Giant Monsters should have their own map marker.

[tidge]

2 hours ago, Mystoc said:

it really comes down to this

• you think marking GMs on the map is to over the top hand holding that dumbs down the game for new players.
• I think it's great feature for the game that promotes teaming and players working together to take down a foe that could not be defeated alone.

 

I don't see a future where we end up convincing the other to change stances on this Rudra so I thank you for your feedback and insights into the games lore and wish you a great day.

 

Those bullet points aren't orthogonal binary choices!

 

I didn't see anyone saying it "dumbs the game down" (for anyone)... for myself, it trivializes part of the game in a way that I don't think @Mystoc recognizes.

 

There hasn't been any evidence provided that such a change promotes teaming... It really feels like a hypothetical motivated by monthly event annoyance that we know whena WL spawns in a zone, but we don't know precisely where in the zone the WL spawns. It is valid to feel annoyed, but the "solution" is at best adressing only a limited subgroup of players who might have that annoyance... it doesn't actually solve any in-game problems.

[AboveTheChemist]

20 hours ago, lemming said:

GM spawn locations are in vidiot maps.

For now, they are. Who knows what tomorrow may bring? Especially if tomorrow brings gin.

[Luminara]

1 hour ago, AboveTheChemist said:

For now, they are. Who knows what tomorrow may bring? Especially if tomorrow brings gin.

 

 

[lemming]

4 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

For now, they are. Who knows what tomorrow may bring? Especially if tomorrow brings gin.

The worst for me.   (allergy, but my wife enjoys a good G&T)

[Ukase]

On 12/12/2025 at 4:47 PM, Rudra said:

Ah, the new player argument. Because the Broadcast, General, Help, and LFG channels are just so difficult to access and use, and experienced players are just so unwilling to answer questions or help newer players learn.

I use these channels, except for General where I disable that just on principal. The same dialogue that goes on there SHOULD be going on in Help and LFG, but people are hypersensitive to off-topic chat. But I digress. 

New players often get shut down and simply referred to the forums or discord to learn about the game. 
There's no question I use Vidiotmaps, and the badgesetlist pop menu. But in the same way the Fast Travel pop menu is now an inherent part of the game, I'd love it if the badgesetlist were also an established inherent, with a nice macro icon, as well as vidiotmaps. A radio button to show badges or not could be toggled. Off by default. 

I dislike the idea of suggesting a new player stop playing and tab out or log out to read about how to download a couple of add-ons just to improve their playing experience. Could they muddle about without these things? Sure. It's debatable if they will enjoy the game more or less ignoring the suggestions or heeding them. People are different. Some folks will have more fun going right to a GM than others, and I'm sure the opposite is also true. 

Anytime a player is advised to use Mids, to visit the forums, or leave the game to learn about the game - the game has failed the player. This information should be easily discoverable within the context of the help menu. Now - we know that would be a HUGE undertaking, a likely huge pain in the butt. And I wouldn't ever expect all of that to happen. But this addition is interesting in that the only player that might be negatively impacted would be a player that wants to solo a GM for whatever reason. 

You make a little radio button that a player selects - off by default - "Show location of GM". The folks that like the hunt can hunt. The folks that don't can go right there. Now, that adds an element of "will the hunter get there in time" risk, but if it's just a matter of visiting spawn points, they should have plenty of time to get a hit in. 

The hard part comes for an NPC like Caleb or Paladin when they are on the move. And Babbage and Kronos when they're spawning in response to ambush. I don't know that Babbage or Kronos should be advertised, as both are in response to a player's specific actions, and that should be left up to the players running that content to decide if they want help or not. But given some of the crazy game mechanics I've seen added, I'm confident they could add this if they wanted to. 

And that's the rub. 

 

[tidge]

18 minutes ago, Ukase said:

The hard part comes for an NPC like Caleb or Paladin when they are on the move. And Babbage and Kronos when they're spawning in response to ambush. I don't know that Babbage or Kronos should be advertised, as both are in response to a player's specific actions, and that should be left up to the players running that content to decide if they want help or not. But given some of the crazy game mechanics I've seen added, I'm confident they could add this if they wanted to. 

 

IIRC, the Mapserver GM is tagged to appear on the open world maps. and has since it was introduced... so ultimately "PLZ mark GMs" is a suggestion that hasn't been implemented for reasons.

[Rudra]

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

But this addition is interesting in that the only player that might be negatively impacted would be a player that wants to solo a GM for whatever reason. 

How would this negatively impact a player that soloes GMs? That player can just turn on the marker and beeline to the GM to take down every time.

 

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

Anytime a player is advised to use Mids, to visit the forums, or leave the game to learn about the game - the game has failed the player. This information should be easily discoverable within the context of the help menu

It's a GM. A giant sack of HP. The only information players need is that it is out there and dangerous. Because it is giant monster, any new player should automatically be considering that it may be too much to solo. That should come from how dangerous just random minions on the street are. And they can learn more as they join teams advertising to take down said GM. (Unless a solo GM hunter already did.) And isn't this suggestion supposed to be for the new players? The ones that really shouldn't be tackling GMs without help in the first place because they aren't built for it yet? The ones that when they see the GM notice in the chat window can just go to the zone and ask if there is a GM team they can join?

[Ukase]

18 hours ago, Rudra said:

That player can just turn on the marker and beeline to the GM to take down every time.

