[Ziero]

Originally Posted by Takelli

But... Thats not how it works in FFXI though. You camp a NM for three weeks on end and not get the drop. A Random guy comes in and kills it, and gets the drop.

How is that saying... "The more time you spend doing somthing, the better reward that you get."? Its happened to me plenty of times, and I've given up on camping any and all NMS now as I will kill them for weeks on end, and then some one comes in and kills it on me and gets the drop. And its their FIRST time killing it.

...but what does that have to do with the economy?

Camping NMs for cash is like playing the lotto, 99 times out of 100, you're going to get nothing back from your investment. However that 1 time is all it takes to make a big score. It's all about luck, which is more or less what big pay offs like that should be.

I agree, horribly low drop rate NMs is a bad thing, especially if it's a R/E item and one that spawns on it's own timer. But in the end, those types of mobs have very little bearing on the economy, especially nowadays where there is so much good gear to work towards.

[Evion]

I agree with that. Camping NMs wouldn't be "camping NMs" if you didn't get a low drop rate on a sweet item with competition by others. Otherwise, it would be nothing. I don't think Valkrum Emperor effects the cost of Beehive Stacks. If SE really wants to protect the economy from RMT, maybe they should just make more of the better items R/EX?

[Armando]

Eh, the NM camping system is 100% retarded. Camping consists of literally wasting 2 hours (OR MORE) of your life when it comes to Lottery Pops, clearing out an area (or, if the placeholder is clearly identifiable, killing the PH) over and over and over again while you paranoically check your timers or widescan. It's one of the most masochistic systems players have ever decided to put up with.

Also, low drop rates and high competition should never mix unless the item is something on the HNM level, something that's so rare it can't be considered mandatory but so powerful it would almost turn you into a demigod. For random Leaping Lizzie shit, if the item is in high demand the drop rate should be high. Leave the low drop rates for things in which people don't compete with you - e.g. ENMs.

The problem with the NM system really turns up when you have a Rare/Ex item that's so good, it's practically mandatory. Perfect example: Joyeuse. The difference in power between a PLD with a Joyeuse and one without is very large. This difference in power got worse after Atonement was released, which is something every PLD should strive to have too.

This is kind of tangential since it doesn't just apply to NM drops, but then there's the people who know nothing about stats but still manage to spread their ignorance enough to inflate the price of items. For example, Leaping Boots have always been shit for any job that isn't THF. In the old days, it was 1.5 Acc. That's either +0.5% or +1% hit rate depending on whether your DEX is odd or even. That's nothing. It become somewhat more useful for 2-hander jobs after the patch, but no big deal there either. Even for THF, the item has never provided 300k's worth of improvement (especially not before Lv.30 when they're only using the DEX, not the AGI.) Yet people see "WHOAMG 3 DEX AND AGI AT A LEVEL WHERE EQUIPMENT NEVER HAS STATS" and their mind explodes.

The same thing happens with Gluttony Sword and Monster Signa. People see +7 of a stat and have an orgasm, never mind the fact that 7 VIT is a trivial amount for what it does, and 7 CHR doesn't turn you into a super BRD or BST either. There's no denying Monster Signa helps, but the price of both items has always been grossly inflated based on face value rather than an actual understanding of the worth of the item.

Granted back when these prices were settled upon, we had jack shit for info, so it's not like I blame the players. But the idea that these items are mind-blowingly awesome and worth forking over half a fortune for has stuck all this time, so many years later.

[Takelli]

Originally Posted by Ziero

...but what does that have to do with the economy?

... Look at what I quoted it with though.

[Ziero]

...and again, it has nothing to do with the economy. You should get more rewards the harder you work, in FFXIV AND in FFXI. It might not always happen, but it really should. While luck plays a massive factor in things like NM drops, in the long run, a lucky drop will have zero effect on the economy overall. It's only when people, or a specific person, monopolize a popular NM drop that it will have an effect on others. And in that situation, it is a case of more work for more reward.

