Highly Notorious Monsters

[Xatsh]

100% drop rates and Lock out times sorta defeat the purpose of hnms. It makes it where after say 5-6 weeks since put into the game it will just be walking around, everyone will have the gear besides new ppl.

I say have one or the other I guess. week lock outs without the 100% drop rate of good gear. Or no lock out and 100% drop rates.

If the nm is fast spawning (everything in XIV 1.0) I say add neither, just make the item rare/ex to prevent people camping it with the intent to sell.

Real HNMs should give you that butterfly in the stomach feel when you claim, the rush you get is one of the reasons why people did it so much in XI. Every fafnir claim even the 100th+ one I had the feeling never 100% went away. Everything should be done to prevent the HNM from just being another mob.

I would love to see something like this involving nms: 1 being really casual, 5 being hardcore (Not casual friendly at all)

1) Fate (really casual based, anyone around can help and get their own drop pools/tokens/points to get stuff. See GW2)

2) Force spawns (Casual based, no competition on claims trigger spawn mobs. Some can be 100% drops sorta like OHat in XI. No waiting or cooldowns. Some solo, some small group, some party)

3) Short spawning Nms (Sorta casual, SEE XIV 1.0. Drop rate was crap but the mob was up near 100% of the time)

4) in the middle spawns (Mid Tier no other way to describe it. Some waiting/Loto spawn the middle ground. Soloable/small group nms that require some searching to find. Can also be based on things like weather/in-game time/certain events)

5) Hardcore (Long spawn windows, requires party/alliance to kill, drops some of the best gear you can get, gear also found in other instanced endgame events.)

The amount of each should also scale. Make the casual style ones be more heavy since that will be the majority of the playerbase. so say 60-40-30-20-5. So 130 more casual nms, 20 sorta casual, 5 hardcore).

Trust me throwing the hardcores a bone will help this games sub count quite alot, because it will give those who want that (cannot no longer be found in newer mmos) a game to play. Even minor amounts of hardcore content will work in this day in age.

[Exn]

good stuff.

I like your idea of adding a duplicate item from your hardcore group in other instanced endgame events. That seems like it would be a way to appeal to those in this thread that don't like that system. It may be hard to balance an instanced event equally with an open world claimable HNM. Otherwise everyone may disregard one or the other for simply the easiest route. There could be a variant between the two, like a different design or glow, or if they can't balance the content, offer a +1 for whichever was designed to be more challenging to obtain.

[Nadrojj]

100% drop rates and Lock out times sorta defeat the purpose of hnms. It makes it where after say 5-6 weeks since put into the game it will just be walking around, everyone will have the gear besides new ppl.

I say have one or the other I guess. week lock outs without the 100% drop rate of good gear. Or no lock out and 100% drop rates.

If the nm is fast spawning (everything in XIV 1.0) I say add neither, just make the item rare/ex to prevent people camping it with the intent to sell.

Real HNMs should give you that butterfly in the stomach feel when you claim, the rush you get is one of the reasons why people did it so much in XI. Every fafnir claim even the 100th+ one I had the feeling never 100% went away. Everything should be done to prevent the HNM from just being another mob.

I would love to see something like this involving nms: 1 being really casual, 5 being hardcore (Not casual friendly at all)

1) Fate (really casual based, anyone around can help and get their own drop pools/tokens/points to get stuff. See GW2)

2) Force spawns (Casual based, no competition on claims trigger spawn mobs. Some can be 100% drops sorta like OHat in XI. No waiting or cooldowns. Some solo, some small group, some party)

3) Short spawning Nms (Sorta casual, SEE XIV 1.0. Drop rate was crap but the mob was up near 100% of the time)

4) in the middle spawns (Mid Tier no other way to describe it. Some waiting/Loto spawn the middle ground. Soloable/small group nms that require some searching to find. Can also be based on things like weather/in-game time/certain events)

5) Hardcore (Long spawn windows, requires party/alliance to kill, drops some of the best gear you can get, gear also found in other instanced endgame events.)

The amount of each should also scale. Make the casual style ones be more heavy since that will be the majority of the playerbase. so say 60-40-30-20-5. So 130 more casual nms, 20 sorta casual, 5 hardcore).

Trust me throwing the hardcores a bone will help this games sub count quite alot, because it will give those who want that (cannot no longer be found in newer mmos) a game to play. Even minor amounts of hardcore content will work in this day in age.

I'm not against the hardcore type you just mentioned. I too got that feeling, even when we claimed Aspid because i knew there was a chance one of our mages was going to be happy that day. I just don't want what they did in 11 making it a bot war. If you didn't have a bot, or the best bot you weren't going to fight it. I'm ok with low drop rates, because at least there is a chance, if you can't claim it then there is a 0% chance of getting loot. I know the usual blah blah don't suck or get a bot and stop whining talk, but there has got to be a better way. The only reason I even came up with the spawn conditions I did in a previous post was to try to get everyone a fair shot at a monster, if you can't kill it you can't kill it but at least you get a shot at it. I know a few people in ffxi that weren't in my shell that never fought nidhogg, never fought KB because they were in shells that didn't bot. They never got that feeling you described of possibly a d. ring or a ebody dropping. Everyone should get a chance at that feeling you described.

