Named Monsters

Hello everyone.

As it is right now, most named monsters from levels 1-99 aren't very exciting. In my opinion, you should be looking forward to hunting them; it shouldn't be "just" a bonus. What I'm trying to suggest is bumping up the difficulty, experience and loot of said monsters within their level bracket. It'd definitely make hunting in general more fun.

(Wishful thinking incoming)

Who knows, maybe also make them into Minor (as in, less than lesser) Epic Bosses and give them unique drops; nothing too powerful, of course, just something else to motivate you to hunt them even more. Though this probably wouldn't be a very good idea, because it's very hard, not to say impossible, to find a group before level 100. Making them hard, but soloable and more rewarding would be a safer option.

Another thing that could be done is town marshall or trophy hunter quest on the lines of "WANTED: Gersei" with an average reward.

(end of wishful thinking)

The increases in loot could be in the form of more rhahool junk, more trophies, more formulas if the non named version already drops them, etc.

What does everyone think about this?

Thanks for reading.

I think it is generally a good idea for the named mobs in general to be tougher. I think they are, but maybe not too much more difficult at the moment.

Making them more difficult, and maybe doubling their rhahool junk or form drop chance sounds like a nice balance. All of the named used to have a chance to drop forms... I think the forms might have been removed from those named mobs who were also quest mobs, so that players doing quests wouldn't be fighting over spawns with someone farming for forms. I know Brecah (T5 Marble named, used in Helian Arop) used to drop forms, and I don't think he has in awhile. So for the named who are part of a quest, make no changes. But for those not used in quests (at least not in Rop and Arop which are the most busy quests by far, nor any other existing t5 t6 quests) getting a difficulty bump and loot bump would be a good idea.

Could also put in level restricted quests for some of them, so that you had to be say 40 to 59 to pick up the quest to go after the now more difficult (if the above is implemented) named Oak Treant, and the npc would award some extra exp and coin. This could be a daily or weekly or some other interval quest. Level restricted. Might be a bit of a diversion from the standard grinding or trophy hunting for those players with higher ratings.

Some monsters would need more buffing than others. For example, Sermontus, the named turgid purple weaver, would need a much larger power-up than, say, Mouf, the ravenous bloodsnout named.

I never knew about that, but I guess it makes sense.

That's exactly why I'm suggesting this. Levelling isn't even hard, but it takes so long and becomes so repetitive after I get the first few 100's that it becomes boring.

Having the trophy hunters or town marshals handing out quests to kill the named mobs would be nice. I think active quests can possibly add some stuff to a mobs loot tables, so having weekly quests to kill a specific named mob that make the named mob drop a few forms would be nice.

Please do continue discussing the idea presented here; we love to hear your thoughts! I just want to chime in to tell you that most named mobs do indeed already drop more than their non-named counterparts. They have +1 or +2 minimum and maximum pulls from the loot table while also having a chance to drop things considered more rare sometimes. (I believe some living races named mobs drop rarer techniques while their normal versions don't, for instance)

I know they already have enhanced drop tables, as well as experience and difficulty. I was just suggesting for that difference to be increased, in all 3 fronts, for the reasons already stated on my OP.

I'll mull over this at work and most likely come up with more ideas later.

Thanks to everyone for replying.

Maybe adding the chance of dropping Clerical Tokens and Tokens of Gratitude to the loot tables of named mobs is an idea.

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Originally Posted by Terao

Maybe adding the chance of dropping Clerical Tokens and Tokens of Gratitude to the loot tables of named mobs is an idea.

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Oooh, I like this one. Tokens of gratitude are so ridiculously slow to earn... Adding some to named is a nice idea. And this could be done to all tiers of named, with the quantity increasing as the level of the mob goes up.

And thinking of the named that are used in quests... it is probably ok to bump their loot too(after thinking more about it). For example, if I am running to go take out Surthiem, I might pass by Lorgus on the way. Sometimes I just go ahead and fight him for the fun of it. He respawns fast enough that if someone came by 5 minutes later to hunt him as part of arop, they would only have a 10 minute ish wait anyway. Even could add some extra difficulty to make the extra loot items "earned", even in the case of those named used in quests.

(i'm going to refer all "named" as bosses here fyi - i never mean epics at any point in this.)

On a basic level, upscale difficulty in some cases (a few of them are reaaally weak and just like a normal <thing> with more hp essentially eg sermontus.
Not sure how feasable it is but could have them disable some key attacks/spells or something with an aura or w/e is the best method. E.g. aura of fear - disables the use of shield of gold, critical strike, fiery strike, ice shackles. or even a buff on the thing itself that makes certain attacks guarentee to miss - for eg could have a boss completely resistant to roots/stuns, another that stops a large portion of debuffs landing etc. Would have to be careful to skate the lines between making it impossible for some schools vs making it difficult for some schools)

Give better rewards. IMO - 100% guarantee a trophy, component (% chance vs common/rare still existing), a or multiple junk/hoard item(s), and one formula. Tbh just the 100% guarentee gives an incentive to kill even outside of quests - rng is evil afterall.

