Highly Notorious Monsters

[SodRansom]

I love the idea of HNMs but they are inherently problematic:

HNMs that drop great/the best gear mean that there will be a great demand people will want that gear :-

- If the gear(s) are tradeable/sellable then RMT will want a piece of the action.
- If the gear(s) are rare/ex people will still want them. HNM Linkshells will try to monopolise the claims.

The problem with FFXI HNMs (namely the Land 'Kings') was the overbearingly long timers 24~72 hours.
- This meant that RMT would camp 24/7 with bots to claim
- HNM LSs would use bots to claim, or monopolise with secretive kill times/pop slots.
- The 20~24/68~72 hour pops would mean that the pop window would remain in an often unrealistic slot for your time zone. i.e. it may fall into a 3AM-7AM time, when you just couldn't play, and stay there for several windows. Ultimately making the practical pop time for you to be more like once or twice per month.

~ Ultimately these factors diminish the opportunity for the majority of players to experience this content. ~

You know, I thought HNM's with a 24-72 hour spawn time were awesome. It made them so rare, that if you were around when they popped even seeing them gave them a mystique that was exciting even if you weren't in the fight. Granted, its frustrating to compete with bots and such, but I always looked at that like it was just a fact of life. It made it that much sweeter when you did beat them out.

Lessons learnt from FFXI was to make the sellable drops from NMs and HNMs drop from instanced content
- Example: Leaping Lizzy = moved Leaping boots in BCNMs and Bounding Boots (RR/EX) drop from her. This reduced the incentive for RMT (or opportunist players) to constantly camp the same NM/HNM over and over.

Totally agree with you here.

Lesson yet to be learnt from FFXI is to reduce the spawn timers!
(Granted they have made many kings force spawn, and they are not longer in as much demand... but the point still stands. e.g. Argus)

Nuwai. Why do we want to do that? To make it more easy and accessible? No thanks. In fact, I hope that the lesson they take from ffxi was that their nm spawn system was great! I feel like every MMO coming out nowadays is all about making the game less of a challenge. I LOVED waiting for a nm that only popped every few hours. Even though it was frustrating when you didn't get the claim, there was so much excitement in that one moment where you saw him pop! If you make nm's pop every few minutes, where is the thrill? Now, of course there's room for variety here. There's nothing wrong with having some nm's spawn every 5 min. But then why not have some that are longer, and then some that are even longer? Even to the point of some being at 24 hours. Making every regular nm spawn at 5 min just makes them all so common, and there's no excitement when you're camping it.

So why drop the respawn timers of HNMs for "Great/Best" gear?
(NB:: I am NOT suggesting a 5 minute respawn for HNMS!)

I suggest then (as also mentioned up above somewhere), that any HNMs implemented are on a much smaller timer, like 6 hours. While this may not stop HNM Linkshells trying to monopolising drops, it would at least increase the opportunity of other players to be able to enjoy the content of an HNM fight, and the possibility of their spoils, without having to wait for a once a month opportunity to even claim it. Watching the fight from the side is not even half as much fun.

You know, what I liked about ffxi was that there were several tiers in the quality of gear, and their availability. There was gear that was easy to get, gear that was almost impossible to get, and several layers in between. I always viewed the gear that dropped from HNM's as the gear that was almost impossible to get. Because of that, when you did get it, the sense of accomplishment was that much greater. So I'm a fan of having SOME HNM's have a 24-72 hour spawn window. It doesn't have to be all of them.

There's definitely a trade off. And that's one thing that endeared myself and a lot of my friends to ffxi. Sure it was a challenge, and sure it was hard, but the range of emotions from completing content was so high! And that's what made me stick around. I feel like a lot of the time people are clamoring to reduce the amount of frustration that can come from a game, but they forget that for a lot of these things, the level of frustration has a counterpart in accomplishment. The harder it is to get, the better it is when you get it.

tldr:
- Let's keep the spawn timers of regular nms to be varied, ranging from 5 min and up, even up to 24 hours.
- Yes, let's make quality items that drop from hnm's rare/ex
- Let's keep at least some of the HNM spawn timers to 24-72 hours.
- the harder something is to get, the better it is when you get it.

[Xatsh]

The person who does the most dmg/get the highest score (combination of healing, dmg, enfeebling) is what SE did in Walk of Echos in FFXI. It was the absolute worst looting system ever developed.

It screwed over anyone who was not a hybrid class, it made people play their jobs as if they were soloing not acting as a party unit. It was pretty much unanimously rejected by the WHOLE ffxi game community and people actully quit doing the event.

In this system a say solo PLD could come up to a party fighting it and just spam dmg, cures, and not worry about actully tanking and end up getting the drop. Horrid system.

Lets hope this is not how it works.

Trust me dealing with RMT is better then supporting this system. It just does not work at all.

[Shougun]

The person who does the most dmg/get the highest score (combination of healing, dmg, enfeebling) is what SE did in Walk of Echos in FFXI. It was the absolute worst looting system ever developed.

It screwed over anyone who was not a hybrid class, it made people play their jobs as if they were soloing not acting as a party unit. It was pretty much unanimously rejected by the WHOLE ffxi game community and people actully quit doing the event.

In this system a say solo PLD could come up to a party fighting it and just spam dmg, cures, and not worry about actully tanking and end up getting the drop. Horrid system.

Lets hope this is not how it works.

Trust me dealing with RMT is better then supporting this system. It just does not work at all.

SE is famous for implementing overly simplified systems though (imo).. I'm not saying that this tally system cant be a problem - but that it can also not be.