[Myono_Mhigo]

I totally agree with Nadrojj. I'm one of those who never got to HNM's in XI, atleast not the ones your referring to. Fafnir, never seen it. Not that I didn't try, but EVERY HNM LS on XI didn't just ask if you bot but REQUIRED it. I applied many times on multiple servers and everytime, denied. Why? would not/could not bot. I loved the "idea" of HNMs but the application left many out of the loop.

[Queezy]

I'm not against the hardcore type you just mentioned. I too got that feeling, even when we claimed Aspid because i knew there was a chance one of our mages was going to be happy that day. I just don't want what they did in 11 making it a bot war. If you didn't have a bot, or the best bot you weren't going to fight it. I'm ok with low drop rates, because at least there is a chance, if you can't claim it then there is a 0% chance of getting loot. I know the usual blah blah don't suck or get a bot and stop whining talk, but there has got to be a better way. The only reason I even came up with the spawn conditions I did in a previous post was to try to get everyone a fair shot at a monster, if you can't kill it you can't kill it but at least you get a shot at it. I know a few people in ffxi that weren't in my shell that never fought nidhogg, never fought KB because they were in shells that didn't bot. They never got that feeling you described of possibly a d. ring or a ebody dropping. Everyone should get a chance at that feeling you described.

honestly the easiest way to combat botting in an HNM situation is to make the mob have mechanics like that of Dark Ixion or Sandworm in FFXI. They had random(well kinda random) spawn conditons where they even changed actual zones every spawn. Yes bots still worked with those but if you didnt have a competent LS you still were not going to claim it. I would say build on those mechanics making them more random as in no patterns at all or at least enough patterns that it wont repeat for at least a week.

For people who did not play XI i will summarize how Sandworm and DI generally worked:

Sandworm: Could spawn in iirc 9 different zones with about 2-3 different areas in each zone. The zone of spawn was usually to large for one person to be able to stand still and notice the spawn so you had to run around searching. It also had no window intervals like that of Fafnir/Behe.. meaning it could spawn at anytime of the random spawn period which was 20-24 hours.

Dark Ixion: pretty much works the same except if there was a campaign (major NPC battle event; kinda like behest) it would run out of the zone and into another zone where no battle is taking place. Yo also needed a special throwing item to even claim it. Once claimed it pretty much killed anyone solo unless you were extremely skilled and geared.. honestly there was no one who could claim it and hold it for more then about 15-30s other then the best geared Paladins.

I think the way those mobs work are the best way to implement HNMs into FFXIV with more tweaking and building on the mechanics to fit the game and make it more fair.

The simple fact is that no matter what a developer does there will always be a bot. and i think people blame the devs way to much thinking they are not doing their job when its not the case. If a game uses a mouse and keyboard AT ALL to input commands there will be a bot always. no if ands or buts because a bot simply presses keys for u. So instead of saying no to HNM's period because of bot wars just use mechanics that aren't able to be predicted.

Also if the FFXI HNM ways dont fit the playerbase make it something like this :

-Said HNM has a domain where he rules
-The domain is NOT instanced but rather have it where u need special qualifications to enter you group whether it be quest or farming tokens ( like headresses for Garuda in 1.0)
- The domain is a VERY hard place to navigate and get through meaning mobs are hard.. mini bosses are present before you get to the main boss.
-The Main HNM boss can move to anywhere in its domain.. its kinda dumb to call something Behemoths dominion and he only pops in the same spot every time not much of a dominion.
-The HNM has a random respawn timer or lottery spawn like the mechanics of FFXI. Make the Respawn timer like 6 hours with a lottery spawn from killing the mini bosses and it can take up to 12 hours to spawn starting at 6 hours. Can adjust these numbers to 2-4 3-6 or whatever to fit the player base.
- The most important thing is to make this content difficult as to not make it outdated because of ease of access to the gear. Make it take at least 1-2 hours to even reach the HNM with a full alliance of people. (See. Dynamis Lord or Kirin from FFXI)

and thats my wall of text for HNMs

[Xatsh]

I totally agree with Nadrojj. I'm one of those who never got to HNM's in XI, atleast not the ones your referring to. Fafnir, never seen it. Not that I didn't try, but EVERY HNM LS on XI didn't just ask if you bot but REQUIRED it. I applied many times on multiple servers and everytime, denied. Why? would not/could not bot. I loved the "idea" of HNMs but the application left many out of the loop.

