Suggestions for changing the MPK systemFollow

Here's a suggestion:
Don't change it.
Focus efforts on the things that really need to be changed.

I definitely agree that change should be made, but not TOO much change. I really like how monsters interact with players for the most part, but a big change could easily destroy that realistic aspect, as well as just make the game too easy. I think a good "subtle yet effective" solution would be to simply give monsters a "cool down" time after they lose aggro. For example: somebody has to zone a goblin, but there is a party at the zone. The goblin doesn't have to wait until it gets back to its spawn point or whatever to start aggroing again, but it has a (30 second?) cool down time so that the party at the zone has time to get out of the goblins aggro range before it becomes aggressive again. This would stop people from having to pay for other player's mistakes, and it would help eliminate a lot of MPK, especially if this cool down applied to released pets and other things. Also, I think that linking should be at the bottom of a monster's "to do" list when someone has aggroed it, meaning that it won't link until after whoever aggroed it has lost aggro, and the monster's cool down period has passed. I think it would be a better solution to give players a better means of defending themselves against MPK (such as with a cool down), than to make monsters more wimpy. Thanks for your concern! ^^

I really think only three things actually need to be done, w/o creating unneccesary problems by making changes:

Suggestion: Fix the Bind/Aggro bug. That will directly stop MPK

Suggestion: Make mobs vanish when "zoned" by a character that has aggrod them, and respawn very shortly thereafter. This makes it impossible to train mobs on anyone, which is the most common form of MPK I witness.

Suggestion: Make it so that if you have hate initially, you have the claim. The claim is only lost if you lose all hate.

Suggestion: Having GMs check in at certain NM to patrol would be nice, but if the other 3 suggestions were implemented, there would be virtually no way to MPK someone. GMs would more or less just be making sure no one was using unfair tactics to claim along the lines of botting.

Most of the other suggestions have potential problems as I see them. These would be the simplest and fairest methods to implement I think. Even if GMs didn't observe the NMs, MPK would be almost nonexistant, and being that they probably wouldn't get anymore MPK calls, they would actually have the -time- to get out and check on these things.

Thanks,
Kachi

Edit: Realized there was actually potential for abuse with one of my suggestions.

Edited, Thu Nov 3 20:09:13 2005 by Kachi

Suggestion: when it comes to the rarer monsters, perhaps you could make it so that they spawn at very specific times, but at the same rate that they do currently (It's nice to have rare things ^_^) that way people could spend less time waiting around and getting angry with people for claiming their monster (though it would still be aggitating with a rare spawn, but then again any time someone else claims what you want it is annoying eheh ^_^;;)

Suggestion: something that I have always felt in my time on final fantasy 11 is that it would be really good if the GMs would have a slightly more active role, I generaly don't feel that they are of as much use in MPK situations as they could be. Perhaps (this is a limited suggestion) if particularly rare NMs spawned at specific times, GMs could more easily keep an eye on what is going on.

It is difficult to enforce certain kinds of rules on massive online games automaticaly. MPK problems are such a thing, I believe that the only real way that you can hope to deal with it succesfuly without altering the difficulty of the game (which I am currently happy with by the way ^_^) is to take more of a manual approach (namely through the use of GMs or something to that effect).

Oh and then it comes to punishment for MPKing, you could always take away exp from the MPKer, or perhaps even a whole level, this way you could punish them while making it so that people who are very, very rarely punished unjustly can still play.

Just make the hate timer alot shorter. Why do mobs chase you all the way across the zone anyway? if someone was rounding up mobs to train and mpk someone else, and they dont attack each mob again within so much time...they should lose hate from running away alot faster. This would make it so that people cant have enough hate to bring half the mobs in the area to the zone in time without losing hate.

other suggestion i got is make all NM's and HNM's spawn every hour, no matter what. Just make the same amount of drop rates per week as what there is now. This allows everyone to actually enjoy a chance of hunting any mob they want really, instead of waiting till 3 in the morning for a specific spawn time. Just cause it pops every hour dont mean it has to drop anything.


Edited, Thu Nov 3 20:25:45 2005 by sledd

Suggestion: Monsters that are zoned, or that no longer are following someone, should not aggro unless they are back around where they spawned.

NOTE: I understand many others have mentioned this, but I am just supporting their idea, and wish for these improvments as well.


I like the idea people have been giving about mobs not aggroing if zoned, or if they are not around the place they spawned.

I don't know how many times I have camped NM's and get a claim, only to have someone train aggro onto me (The mpk'ers run to me and alt+tab, or just let themselves die, so their friends outside of the PT, can claim it and get the drop).

Also it is sad that people who are leveling near a zone (like in Garlaige Citadel) have to drop what they are doing and run, just because a monster was zoned. I don't find it fair, because it is not the fault of the other players (outside of the person who got aggro, and their party).


