Monster Spawns, Here's the deal. [Poll]

[B0nse 0]

READ FIRST, ANSWER POLL LATER

If you’ve read my first thread in the OOC you ought to know that I’d taken to reading the going-ons of Sao-RPG while waiting to leave ‘Pending Purgatory,’ and you know that I am curious. Well, my curiosity extended itself to another subject: Monster Spawns, not the boss ones, but ones like A Wolf In The Prairie [Got my obligatory reference outta the way].

 

As I saw it, even with the loot requirement for monster stats, a person could easily tailor their enemies in such a way that not only would risk be absent but that those mobs could be taken advantage of for the sake of farming. Now, while there is nothing inherently wrong with that, as farming is a quintessential cog in the MMO experience (from what I can tell, not that I am even close to an expert), there is no mechanism on-site for interesting, challenging, and dare I say risky mob encounters. I find that as troubling, and so, what I propose today is exactly that.

Now, here’s the concept:

A reference sheet for every floor that consists of monsters that have base stats, passive/active abilities, and concepts that are not only thematically appropriate for the floor but challenging for most players in its level range. This reference sheet would be just that, and just as one can choose to make a mob spawn just hard enough to drop loot or exceptionally harder, one could choose to spawn a mob directly from this reference sheet, or tailor it to be harder. Of course, for risk, there would be reward, and I propose that these ‘super’ monsters have a higher chance of dropping better loot and/or they simply drop better loot (assuming their stats aren’t horrid compared to the strongest member of a party, just as the loot drops are judged). People could submit their own monster concepts for this reference sheet that way the selection would be constantly growing.

Why do this? It’s simple, for you see, in the words of Takao (with whom I chatted with on this very subject), “the ultimate point of a roleplay is to write an interesting narrative in some capacity”. This reference sheet would serve as a way to encounter enemies for the sake of roleplay (rather than that of farming/ fighting trash mobs) in such a way that it is rewarded not only in narrative but with that nice gleam of goodies. So, what do you think?

 

P.S. Regardless of what choice you pick, just leave a short word on your opinion below-voices matter after all!

Edited May 15, 2016 by B0nse

[Seul 1]

So like a bestiary? Interesting that this is being brought up now-

I wanted to do something similar for GGO. But it was turning into a lot of work and I was getting 0 help so I was like screw it. x-x

I'm on the fence about having one in SAO though. Here's why:

I'm not sure how much good it would actually do. I feel like it wouldn't be much different from what's going on now in regards to just tailoring mobs to be easier. With a reference sheet, sure it provides variety and potential for better rewards, but there's absolutely nothing stopping someone from just spawning the same mobs over and over again; ones that would allow them to go through fights without any risks. Then once they're beefed up enough they can fight the stronger enemies for better rewards and still not be at any risk. That's sorta how actual games work but it doesn't really change much in my opinion. You can already scale mob health and damage to be as high as you want and even give them fancy abilities. But you know why no one does that? Because random spawns aren't a thing here. If the players really truly cared about telling narratives then more people would do it. But you can't walk into a thread and be surprised by the stats of a monster you're fighting. No one in their right mind is going to put the character they've worked on for months (years in some cases) in harms way just for a little extra loot. The permadeath is too strong and too unforgiving. Heck, I'm going to be sad when Seul dies because that's like almost a year of my life that'll be wasted- xD

Another thing would be how would be actually correlating the monsters to the loot. Like would the loot formula stay the same? Would each mob drop its own set amount of loot? Would players have to be within a certain level range to receive loot from that floor's monsters? Then for the last one if they do then does that mean the people who are already at like level 60 would just not be able to get loot from their fights until we reached higher floors? 0-0

And this last thing isn't about mobs, but instead on the system itself and how we're part of the problem. Bottom line is we're all OP in PvE and that is mainly because the current system let's us be that way against anything that isn't a boss raid. Even then, some boss fights can probably be beaten with a only few people in them. There are some fights where people suffer 1 damage the entire fight and walk out with full health and then once someone else gets dual blades again and starts dealing 1000 damage at the start of the battle forget about it. Not to say every battle should be a bloodbath since there have been a fair share of casualties in general and also we're only 15 floors in so the fights should be on the easier side, but I'm getting off topic.

I'll use myself as an example. I'm nowhere near the strongest player in the game, but with 2 more ranks invested in my block skill I'll be at 101 Mitigation. I also have holy blessing that heals me whenever I get hit. Even if I didn't have that and had regen instead I could basically fight up on the 40th floor, take minimal damage, and still 1 or 2 shot mobs. That's just with T2 gear on too.

