Highly Notorious Monsters

[ThePatriarch]

Roaming Dragons.
Giant Beasts.
Amazing Gear.

First, I would like to thank everyone for their contributions, and constructive criticisms. I hope that we can continue to share ways to bring HNM/NM's into FFXIV in a manner that would appeal to the entirety of the playerabase, and not just a select elitist few. That being said, feel free to read the OP! We have some great suggestions from many players below.

I know everyone crys foul over copy+paste ideas from Final Fantasy XI (In this instance, Notorious Monsters). But lets be honest, Notorious Monsters was an aspect of FFXI that was beloved by many. The rush of getting claim over your enemy linkshells. Watching an awesome wipe. Seeing that ever-elusive item in the loot pool. So many amazing memories of great times.

This topic is about the possible implementation of non-instanced, highly notorious monsters to roam the open plains of Final Fantasy XIV.

Even further, this topic is not solely about "HNM's", we would like to see better small-time open world NM's. Possibly some Lottery Spawns, Trigger Spawned NM's, etc. Before you flame, please read the entirety of this post, as we do not want a pure copy+paste of XI's NM system (we want shortened timers, etc)

I would like ideas, opinions, etc; on how we can implement something of this nature that caters to all crowds. Lets hear it.

Dev Post:

We’ve been told that there are some very interesting ideas floating around the developer’s room for notorious monster spawn conditions in 2.0! Although, I cannot tell you what they have in store for you just yet (of course, right? ), I hope this information piques your interest.

There are a lot of great ideas in this thread so far, we would love to hear more of what you would like to see so that we can continue to share your ideas with the dev. team.

/edit

So far, it seems that the general agreement in this thread (sparing some nay-sayers), is that we would like to see HNM's come back, but without windows. No long camps.

- FFXIV needs to keep having instanced content like Cutter's Cry and Aurum Vale. (preferably with more challenging things than 5 chest speed runs)

- FFXIV needs to keep having BCNM/KSNM like Ifrit and Moogle. (preferably more variety though)

- FFXIV needs about 500 more minor NMs like Leaping Lizzy and Golden Bat. (preferably WITH GOOD DROPS THAT MEAN SOMETHING)

- FFXIV needs to have world HNM on a reasonable spawn timer. No not Uraeus or Buffalo. Those are (edited for language :P ). FFXIV needs REAL HNM like the Tiamats and the Dark Ixions and the Sand Worms and the Capricious Cassies (preferably the spawn conditions can be time/weather/place holder/ect based to rule out vokebots and claim wars)

- FFXIV needs to have large scale PvE content comparable to Vanilla WoW, Rift, Guild Wars 2, Tera ECT. (preferably something the entire server community can participate in - AND MAKE IT SCALEABLE)

FFXIV needs ALL of these things. ALL of them. Not one or the other. The content in the game needs to cater to all walks of MMO player. If SE can achieve this for 2.0 then I believe we have an AMAZING game on our hands.

There has been alot of speculation on how HNM's would be of a negative impact on Casual players. This is folly. Basing the fact that some players are not able to play at the capacity of other players, should not limit the amount on content being put into the game. Just off the sheer interest in this thread alone should show that a very large number of people are very interested in having HNM's come back.

Highly-Notorious-Monsters would bring a sense of excitement, and adventure to a barren, boring landscape which holds very little excitement.

HNM Implementation:

6, maybe 7.5, or 9 hour respawn?

True. My thought were that once it came into your prime time zone, it would stay there for a while. 7 or 9 hours or 8.5 might work better.

1 (one) 15 minute window (to reduce time spent at camps)
Very Large Spawn Area (TBD), to reduce chances of Botting.

Different pop Methods: Not all HNM need to be "Roaming (Open World)". We can have force pop/instanced HNM's as well

One thing I'd love is to have more dynamic HNMs. Maybe something like in Skyrim where you actually spot a dragon flying above the landscape and then you'd have to follow it around, maybe gather your LS meanwhile and see where it lands. Or there could be a way to get the dragon to land.