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Quests could be added to kill either certain named (kill <insert boss name here>) or a group of named (eg kill all boss t2 ogre tribe) and give rewards of exp/trophies/coin/tokens of gratitude, exp for sure, idk what's best out of the other options. IMO - should be on a seperate NPC to the current town marshall + trophy hunter quests, the lists are already long enough.

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I was toying with a pretty...abstract? I guess idea. Make bosses significantly tougher and have them 100% chance to drop, or by quest rewards, an item like a "soul of strength" or an "essence of power" or something like that - all bosses drop the same item, quantities dropped differ upon the boss' difficulty. NPC who provides boss related quests gives formulas (for coin or the exclusive boss drop, the exclusive boss drop would be the primary item in the crafting of what i'm boutta suggest), or the items themselves (traded for boss drop only) of either consumables or tech kits or something that when used/put on a weapon provide obscure buffs - things like +10% damage vs all ogres, +chance for max damage vs elementals, +chance to inflict <debuff> on enemy, +chance to avoid attacks from <thing>, +chance to survive a one-hit-kill shot (think epic bosses like reklar's GR) with low health, +chance to absorb (negate damage + heal) 50% of damage done when hit, +chance to get the rarer component drop, +chance for an extra roll from the available loot trables, amongst many other potential buffs. The better the thing/higher the teir the more of the exclusive boss drop you need to get/make it.

Idk tho. Just something i made up on the spot, haven't really though this one through.

Maybe add Nature Lore Tokens to the list? Those are a pain to get as well. Though probably only level 60+ bosses should drop them, because that's how early you can start getting them.

I agree with bosses having immunities, though, like you said, they have to be placed really carefully in order to make them difficult, but not impossible and, most of all, soloable. I don't think there are enough low levels willing to group up to hunt a boss.

100% rate rewards yes yes yes!

I actually came up with something similar... kind of: 100% drop rate monster-specific passive abilities that increase damage done and/or decrease damage taken from that one type of monster by a very small amount (like 0.1%-0.5%), stacking up each time you kill the named (maybe only drop it while doing the quest for it, to prevent camping?), up to a maximum bonus of 5%-10%. Nothing too crazy, just something to make you want to kill them. Once it's fully stacked, maybe have a slightly increased chance of receiving more junk/trophies/comps/etc from the non-named versions of the monster.

Another idea I came up with was chance encounters: Say you're killing dire wolves. Suddenly this appears on your chat box: "Enraged at the death of so many of his kin, Mani the Dire Wolf charges at you, intent on exacting revenge." and you guessed it, a buffed up Mani comes running at you, very much wanting to kill you.

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Originally Posted by Azath

I was toying with a pretty...abstract? I guess idea. Make bosses significantly tougher and have them 100% chance to drop, or by quest rewards, an item like a "soul of strength" or an "essence of power" or something like that - all bosses drop the same item, quantities dropped differ upon the boss' difficulty. NPC who provides boss related quests gives formulas (for coin or the exclusive boss drop, the exclusive boss drop would be the primary item in the crafting of what i'm boutta suggest), or the items themselves (traded for boss drop only) of either consumables or tech kits or something that when used/put on a weapon provide obscure buffs - things like +10% damage vs all ogres, +chance for max damage vs elementals, +chance to inflict <debuff> on enemy, +chance to avoid attacks from <thing>, +chance to survive a one-hit-kill shot (think epic bosses like reklar's GR) with low health, +chance to absorb (negate damage + heal) 50% of damage done when hit, +chance to get the rarer component drop, +chance for an extra roll from the available loot trables, amongst many other potential buffs. The better the thing/higher the teir the more of the exclusive boss drop you need to get/make it.

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The above mostly seems like things we already get elsewhere, but more than that would likely take much more dev time to implement. So would quests to go kill so-and-so named mob. Enough that the implementation of the whole idea could be put off for a year or two before anything happens...

Rather than go that route, why not just tweak their difficulty as well as tweak their loot tables. Doesn't need to be any more difficult than that imho.

Then later, if/when time permits something more extravagant could be done, if the dev's decided on that path.

Serious thread necro here. Apologies. Couple points I wanted to make.

1) Named monsters already receive a bonus loot "pull". So if the normal version of a monster receives 3 loot attempts, a named monster will be 4. In addition, named monsters have a cap on the no-treasure option and they get +1 to rare drops as well.

2) We could make them worth more XP. Double perhaps.

3) I like the idea of Tokens of Gratitude for killing them. Will investigate this further.