Quote Originally Posted by Cichy View Post
I think the problem could be resolved through loot.
I guess in XI SE intended for a group to go camp Fafnir for a bit and than move on. However, it never happened because of the crappy drop rates.
If they added lets say 20 major HNMs to begin with, put a reasonable repop on them, and gave them a decent drop rate. Maybe it would work. A decent amount of NMs would spread out groups and if they got their stuff fairly fast they could move on. Fights should be pretty tough, but take no longer than 30-40 min. Rage timers included.
SE would have to avoid giving them gear like in XI though. The gear that was hands down best around for many years.
I strongly believe that best gear should be earned by hard work, not drop. More like a relic quest, but something players can chip away at everyday. Reward effort, not killing 1 mob in this case.

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.
I really like that second idea, pretty crafty. In a sense, they would give us plenty of content to go after, all the while keeping crafters/gatherers busy as well with more content. I gotta admit, this is a win/win. I will also add this to the OP (starting to get cramped, need to find the right spot to put it)

I can also level with you on the quality of items dropped from HNM's. While I do like the fact that some HNM's dropped some over-powered gear, I can deal with compromising. I do feel however, that a few select, incredibly difficult HNM's should drop some pretty great pieces, they should not drop ALL of the best gear available. As this was primarily the case with Zilart (sky gear being a slight exception, but Ebody/Abody/D.ring/Ridill/etc beat the majority of Sky Gear hands down)

For the most part I think it appropriate if SE can keep instanced content gear on par, and equal with that of non-instanced gear. I think this would motivate players to be active in both realms of the game.

But at the same time, as we have discussed make Open-World content more accessible. Don't water it down and make it easy by any means, but reduce the spawn timers drastically. Very the spawn areas to nullify botting. Design HNM/NM's that can't just be simply zerged down, etc.