HNM's would have spawn windows identical to the ones in FFXI. Any time a HNM is killed registration for the next spawn window would start. Any Linkshells or "Free Companies" as it were, would then be eligible for registration by having the leader (or sub leaders) speak with a HNM registration NPC in any one of the main cities.

After the registration is complete, everyone could go about what ever activities they wished even during the spawn window of the HNM. The spawn window could be two hours for example, during which time anyone wishing to participate should remain online. When the HNM pops the leaders of all the free companies that registered will receive a message notifying them of it, and also who the winning party is. The winning party will have 15 minutes(maybe more or less?) to assemble their alliance with the at least the minimum members, and gather at the spawning location.

If the winning party wipes the privilege would be given to the winner of another random number generation done by the system. Then the system would repeat. The winners of the lot will be ineligible for registration for 48 hours, with the exception of the event in which 0 free companies register for the fight. Simple and flawless in my opinion.

Perhaps like a level 10 coblyn camp randomly spawning a coblyn named Crystal Coblyn Chief(random coblyn like name) that is level 15 and drops decent items for that level range.

Shikigami Weapon-ISH (Unique Spawn Conditions) Type HNM's, to throw a twist on the experience

How about an Arena? Think FFX (10)

Once you slay a certain monster (maybe not all monsters?) you can save that into your bestiary.

Think now of a spot in the city, where you and your friends could party up and summon the monsters that you have previously beaten. This would be a great way to hone skills, practice certain strategies, etc.

I would also like to see something similar to ZNMs in XI to be implemented in XIV (and I think it was also mentioned earlier in this thread aswell). For those of you who are not familiar with the concept, ZNMs were pop item NMs in high level expansion areas. You could gather a party for a ZNM run, everyone would bring their own pop items and you would kill them as a group. ZNMs dropped some really nice pieces of gear, and were available for everyone. There were 5 different tiers of ZNMs: for the first ones you only needed a few people to kill them, whereas the fourth tier ones required a fairly skilled alliance (18 players) to kill. The last ZNM was a really difficult monster called Pandemonium Warden which was the second hardest (which means unkillable for most groups) boss in the game at the time I played XI. You had to kill lower tier ZNMs to get pop items for the next tier, which was great for a static ZNM group, because it pretty much guaranteed all members would get all drops they desired from the lower tier monsters. Farming pop items also required taking tons of "photographs" from different monsters in game, but I'd like to black that part out.

They could add dragons that take 40 people or something to kill and give people credit for helping by giving points like in Rift.
Lets say Nidhogg and his army spawn somewhere, group kills them. They get "dragonslayer points" that can be used to purchase gear from NPC in Ishgard. Everyone wins.

Drops:

As discussed, HNM's in FFXIV should drop Items equal to what FFXI HNM's had. Example:

Defending Ring - King Behemoth
Ridill - Fafnir
Aquarian Abjuration: Body/Earthen Abjuration Body - Nidhogg/Aspid.

HNM's should not drop ALL of the best pieces in the game, but they should most definitely have great items to drop

OR, maybe a token type system: Say your group takes down an HNM, and it can drop a set amount of tokens, that can be redeemed for gear (working on this idea, any input appreciated)

Another idea is quests where you would have to kill HNMs. It's could be a bit of a twist on abjurations.
You get a cursed piece of gear made with some rare mats (throw crafters/gatherers a bone) go to a NPC and he says go kill Fafnir, Behemoth, and Ada to lift the curse.
This way they dangle a carrot which keeps everyone around occupied.

MAKE SOME NM/HNM DROPS CRAFTABLE (yes like uraeus Doublet) WITH HQ VERSIONS POSSIBLE PLEASE.

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User Comments:

i completely agree and would love to see a dev post regarding this.

Please dear god give us some big open world stuff. I beg you Yoshi.