If people are asking for competition then a system of tallying and contribution is far more competitive and a better form then the milisecond it takes to claim the monster.

To design a system that semi-intelligently tallys people would take a while though, because you would have to create dynamic calculations and not just "1 damage = 1 point".

Otherwise if you introduce a system where everyone can contribute but no pressure to do well then there will be a bunch of free loaders. Designing bosses to occasional smash free loaders could be another funny mechanic.. lol

Edit: AttackKat apparently said Yoshida talked about a similar system for claims in the first place.. So maybe I dont even need to mention this if Yoshida is already thinking about this stuff lol

Perhaps a part of the point system can be claiming (for lesser nms and monsters) - if you get the first hit / claim then you get a bonus amount to you or your party. That way its less likely a group of people come by and fully steal your monster (like if you were a red mage trying to solo a monster and a group of black mages come in and penta nuke him - you'd still enough points to matter for some loot). I think for the big ass NMs though that claiming really shouldnt be a part of the contribution ranking - since the fight is so long your .1 second is like .0000000000001% of the actual fight.


Furthermore you could make the point system relatively competition free - just use it to make sure players actively took part in the battle and then loot rewards are independent of whatever points earned. You could also use the points for achievements. Like a "hamlet" of HNMS (score tally board at the end) "knock off tail +100 points, x y z and earn 100000 points on nidhog to get this special achievement title and item". Can make the points a total rather then all at once event so return visits to HNMs encouraged.

[AttacKat]

...It was the absolute worst looting system ever developed. ... It screwed over anyone who was not a hybrid class ... a say solo PLD could come up to a party fighting it and just spam dmg, cures ...

It seems to me this is a class(es) imbalance issue, rather then a claim system that cannot work.

Current claim system does not work either, or else threads like this wouldn't have existed in the first place. In addition, by moving to a DPS system (with proper class balancing, or whatever else necessary), you also address the PL'ing issue.

So a new claim system may be addressing more issues then we are focusing on: imbalance/loot/exp pts/PL'ing.

jc

[Monkor]

My thoughts:

Make the system set up where word is sent to the cities and a nearby NPC to where the HNM spawns. There will be criers in town shouting that a monster was spotted at X location. You enlist with the NPC and go to fight it.

The HNM would need to be strong enough that a many groups of people would be required to kill it. When the NM is defeated, the nations defenders or maybe the GC for that region take control of the site.

After a period of time, you get a parcel in the mail, stating that they found a stash of loot on the monster or in its lair, and here's your cut. Items, gil, gear, whatever the HNM stashes, has a chance of dropping to you provided you contributed to the kill. This could be set to a threshold, where only the most active people have a chance at the good loot, so someone who tags the mob with one ability and goes AFK will get little in reward.

This would keep the players happy, as everyone can contribute, and a large number are needed to contribute to make it happen. It would prevent groups from monopolizing the HNMs, which was a huge issue in XI. If they want, they can still keep the drop rates on the best gear at a low chance, to make it worthwhile to keep fighting them, which is why the HNM system works in the first place.

[Blackpearlguy]

First to briefly reflect on FFXI, it was at it's peak when it had NM/HNM and max competition/drama. However a lot of people don't enjoy that.

The way the system in 1.xx worked was really lame in terms of the competition factor. I always thought instanced would be good but it really leads to overall lack of interaction between different linkshells. It would be nice if every HNM was 21-24 but you could also do it once every 10 days through an NPC in the area. Just a thought but i'm happy to hear it will be back regardless. The change in the claiming system is either going to be awesome or just a disaster imo.

[Alhanelem]

I don't mind HNMs at all as long as they don't take days to pop, and make you sit around for hours due to lengthy "windows."

[Blackpearlguy]

I don't mind HNMs at all as long as they don't take days to pop, and make you sit around for hours due to lengthy "windows."

I didn't mind the window so much as how long it was. If the window was say only 30 minutes it would get pretty intense. Combine that with a claiming method that people feel is fair (if there is such a thing) and it would create that awesome atmosphere of competitiveness between linkshells.

Keep in mind I also think that alternatively there should be a 7 or 14 day system in place where you can fight the same HNM in an instanced setting. That way your linkshell is guaranteed to fight the HNM regardless of window/claim once every week/two weeks. I hope difficulty and strategy make every LS think twice before entering an instance (no soloable/oudated NM content moving forward long term)

edit; grammar fail

[Alhanelem]

I didn't mind the window so much as how long it was. If the window was say only 30 minutes it would get pretty intense.

The windows in XI were usually 30 minutes. Too long considering there were 6 of them and like 90% of the time they spawned on the last one anyway. Do you really want to sit around and do nothing for 2-3 hours?

I also like the idea of an alternate means to fight, just so long as you can get the same rewards.

[SodRansom]

The windows in XI were usually 30 minutes. Too long considering there were 6 of them and like 90% of the time they spawned on the last one anyway. Do you really want to sit around and do nothing for 2-3 hours

Two points. a) you wouldn't be doing that if you didn't know the last spawn time, and b) the thrill of claiming a nm that has a longer spawn window is very exciting.

Please let's not just make the spawn time of all of these nm's super narrow. That's fine for some, but not all. NM's with a narrow window turn into commonplace mobs that offer no thrill of the hunt at all. You don't get claim? That's fine because you know it's spawning in 5 minutes. The stakes are so low. When you raise the time in between spawns, the stakes go up, and with that go the level of excitement, and frustration. But I'd rather have extreme highs and deep lows than just middle of the road all the time. Middle of the road is boring.