Having all of our stats be based solely off equipment is kinda buns in that way. >.>

I also feel like if something like if this was to be implemented then more changes would need to happen to address it like the stat thing.

Edited May 15, 2016 by Seul
After I thought about it it kinda makes sense that I could fight up on the 40th floor since I'm around level 31-ish. BUT STILL! xD

[Jakobe 0]

Would higher level players be able to go back to floor one and kill these monsters and still receive loot? To be honest Seul kind of hit the nail on the head, if people wanted more of a challenge then they would simply create that for themselves. With that being said though, I would be for a situation where the higher level loot drops require harder monsters. I see a lot of players get a bunch of LD buffs and then just farm the weakest monster they can. It would be nice to see the loot categories of say 20 and above require monsters will say double the difficulty.

[Nikodemus_Blackwood 1]

So, from how I was educated via PSTs during some farming threads, For any mob to be loot drop eligible, they must be of Floor Strength (3 X Floor LVL) with an HP of Half of yours, and a Mitigation of 1/4th their HP...

 

So for someone like me to get loot, even on floor one, I am fighting a mob that has nearly 30 health, a good 5-10 mit, and a strength of 3-15.

 

While this seems like not much of a challenge to some, look at it this way.

 

I have 48 health, 14 energy, and do a base 5 DMG. my best hitting SA is a tie between a 6x1 AoE (and only 4 enemies can be hit by AoE), or a 3X2 single mob hit. That is 30 DMG base. 31 or 32 for crits. If a mob negates anywhere from 5-10, they live one for more than one turn, and with 3 or 4 of them at anywhere from 3-15 DMG hitting me, my mit of 35 can barely cover minor blows. I have almost died to floor more than once through simple arrogance in spawning 4 of them at loot eligible stats, and rolling all 1's, 2's and 3's for 4 or 5 rolls, with mobs hitting with 8's, 9's, and 10's.

 

I think that, if a fix is needed, the fix needs to be that for loot eligible drops, the mobs must spawned 2-4 at a time, with health 1/2 strongest players health, DMG being 1/3 Players MIT, and Mit being 1/3 or 1/4th Mobs HP. This may give a challenge.

 

Instead of a Boar with 24-30 HP, 3-10 DMG, and 5-10 Mit, it would be more like, 24-30 HP, 15-17 DMG, and 6-15 mit. More of a challenge there.

 

But IMO, it isnt needed as we still can get a challenge from following normal tutorial rules of a mob with 1/2 our health, then strength being 3 X floor level, and Mit 1/4 their HP.

[Macradon 0]

We actually had a Monster Manual in process some time ago, which I was part of the team that was making it ... but it got into a halt as we reached the 4th floor or something (too much work I guess).

EDIT:
Here's the link

 

Edited May 20, 2016 by Macradon

[Rain 0]

:o @Macradon, the link isn't working.

But yo.. this sounds awesome. That way I won't have to deal with boars... and wolves... and just recently cougars. x.x I'm bad at making obs on the spot.

Edited May 19, 2016 by Rain

[Macradon 0]

Edited ;)

[Rain 0]

Awesome! Thanks! :D

[Hakai 0]

I think a bestiary would be nice, but i find nothing wrong with the system as it is now. We're a community of writers, and if we want to have interesting, exciting mobs, we should, and we shouldnt have to be given them. It has been expressed before that players can put whatever stats, health, and other specials, onto a mob that they want, leaving it more up to the roleplayer what they want. Right now you create the mobs. The stats given are just the minimum, to keep players from taking too much advantage. My favorite part of this is actually loot tailoring. At the moment you dont get anything extra for having a mob with 4 evasion or accuracy, where it would make sense from an in game standpoint to get more.

A bestiary would be nice just as a reference, but I dont think it should be mandatory. Right now I think certain people might be having trouble because their options really arent all that limited and are incredibly widespread. Heck, make a tentacle monster or something if you really want, you shouldnt have to choose from a list.

Personally, this just sounds like a list of possibilities that one can already have. This would be a list of monsters with stats that the player could already add in, and as such it might be that time spent on this might be better spent on other things, such as revamping the skills section to make gameplay more balanced between healers tanks and damage dealers, or revamping the sword arts so that their more balanced overall. This is a good idea, but i feel like the energies that would be devoted to this would be better devoted elsewhere until other problems are addressed.