HNMs in XI were fundamentally flawed as it was impossible to stop bots. And HNM Shells more or less were forced to bot against each other. If 1 group did it you either watched them claim or compete against them on an equal level (Required you to break ToS and bot as well). If 1 shell got a $3,000+ packet bot another shell had to buy 1 to compete. It was a crazy cycle and clearly a poorly designed system that developed. (worked fine if there was no bots though).

If SE does add hnms, I hope it is in a way that the scenario you mentioned does not occur. The bots wars should be prevented in every way possible without removing the enjoyment of the event itself. Aka Bots are not a good reason to not add nm spawns or instance everything.

SE was getting really good ideas that made botting alot harder to do towards the end of the game (Considering Abysea the end of XI.. that sorta changed the whole game). They need to expand that more. I feel bots might not be able to be removed 100% but they can develop content to the level bots hardly add any higher chance of claiming.

[Blackpearlguy]

Not everybody in a HNM LS botted. I'm pretty sure you just had to be open to botting (meaning accept botting and don't GM your own LS members). If you were willing to bot, then +1 for your application.

Unless if you were playing on 360/PS2, stating "would not/could not bot" on your application just makes it sound like you were 100% against botting. Yes, that's fine since you're entitled to your own opinion. However, it certainly didn't help your application.

So much of this I know a guy who use to know a guy that was in a HNMLS who botted, however he did not, and he had more claims on his ps2!

Anyways I saw a post somewhere saying that Behemoth will be a FATE NM? Haven't been able to dig up any more details I just saw it in a post on BG with some other faq that has been proven true.

[Seraphe]

It's just a Behemoth, not the King of them. At least that's what I hope

[KiraHime]

Anyways I saw a post somewhere saying that Behemoth will be a FATE NM? Haven't been able to dig up any more details I just saw it in a post on BG with some other faq that has been proven true.

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post945001

^^

[Kryptic]

Obviously a lot of people hate the idea of HNMs but it's honestly some of the best experiences I ever had in FFXI. This is my outlook on it.

-Make it so that some of the gear you get from HNMs you can get in other places. Example Einharjar in ffxi and HNMs you can get the Adamant Hauberk etc from both.
So people who don't want to sit in an area for 3 hours at a time don't have to they can get the gear other ways. But people who are more dedicated to getting gear
and helping other people out have more of a chance to get the gear because they will go hunt the HNMs as well as do the dungeons. Reward those who put in the time.

-The skill factor, getting the people who know what they are doing, claiming it, setting up within a few seconds and getting in position is also extremely challenging and fun.
A lot of open world events never take a lot of skill, a lot of MMOs that have these you just go in zerg and watch random people die over and over.

-The satisfaction of getting a drop from a monster that spawns once a day is unmatchable. The NMs in FFXIV that spawn every 5 minutes are stupid and the most unrewarding thing
ever. I can see making some low level NMs that spawn every half hour or less but 5 minutes is pointless for higher level gear.

-48-72 hour spawn HNMs were a little to much I can see at least shortening it to 21-24 hours. I enjoyed it, though doesn't matter.

-I understand everyone thinks any time anyone gets claim they immediately botted. The shell I was in didn't bot(which I know you will all try to say I'm lying about)
and we beat most of the botters because they couldn't claim nidhogg with their bot they could only get fafnir. It's not impossible to beat the botters especially
if you get the timing down. People say "it spawned claimed" but after I upgraded my computer this is completely false. I began seeing every HNM unclaimed because my
computer can actually load it fast enough.


-It's an open world large group event which are hard to come by. Gathering an alliance of 12+ people and waiting for a Dragon to spawn is nerve wrecking. After camping HNMs
for 3+years I still got nervous during the windows.

-People always complain about MPK but they fixed that in FFXI by making it so the monster can't hurt other alliances as long as they don't have hate(excluding kings). Just copy this.

-How often are you standing in down waiting for events and crafting or just talking? It allows for more events to take place during "down time" for people who are restless
like me.

-Doing dungeons is great but it does get boring. It's nice to change it up!

A lot of the "hardcore players" want HNMs as well as the casual people who are into big boss battles. Imagine if in FFXI that Fafnir spawned every half hour, everyone would
be running around with ridills. It's what seperates elite players and people who want everything to easy.

-Everyone says use BCNM or KSNM just do them all! That's what made FFXI so good because there was so many things you could do. Why combine things when you can make
a ridiculous amount of content. I know people are gonna cry and complain and say "Oh you used bots you are a liar" and whatever else they want to say well you don't have
to believe me I know we never did. People who drop real money for in-game purposes are sad.


So keep in mind the people who will keep your game alive when everyone jumps ship when blizzard puts out some other garbage expansion, implement HNMs. This is my experience obviously and my opinions so take it for what it's worth.
You can never have enough content! The more gear the better, happy hunting!