@Armando: I both agree and disagree (shocking, I know) with your comments. While I fully believe NMs and being forced to camp them for hours/days/weeks to get that shiney item with the crappy drop rate sucks...I have to admit, I like the idea of randomly spawning super strong (for their levels) mobs with great items. It's that bit of unexpected adventure that can be a highlight of an otherwise dull gaming experience which is genuinely exciting. It feels good to kill a strong monster that you come across in the wild and get a great item.

However, timed/lottery spawns, low drop rates, item exclusiveness and over-powered drops are problems. I wouldn't mind seeing the concept of world spawn lesser NMs (like Lizzy and such) remain, but I would personally prefer to see other, non-random/camping ways to get the same items while making their spawning habits truly unpredictable or unique. We sort of have this now with the way you can get Leaping boots from Lizzy or BCNMs, and it would be nice to see that concept return. If there were alternate ways to obtain the item you were after, it would reduce the need to do it that one specific way. Give the NM a high chance to drop the item, give the instanced fight a decent chance to drop the item and hell maybe bring back the Casket system and give that a small chance to get the specific item. Something like that would work a lot better imo.

But again, none of this has to do with the economy since none of that stuff should be really sellable.

[Karinya]

I think they should do more with the Ullikummi, Alkyoneus, etc. model of getting an item from regular mobs and using that to allow you to pop the NM. (BCNMs are kind of like that too.) Imagine if kings worked that way instead of the 100 people standing around for hours waiting to claim a pop we have now. If fighting is at all interesting, then fighting mobs to earn the right to fight the NM will be a much better system than standing around waiting for a pop, or running around checking widescan (or the equivalent, if there is any equivalent), etc.

With the greater integration of crafting and HELM into the game, it might be interesting to see some NM pop items be HELM'd or crafted, too. There are already a few crafted pop items (the knife for ugg pendant NM for example) but the actual crafting isn't that much of a focus compared to farming the ingredients - as long as crafting is even semi reliable I guess that's probably inevitable, since having the ingredients is more or less equivalent to having the product if there are crafters around.

It would be interesting to see a set, or even a ZNM-style tree, of NMs that starts with HELM'd rare/ex or key items. What they did with HELM in the mog expansion is a possible jumping off point for having more content that involves those activities in a way deeper than "buy a HELM product on the AH". (Especially if there really isn't an AH - although I think there will almost have to be *some* way to get your hands on things produced/farmed/crafted by other players.)

Later content in FFXI proves that the devs know how to design better systems for access to NMs - ZNMs, for example, have a reasonably well-designed system where you can work toward the ability to pop any given NM and not have to stand around competing for claims - but it also proves that they don't always use them, because the same expansion also has Cerb/Hydra/Khim which are on the very worst "long timer, no PH" system. So that's kind of a mixed signal for what content we should expect to see in FFXIV.

[Feba]

Originally Posted by Karinya

I think they should do more with the Ullikummi, Alkyoneus, etc. model of getting an item from regular mobs and using that to allow you to pop the NM

That's basically just farming NMs, though.

One thing I'd consider is having all NMs pop randomly, not timer based (or requiring a placeholder to be killed, like lizzy). Only have their names show up like regular mobs on widescreen and on-screen. Maybe even don't show the ITG message. Once they're claimed, people with claim can see the actual name; people outside the party see it as a regular monster until the deathblow ("X defeats the NM." instead of the expected name). Makes NMing more interactive, at least, without taking it down to the level of "everyone get a spawn item, then we'll do all our runs back to back and rinse repeat" farming.

[DakAttack]

Originally Posted by Feba

That's basically just farming NMs, though.

One thing I'd consider is having all NMs pop randomly, not timer based (or requiring a placeholder to be killed, like lizzy). Only have their names show up like regular mobs on widescreen and on-screen. Maybe even don't show the ITG message. Once they're claimed, people with claim can see the actual name; people outside the party see it as a regular monster until the deathblow ("X defeats the NM." instead of the expected name). Makes NMing more interactive, at least, without taking it down to the level of "everyone get a spawn item, then we'll do all our runs back to back and rinse repeat" farming.

That would be neat, but, for NMs like Lizzy, all her lizard friends would be killed as soon as they spawned.