Amazing OP, you have my support. You have Identified all the weaknesses of this kind of content and have found very reasonable solutions.

Aye yo Yoshi-P.. I want to hear your thoughts on this thread, and open-world HNM in general (regardless of pop conditions).

Im 1000% for this. IF you dont like it. DONT FREAKING CAMP THEM. TOO BAD. We want rare monsters. Lots of them. Im for quick spawns. long spawns. lottery spawns. Place holder spawns. timed spawns. 24 hours spawns. rare spawns. Add it all. .

Reguardless of drop rate and respawn time, we need HNMs.

Who cares what a persons or groups motivation is to kill a NM/HNM... Many want that kind of activity and that should be reason enough to include them in the game. If I don't fancy killing them I wont. Simple as that.

I approve of this thread !

I want fights that are massive in scale and feel epic in the world. I want to have other linkshells spread around you while you take down a huge dragon out in the world . AND YEAH I want some fking Herald's Gaiters along the way. What's so wrong with that?

I hope they review this thread & make use of the ideas in it, +1.

Good OP. Definetly something that XIV is SORELY missing..

I didn't play FFXI.. but I would love a bunch of open world high NMs

Yes, please.

I'm all for HNMs. Love them, so, so much. I honestly want more non-instanced, rare, notorious monsters.

Lots of different kinds of NMs, (Yes please!)

I myself would like some open world nm's/hmn's. I am not a big fan of every dungeon being an instance so far.

In all honesty, open-world HNM's make the world far more interesting. It's one of many things this game is missing and a big reason why I've taken so many breaks since the game came out.

He gave a good example of open world bosses though, 100 man content... I kind of like that idea.

As true as this is, NMs/HNMs were nonetheless one of my favorite FFXI activities.

You always need to appeal to the hardcore crowd by giving them rare loot that rewards their time. Any gaming company that chooses to give the same loot to everyone, no matter your play time, kills their game. If you're casual then deal with it, you don't deserve the same stuff that someone putting in 60 hours a week does. I won't cry if someone willing to camp and HNM gets gear while I'm at work. And I won't demand there be a way for me to get the same loot, or that his loot not be the best. That would be outright ignorance.

I have many friends who have been dying for open-world HNMs.

Just place a HNM with 20 Hours repop time and 30 min windows only and is not so hard, you have to go and wait for 5-30 mins, not for 3 hours.

The I'm sad that i'm not on the front page ; ;

I endorse this message!

FFXIV without HNMs is like christmas without cookies

I'm all for it as long as the timers are reasonable. I consider anything between 1-6 hours as that.

My answer for all of those questions is pretty much "all of the above".
Let's get as much variety to suit as many people as possible.

We can't afford "my way or no way" in the relaunch.

I,m 100% behind the idea of HNM in xiv,

Yes Yes Yes to everything positive mentioned in this thread. We need NMs, HNMs, ENMs, BCNMs, KSNMs, ZNMs and lots of them. Lots of force popped ones like Sky, lots of everything, EVERYTHING!!!!!!!!!

I think HNM's and world bosses are definitely needed in a game like this. They just add another fun and challenging layer to the game. It makes it a more interesting world to have these huge mobs out there in the wild, ready to tear stuff up or be torn up.

[DoctorMog]

Copy FF11.

It worked.

Shorten a few timers.

/thread.

[Sephrick]

Random pop mobs, no thanks.

[Arcell]

How long are we talking on those timers? A couple of hours at the most, sure. Special conditions are more interesting though.

The problem with super long timers is that it doesn't really foster a positive server community. Right in your post you mention enemy linkshells. When you've got really long timers you get claim wars, you get people attempting to sabotage the runs of others, it breeds animosity and hatred for anyone who comes along that might "steal" your claim. It might be a thrill for some but I don't think that really justifies the rest of it.