Make this great MMO even better! ^_^


Edited, Thu Nov 3 20:38:31 2005 by ACEJester

SUGGESTION: You guys run the game, you know when the HNM's pop. say 5 min before a pop, have a GM watch the area. this way it wont always require constant watch, and it stops MPKing once the HNM LSs that do it are instantly punished because a GM is there to witness it.
PS. TY SE for finally listening to the players opions on fourms. hopefully the ***** up world of FFXI will be like when i first started(ya right)

EDIT: erased my critisism on someones post once i reread it and realized it was acctually a good idea <.<

Edited, Thu Nov 3 20:30:17 2005 by Janien

Sorry if there is some repetition here, this thread is growing too fast to keep up with, but here goes.

Monsters just "going home" after they're zoned or their target(s) leave/die/etc. doesn't sit very well with me, I agree with the person who said that this would make a lot of things much too easy, and it also shouldn't really be needed (I do agree that making monsters go back to their start points should be sped up a bit. So, they'll still aggro people, but they will also not just hang out at a zone line for no apparent reason (they should return as quickly as they chase after a person, not at the pace of their normal shuffling about)). Then, make it so a mob won't aggro or link for *several seconds* after it loses its target. Basically, just a little longer than it would take for the mob to walk out of aggro range of anyone it was trained to. This won't entirely solve the problem, but if spawn locations for the NMs were moved out of the zone's pathways (into their own chambers or at least provide a side area that is out of aggro range from anything coming back from the zone) it becomes very hard to MPK people fighting an NM (because anything you zone to them will walk back out of range before it has a chance to join in).

For BST stuff, make it so that a BST pet cannot aggro until it is both at its start point and at full health. By the same token, the BST cannot charm a new pet until the old pet is back to its start point and at full health (this makes things a little harder on BSTs because they can't juggle 3 or 4 pets, but if you make pet food level-dependant and make it around 4x as effective and usable about twice as often, they will get similar "total pet hp" during a fight. It will also give a real reason for using the lower-level foods (because, well, you have to). This keeps BSTs from MPKing, reduces the difficulties that arise when a BST is killing in a popular zone, and makes a somewhat neglected ability/line of items more important and more attractive for crafters.

For AOE... much as I like the idea that AOE be AOE and if you're smart you stay out of the other party's way, the grief potential from things like bomb tosses (let a gob hit you next to a party and wait until it blows them up), mandra sleeps (grab a mandy and go chase parties who are fighting gobs around so their mages are slept a lot), and worst of all, skeleton blood sabres is huge. Blood sabre is extra bad because it works both ways... someone can drag a bone mob over to a party they want to kill and let it drain from them over and over. Or, if a party (or even an individual) you want to kill is fighting a bone-type mob, just get a bunch of folks to stand near them so it keeps healing to full (though, this is usually a stupid-people problem rather than a griefing technique). So, AOE from *regular monsters* should be enemy-only (person who currently has aggro, plus any other party members, plus any alliance members, plus anyone who has cast a spell on any of the above).

So, the actual suggestions:

Suggestion: Monsters that lose their target immediately begin to return to their 'home points' at running speed. They can aggro (if they are aggressive) but will not link (note- mobs in a train should be tied together until each reaches their start point. So, a crawler train returning from the nest entrance won't link in on someone fighting a crawler that was uninvolved but if a player does something to get aggro from a member of the pack, they get aggro from the pack as normal). Additionally a monster which is currently engaged should only be able to aggro the people engaging it (the 'enemy' from above, including helpers). This way a train of non-aggressive but linking mobs won't link in on a party fighting something in their family while they work their way back just because the train's target got a tiny bit of hate from running back. It also fixes the problem of people claiming a slept add, because as soon as someone else hits it all hate towards the origional party is removed.

Suggestion: BST Pets are non-aggro (regardless of normal behavior) until they are back at their start point and healed up (they return just like a mob that lost its target, at full speed). BSTs cannot claim another pet during this time (so you can't have them charm/drag/release all the dangerous stuff in a zone to make something unintentionally easy) but their ability to complete a fight with a single pet is greatly increased by making food a much more effective tool.

Suggetion: AOE from a normal mob only affects 'enemies.' This way you can't drag a monster to a party and let it continually AOE them to death. It also prevents people from getting you killed when you are trying to save their dumb butts from the skeleton they got aggro from, and it allows NM and HNM AOE attacks (which are intended to be big and scary for everyone and should be for the reasons others have described) to still deter people from getting too close to a fight in progress.

Suggestion: a bound monster will only attack 'enemies,' and not anything in reach. Additionally, when its target list is cleared it becomes unbound (and thus runs home before it links in on the people it is next to).

That *should* largely clean up the problem of intentional MPKs and help with zone-line congestion as well (if people want to actually fight *at* zone lines they should have to worry about things being brought in from time to time, that is part of the tradeoff of having a zone right nearby; however a zone should not shut down for a half hour because someone dragged a bunch of stuff up from deep inside).

A couple unrelated suggestions: Player AOE should behave like monster AOE- it should only affect mobs which currently hold hate towards the party (or have helped a mob with hate towards the party). The AOE spells don't get all that much use in a lot of areas beyond sleepga and horde lullaby because of the danger of links, usually by monsters *not* in the family of the one you are fighting (lizards in yhoator, caveberries in the nest, etc.). There really isn't a big negative to not using -ga spells so there is really no reason to make them so potentially dangerous. The single-target damage/mp is usually lower than a single-target spell so it isn't like BLMs would be getting some huge boost to their potential damage, and might even make it more common for a party to take on more than one mob at a time (because you can blast a couple at once without worrying about bringing in anything that wouldn't have otherwise added in). It also doesn't remove the danger of using AOE spells in an add situation, since a slept add would have hate towards the party and would thus still be hit.

