linkshell that successfully claimed HNMs botted. Period.

[Abhayaa]

Every HNM linkshell that successfully claimed HNMs botted. Period.

....
xD
Spoken like a true botter.

At any rate, here's an idea. Toss in a big hnm who's spawn is completely random. Could take 45 minutes, could take two weeks. Safeguards against holding. Similar to tiamat, but more random.

[Firon]

Yeah and a group without bots could come in and just claim a Fafnir Yay! No one would try to steal their claim or mpk them. They had fun!
You might be the most delusional and ignorant person in this thread yet.
You said you got plenty of claims, that means your linkshell botted, and your gear was obtained through bots.
Dont act like such a saint.
Every HNM linkshell that successfully claimed HNMs botted. Period.

I must have had some kind of amazing ps2 to bot and get all the claims i got...

[Abhayaa]

Also, I think I should add this. I helped lead an endgame LS for around a year. Sometimes we'd do sky, sometimes we'd do sea, sometimes we'd do HNM (sometimes we claimed them). We never felt any huge loss when we lost claim on an HNM or something, because our enjoyment of the game didn't depend on a certain piece of gear. Our ability to work cohesively as a group made far more difference than one paladin having a defending ring. Thus the content was completely optional. A similar level of satisfaction could be brought by force pop NMs. Personally, sky and sea were my all time favorites. This doesn't mean I didn't have a lot of fun, especially with lower level HNM like Roc or Simurgh. Sitting there 3 hours was not the most fun, as most of us agree, so we've proposed sufficient measures to fix this. Like OP said though, this doesn't mean we shouldn't keep a couple of long windows around.

The simple fact is that all content is optional. Even in XI, if an HNM dropped the best piece of gear I could have, I didn't feel like I was missing out just because I had to have AF2 instead of dalmatica (or whatever, I can't remember which was better). Similar yet different levels of "eliteness" could be achieved in XI whether you chose force pop, instance, or open world. I would like the same to be true of XIV. I would also like to address the grievances people have with XI's system in order to achieve the maximum level of support. But in the end, as everyone's said, the best way to do this is variety.

All content is OPTIONAL. If you feel like it's not, you need to take a deep breath and turn your computer off for a day.

[Richard_BG]

All content is OPTIONAL. If you feel like it's not, you need to take a deep breath and turn your computer off for a day.

QFT

lolpeoplearegoingtoragesohard

...and even if you MUST occupy yourself will content, there should be enough varied content in the game that will keep you and everyone of other mindsets happy.

[Alhanelem]

I was loving even days like these:
POP!
....
NOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
Missed Nidd AGAIN!!
....
PlzWipePlzWipePlz
....
OMG! OMG! OMG! SW POP La'Theine Plateau [S]!!! GO! GO! GO!
Screw Nidd, everyone GO GO GO!
....
GDI!! Already Claimed...
....
BOOO!!!!!
OK (Gather together)(Einherjar) - Odin - 15(Minute)!

Having your plans ruined and having to constantly fall back onto other things? You actually found that fun?

[Coglin]

Having your plans ruined and having to constantly fall back onto other things? You actually found that fun?

If you actually go there "planning" to get a claim your goals are a little shortsightedly unintelligent. Is unintelligently foolish enough to assume folkes literally "planned" on getting the claim fun?

[Abhayaa]

Having your plans ruined and having to constantly fall back onto other things? You actually found that fun?

To some extent, I actually do. A little bit of salt makes the sugar sweeter. Adapting to any given situation can often be more rewarding than having your plan go off without a hitch.

XIV NMs right now, for example, are all sugar. You go there, you kill it. If you don't get the drop you wait 5 minutes and try again. What's the fun in that? The lack of effort diminishes the reward.

[Xoo]

To some extent, I actually do. A little bit of salt makes the sugar sweeter. Adapting to any given situation can often be more rewarding than having your plan go off without a hitch.

XIV NMs right now, for example, are all sugar. You go there, you kill it. If you don't get the drop you wait 5 minutes and try again. What's the fun in that? The lack of effort diminishes the reward.

And if the gear's stats actually shown through in a way you could really tell a difference.