Have you ever tried to solo Adamastor? Ya gotta wake up pretty early in the morning to do this, so to speak. It may not be a league of 30, but invariably someone comes by and wants to get at least a hit in for merits. 

The lesser rewarding GMs like Babbage or Kraken which can be a little tougher to find might give that player a chance to solo it. But with the marker...odds are some merit hungry person (like me!) is going to come along. Some players will respect a player trying to solo, others won't. Both are fair play, but it would have an impact on the solo hunter in this context. I've been the solo player, and it's not like I was beating the GM like a level 7 Hellion with my level 15 blaster. It was more how you might expect an ill/rad to fare against Adamastor. Slowly. Too slowly. 

I do think the pros of having the marker outweigh the cons. But so far, I'd say the last 20-30 characters I've made have gotten all the GMs without this proposed change - but I've been playing a long time and have the maps to see their likely spawn points. 

[tidge]

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

Have you ever tried to solo Adamastor? Ya gotta wake up pretty early in the morning to do this, so to speak. It may not be a league of 30, but invariably someone comes by and wants to get at least a hit in for merits.

 

I don't understand this comment, or how it supports favoring a GM marker.

 

1) Adamastor always spawns at the exact same location, which has a map marker... so in fact, people can beeline to it.

2) There is an announcement when Adamastor spawns, and it will despawn in 20 minutes if not defeated.

3) It takes less than a minute for a multi-boxer to "solo" Adamastor, it takes my solo singleton under 2 minutes to defeat it, with Lores.

 

For other zone GMs... there will be an announcement, but they are mostly on 4-hour timers. Folks who solo will beeline to the GMs, and wipe them. For folks who cannot solo, or don't mulitibox GMs, I observe the following behaviors:

• They LFG notifying everyone about the monsters, and stick around while hoping for a team to carry them
• They leave them be.

There are far more multi-box Adamastor 'waiters' then multi-box GM hunters... but I'm convinced this is because Adamastor is an extremely low-effort, high reward spawn for a few minutes. The effort for OTHER GMs is finding them and/or summoning them (e.g. Goliath War Walker).

 

For most monthly event GMs... they can take less than 2 minutes each, without using Lores. Certain zones would become free-for-alls.

 

For some GMs... I think the marker idea would also contribute to people not cleaning up (Croatoa, Kings Row, Crey's Folly). People interested in finding a GM won't be incentivized to zip through the zone checking for GMs (and cleaning up any additionals) if there isn't a GM marker... and people who only want the GMs will skip checking for additionals... just like they do now.

 

We're somewhat lucky right now in that most GMs don't have daily limits... and this is because they aren't trivial to find. Say good-bye to "Saturday Night Synapse" when GMs get 24-hour limits on rewards.

 

[Rudra]

5 hours ago, Ukase said:

Have you ever tried to solo Adamastor?

No. I don't run around soloing GMs. There are other players that do. @tidge covered responding to you well, so I'll just say read his/her/their response.

[MsSmart]

On 12/11/2025 at 12:42 PM, Mystoc said:

for example, when there is a fire in steel canyon it's considered an event so it's marked on the map so everyone knows where to go, the same should be done with GMs as well. Generally, people will use the $loc command to let others know where to go but a feature like this would still be helpful.

 

yes, external tools like vidiotmaps do mark where GMs can possibly spawn but not everyone uses them, also with the current event Winter Lords are being spawned in constantly and then abandoned so now no one knows where to find them at all!

 

I understand some people do like exploring and the sense of discovery and not instantly having info given to them so perhaps a middle ground could be: Giant Monsters wouldn't be marked on the map until they are targeted by a player for the first time?

 

I actually, like the idea of them being on the map, so when folks asks for help such as Babbage in Sky, would make it easier to help the team

[Ukase]

4 hours ago, tidge said:

I don't understand this comment, or how it supports favoring a GM marker.

Yeah, I shouldn't have used Adamastor. 
My point was that someone who would want to solo a GM (regardless of GM) might have a problem doing so if a map marker pointed out where the GM was to other folks. 

Scenario: 
I want to solo Kraken. (I don't really want to) I see the message in Hero Event channel and find him before anyone else. I pop an inspiration or two, and I've got him about 1/3 of the way down, and then someone else shows up and "helps" even though I don't want or need their help (at least I don't know that I do, but the point of soloing the GM is to find out if I can, I guess) 

With a map marker - that's the only scenario where I see someone might have an issue. The only real foul is the first player didn't find out of they could solo the gm or not. Everyone gets paid, so it's ultimately not a big deal (to me), but might be to the first player. 

ME - I'm in favor of it. I'm just trying to look at all sides of the issue. 

[tidge]

51 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Yeah, I shouldn't have used Adamastor. 
My point was that someone who would want to solo a GM (regardless of GM) might have a problem doing so if a map marker pointed out where the GM was to other folks. 

 

OK... so I understand the scenario you describe... but I see the marker as setting off a sort of gold rush, at least among those who want to make sure they get their piece... and I foresee some fraction of folks being those who can (and will) take out Giant Monsters ASAP. I suspect some players would see a league chasing monsters and decide to "PVP" to other zones to take out GMs before the league gets there.

 

Please don't forget that the Holiday GMs can be VERY easy to defeat... and that they insta-respawn. I was present when an entire league or two was murdering Scrapyard... this behavior is what I think would happen again if players knew where monsters were by a casual glance at the map.