Giant Monsters

[Ukase]

Recently, I happened across Eochai in Crey's Folly. No big deal, just part of the ol' Hallowe'en event. 

After broadcasting for a few minutes, I decided to just solo it and soon after pocketed my 6 reward merits and continued about my merry way. And then I thought, "Hey - no monstrous aethers!". 

That's not a big surprise, nor really a big deal. But, it's not lost on me that when there's a choice between Kraken in Perez, or an event Eochai (as opposed to the Croatoa Zone version) people will zip after Kraken every time, presumably because of the MAs. At least, when recruiting, that's my anecdotal experience. 

While helping a ToT league tackle Jack, there were no shortages of other non-named GMs. Sadly, the only thing these big bags of HP and Foot Stomps give are an EoE. 
A Stropharia 70679 HP is the same as the Event version of Eochai, 70679. 

I get that it's an event; so there should be some extra goodies. 
But what about the non-event, unnamed Monsters, of the Devouring Earth variety? In the Abyss and the Hive, I certainly grasp why they don't give merits. But the ones on Monster Island? The ones on the little islands way out in PI? 

Shouldn't they also give some goodies besides the EoE? 

[Hedgefund]

No

[lemming]

5 hours ago, Ukase said:

Shouldn't they also give some goodies besides the EoE? 

I could see the ToT GMs give one or two Monstrous, but definitely not the regular GMs.   If they did, you'd wind up with year long PI Monster Hunts.

Just the ToT hunt when done well nets a large amount of reward merits.

[tidge]

The event GMs should stay as is. No need for extra rewards tied to them.

[Snarky]

37 minutes ago, Krimson said:

Giant Monster hunting has already been transformed from a fun activity to a farm event. Waiting around for 15 minutes for a league to form so you can take it down with zero effort is ridiculous, but that's what the Devs wanted - people holding hands and taking the things out without a thought. Obviously, I don't hunt as much as I used to, so I don't care if they want to turn the event GMs in to a farming event as well. 

wait... i thought we were farming everything now?

 

[MoonSheep]

monsters and GMs should have +50% damage and accuracy and their regen doubled, i feel this would make them

worthy of granting higher rewards - probably not a popular idea though

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, lemming said:

I could see the ToT GMs give one or two Monstrous, but definitely not the regular GMs. 

 

I think there is enough farming of ToT GMs from merits that they don't need a Monstrous Aether added onto the spoils.

 

[Ukase]

It's not farming I'm after. I merely pose the question when I realized that the effort to tackle a named GM is the same effort to tackle an un-named GM. It just seems to me the rewards should be the same for both, because it's essentially the same risk. 

I get how some folks find the idea of repetitive cooperative tasks for rewards is a bit icky, as it doesn't align with how they would like to play. Some folks would rather talk about pokeman in Pocket D for several hours and others would prefer to find just the right costume piece. Me - I want to stack loot and hoard it. 

There's a lot of options in this game, I'm just posing the question. Take note that it's not in the suggestions section, as I'm not sure how I even feel about it. But I know myself well enough to know that I'm greedy. So, yeah, I want monstrous aethers as well as merits if the effort and risks are the same. Why wouldn't I? and, more interestingly - why don't you, if you're inclined to tackle Eochai in Croatoa, why wouldn't you want the same rewards for Eochai outside of Croatoa? 

I grasp that in the event, enough GMs spawn (and re-spawn fairly quickly) to make up for the lack of MAs. But my mind is still a bit hung up on the fact that the unnamed GMs don't give any rewards to speak of, despite carrying the same risks. And yeah, I grasp that the risk isn't really there unless you seek it out, as they're far removed from most players usual traffic patterns. Still, I thought the question was worth asking. 

[tidge]

13 hours ago, Ukase said:

It's not farming I'm after. I merely pose the question when I realized that the effort to tackle a named GM is the same effort to tackle an un-named GM. It just seems to me the rewards should be the same for both, because it's essentially the same risk.

 

It is not the same risk. The event GMs are the old-school versions of Jack and Eochai; they are not nearly as difficult as the Croatoan ones available the rest of the year.

[Ukase]

3 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

It is not the same risk. The event GMs are the old-school versions of Jack and Eochai; they are not nearly as difficult as the Croatoan ones available the rest of the year.

I wasn't referring to the comparison of Croatoa Eochai and Jack vs Event Eochai and Jack; I was comparing the zone DE GMs to the Event GMs. They have the same hitpoints and while they differ in their attacks, my characters haven't experienced any difference in combat difficulty between the two. 

[tidge]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

I wasn't referring to the comparison of Croatoa Eochai and Jack vs Event Eochai and Jack; I was comparing the zone DE GMs to the Event GMs. They have the same hitpoints and while they differ in their attacks, my characters haven't experienced any difference in combat difficulty between the two. 

 

For the ones that offer Monstrous Aethers, players have to wait between spawns. Obviously when players can spawn such GMs in rapid succession, this stretches the reward profile.

[tidge]

The event GMs give Merits, Badges, XP and Inf. There are enough reasons to fight them already.

[Shin Magmus]

On 10/9/2024 at 12:48 AM, Krimson said:

Giant Monster hunting has already been transformed from a fun activity to a farm event. Waiting around for 15 minutes for a league to form so you can take it down with zero effort is ridiculous, but that's what the Devs wanted - people holding hands and taking the things out without a thought. Obviously, I don't hunt as much as I used to, so I don't care if they want to turn the event GMs in to a farming event as well. 

     Giant Monsters specifically were given a new passive power "Colossal" that causes them to gain +Max HP based on the number of players nearby.  This was added to prevent people forming massive Leagues to remove all challenge from GM fights.  It has the biggest impact vs U'kon Gr'ai, who is now hilariously tough to kill.  So actually, the devs want monsters to present some sort of challenge no matter how many players are engaging.  How effective was this change?  Eh, results vary, but my Illu/Traps solo's all the GMs anyways so it's a moot point.

[Greycat]

On 10/9/2024 at 9:04 AM, Ukase said:

I wasn't referring to the comparison of Croatoa Eochai and Jack vs Event Eochai and Jack; I was comparing the zone DE GMs to the Event GMs. They have the same hitpoints and while they differ in their attacks, my characters haven't experienced any difference in combat difficulty between the two. 

 

Those, as I recall, are just "monsters," not GMs. Assuming by "zone DE GMs" you mean the ones in the Hive (and north islands of PI.)  Which it sounds like you do. They're there year round and the point of them pretty much *is* to give a league EoEs. If they gave Aethers, Aethers would be pretty much worthless - especially if, say, you're on Excelsior and running three double hami raids a day. Even dropping one Aether each, I'm pretty sure I'd be having to drop full stacks on the market monthly, if not faster. And you'd have a string of people just farming them, possibly by dragging them to Portal (like happened several times on live.)