I'd prefer to see hard NMs as opposed to ones that simply don't spawn very often. It doesn't matter if the NM is up all the time, if it's very hard to kill then you still get to have the "rush" of winning when others can't.

[ThePatriarch]

How long are we talking on those timers? A couple of hours at the most, sure. Special conditions are more interesting though.

The problem with super long timers is that it doesn't really foster a positive server community. Right in your post you mention enemy linkshells. When you've got really long timers you get claim wars, you get people attempting to sabotage the runs of others, it breeds animosity and hatred for anyone who comes along that might "steal" your claim. It might be a thrill for some but I don't think that really justifies the rest of it.

I'd prefer to see hard NMs as opposed to ones that simply don't spawn very often. It doesn't matter if the NM is up all the time, if it's very hard to kill then you still get to have the "rush" of winning when others can't.

This is the kind of information I want to see posted!

When I say "Long Respawn Timers", I would like to find common ground upon which the majority would find to be ok. Rather than the old 21-24 hour pops, why not 3-4 hour? Hell, on some HNM's why not 1 hour repop?

We don't need to do a full copy+paste, we can change this up.

Rather than have a bunch of people complain about FFXI's system and end the thread, lets discuss ways to revamp, and make it work for this game. It worked so very in FFXI, there is no doubt that it could be re-thought, and work in this game.

[Elkwood]

Except now the current claiming system makes it so first party to get hate or attack gets drop, also right now with the current system bots wont become prevalent until well after 2.0 Lets be honest the XI claim wars were all about the most sophisticated bot. No they need HNM that are not about claiming but are about the skill and challenge of defeating them.

HNM will only work if you can farm X and Y item turn them in for Z item and use Z item to pop NQ and A+B item from NQ drop to pop HQ

[ThePatriarch]

Except now the current claiming system makes it so first party to get hate or attack gets drop, also right now with the current system bots wont become prevalent until well after 2.0 Lets be honest the XI claim wars were all about the most sophisticated bot. No they need HNM that are not about claiming but are about the skill and challenge of defeating them.

HNM will only work if you can farm X and Y item turn them in for Z item and use Z item to pop NQ and A+B item from NQ drop to pop HQ

I have to disagree with the statement about bots in XI. I was a part of some very major HNM shells, and as a high pearlsack I never saw one bot in use in the LS.

I'm not saying bots were prevalent in XI, they might have been. But I personally have probably killed 200 Fafnirs/Nids, wining about 40% claim, with no bots.

Regardless of who claims, everyone would instantly do the "omg popped purple" "they use nasa" "obv bots", when truthfully its a DIA spam, and luck.

[Genz]

Not interested in the "competition" for claim, but I like having some roaming huge powerful monsters.
Just need to not make them drop some of the best gear.

[Elkwood]

I have to disagree with the statement about bots in XI. I was a part of some very major HNM shells, and as a high pearlsack I never saw one bot in use in the LS.

I'm not saying bots were prevalent in XI, they might have been. But I personally have probably killed 200 Fafnirs/Nids, wining about 40% claim, with no bots.

Regardless of who claims, everyone would instantly do the "omg popped purple" "they use nasa" "obv bots", when truthfully its a DIA spam, and luck.

Yeah I call bullshit on that one, sorry sir your either lying or full of it. Just because you didn't see Bots does not mean they were not prevalent. I can guarantee you 90% of HNM shells that camped Faf/Nid Behme/KB and Ada/Aspi used bots. If I had the list of characters still i would post for you just the ones from FFXIapp the list comprised of nearly 60,000 accounts, that list does not include Xiclaim, Nasa, XIP, Arenz, Tauntunleashed, etc. Any LS that had a 50%+ claim rate I guarantee you had bots.

[Jinko]

I'm not a fan of open world NM's because it encourages unfair play, abuse, MPK and botting.

BCNM or pop item bosses I'm good with though.

As I've said in other thread if they have huge open world NM's they should make it public content, similar to what GW2 is doing.