One of my biggest pet-peeves right now (and a rather hot topic in some circles) is the current pandemic of power-leveling. Personally I feel that it is both against the spirit of the game (why work with a group of people when you can have one person follow you around and cure you all the time) and against the community's best interests (parties don't learn what is realistic so when someone who is used to being power-leveled joins an otherwise serious party they either have no clue what they really need to be doing, or they have wildly inflated ideas of what is possible (or worse, both). So, in my opinion, if an outside player helps you during a fight (or helps your party), the XP you get should be cut in half and there should be no chain bonus. To prevent this from becoming a griefing point, allow the playes to set a condition which will prevent outside aid (and allow party leaders to set party- and alliance- wide conditions) while the player (or party, or alliance) has a mob claimed. This would only count while there is actually a 'red' mob (alliance-claimed mobs need to show up red, rather than purple, btw), and could be overridden by a new "call for aid" command (which would put out a /say notice but no icon on anyone's compass and wouldn't be a /shout-range message). Calling for help, or disengaging, would obviously allow outside help as normal.

(but, best to stick to the topic at hand, a PL debate could derail this thread but it is something that I think really needs to be reconsidered by SE, as they have been continually adding in content with which powerleveling just doesn't fit)

Ever heard of shifts?

~Blix

This is quite a long post and I really don't have the time to wade through all of the posts, so bear with me if I'm repeating something thats been mentioned several times.

I like the idea of area of effect moves being ineffective on members outside the party/alliance fighting the monster; however, I do not think this should apply to NMs.

A portion of the new HNM/NM have summonable pets (think something like Vrtra). These pets give no EXP or drop no items anyway, so these should be "no claim," sort of like Memory Receptacles in Promvyion. Leaving this unchanged opens the path to future MPK attempts.

I totally agree with the suggestion regarding the Bind issue.

Players should have some sort of way to drop claim to a monster someway through the interface.

A lot of players rotate parties in and out of alliances during a HNM fight. This sometime causes problems with claiming as the party that just left may have claim to the NM. This is more a nuisance than a real MPK problem as of now (although it can turn into MPK). I think a solution may to be just have the claim always lie with the alliance leader. Also, as a side issue, it would really be nice if all claimed monsters within an alliance were always "red" to all members of the alliance.

I need some clarification. It isn't clear to me from the OP what issue is being addressed here.

The original post, although the term MPK is used, seems slanted more towards preventing accidental deaths, rather than preventing malicious players from causing them.

Seems to me the ToS covers the issue of MPK, so, unless this is SE's way of saying the ToS isn't being enforced or is unenforceable, I see no reason to change anything.

Seems like everyone agrees with the remedies of the OP, or a version of them. Well, I don't.

I hate trains at the zones as much as anyone, but people have to learn their jobs, and not have a crutch to say, "Oh well I pulled 15 bats to the zone but its ok cuz no1 died rofl".
Yuck ><

Mobs with AoE are a hazard. Well, avoid them.
Beastmasters learn to leave their pets away from xp parties. Xp parties learn to level away from Bst's.
And, if people want to use their abilities to maliciously attack another, then BAN THEM. I don't understand why we're talking about changing the game. The game is not the problem. ><

But...here's an idea. When HNM's are claimed by a party/alliance, make a kill-zone around that HNM that drains, oh I don't know, 50 hp/tick? 100? to any person/mob not in that alliance.

This would raise an issue regarding players in the alliance aggroing other mobs themselves - the kill-zone would drastically reduce their risk. However, I think most HNM linkshells take this into account already, and plan ahead for extra people to deal with adds. Not sure how big an issue this might be.


Edited, Thu Nov 3 21:11:31 2005 by Turnerbrown

Ah, There is nothing like zoning into CN and finding yourself dead before the zone even completes. Why because somebody has trained every crawler in the nest to the zone and you and your whole party are the victim of somebody else's problem or joke (not funny). Any time you zone this is potential problem, except into safe areas, I would at least like to have a chance to react to the situation or just make it impossible for this to happen. My personal preference would be not to do away with this feature(?) all together, I would rather see some type of timer that gives you a chance to react; run, fight or zone back out.

I thing players are fair game for mobs returning to there areas, it is just a challenge you need to face. I would like to see the mobs not aggro anyone until the mob is a set distance from the zone on its return journey. Try to make it fair.

Hey, I've taken damage while riding on a Chocobo just passing a fight. It cracks me up. Makes the experience more real. Players need to have a certain awareness of their surroundings and adjust.

I do think that if a party decides it is time to escape that the mob left behind should not immediately do an add to a neighboring group. Some areas are crowded and you have to camp closer than you might like to another group. This needs to be addressed by examining over crowded areas and seeing what can be done to relieve the overcrowding. There are areas that are almost completely deserted, make these areas more desirable.

Thank You, for asking for our inputs.