New Record Of Eminence: Subjugation

Is anyone else disappointed with the list of NMs Square chose to use for these new line of quests? When I initially saw the pictures and threads, I immediately thought of noteworthy NMs over the career of FFXI, such as Roc and KA. I even imagined they would have included some reasonably once-relevant mobs that would at least provide some nostalgic value.

I opened my menu and located the NMs that made the list:
Subjugation: Jaggedy-Eared Jack
Subjugation: Epialtes
Subjugation Dosetsu Tree

My first reaction to this was "WTF???" Epialtes? Dosetsu Tree? On what planet did any one player ever care about these monsters?

I mean, I understand they were implementing new time absorbing quests for people who were bored and wanted to camp something for 2+ hours...I get that. But I think they dropped the ball on this one. They very easily could have went in the direction of something like:
Subjugation: <VW Uptala> (6 kills) etc

This would have killed two birds with one stone. It would have provided some 'spark' to older content like VW, and would encourage more players to do it, while inevitably increasing the sheer number of upgrade mats server wide.

Even doing something like:
Subjugation: Kirin
Subjugation: Nidhogg
Subjugation: Archaic Gears (100 kills)
Subjugation: <Salvage/Besieged/Campaign> mob/boss kills
Subjugation: Dynamis <mob>


Would have proved a little bit more entertaining.
At the very least, they could have thought this out a bit more - maybe add some NMs or monsters that people cared about. But when I see monsters like Thousandarm Deshglesh on that list, it makes me think they seriously didn't think this whole thing through.

Well, if you look at the list, you will notice a few things:

1) Most every zone listed in the "Kill 10 mobs at this zone" has 1 NM on it. There are a few exceptions, but it is mostly true for this.

2) For zones that don't have an "old 24 hour pop" or "old highly camped pop" they have random lottery pops. Yeah, JEJ and Carnelo are there, and they dropped items useful for the jobs at the levels there, but the mobs where you kill 1 and win are basically the zone NM. Daggerclaw Draco for example, not really useful unless you are camping him for your emp weapon, but you still get bonus for camping him.

3) Kirin, Nidhogg, any other pop NMs are not included because all you have to do is pop it. Every single NM on the list are lottery or timed spawns. SE may include pop NMs, but that will be a different update, if at all.

4) Not every zone is included in the Subjugation kills. They still have to add ToAU, WotG, Dynamis, Salvage, Sky, Sea, and other areas to it. Why should they add NMs to the Subjugation kills if they haven't added zones?

tl:dr version: Just wait.

Extra spark rewards for higher tier VW bosses would be nice. Could definitely use some more empyrean currency on the market.

so what do these things give when complete? do they give u the NM drop 100% or something?

It just seems this line of Subjugation is a regurgitated version of ToM, where the reintroduction of utterly useless mobs became more popular.

I just take the original Subjugation quests, for example, and figured well those are medium tier kills (Lv116 Naakual fights), so the new ones would be similar. I hear the word "Subjugation" and immediately think "eliminate a formidable foe by conquering". Carnero and Swamfisk don't appear the least bit challenging. Just a time steal IMO, with no real reward overall.

Its never easy to see the line of updates square decides to take, but I just think they could have put a better effort into the monsters they chose, or the level of the monsters.

But you're right, just wait and see.

Would be kind of interesting if clearing enough NMs from a certain branch (like, all Bastok zones) unlocks later NM objectives. Similar to how you don't get the "Deal 1000 damage" objective until you've completed the "Deal 500 damage" objective. No credit for KA until you've killed Bernie!

(Yes, I know, Bernie is popped. Shhhh)

inb4 there's a KI or item you will get in the future for completing *ALL* Record of Eminence quests, needed to build the SoA ultimate weapon. If it is something you build like with Empyrean or Mythic, I bet RoE will need to be completed to get some kind of title or quest.

Yeah, I was kind of hoping for something substantial along the lines of the "seven treasures" KIs from beating the WKRs with RoE subjugation quest active. Maybe a Zilart equivalent, giving a KI for defeating each of the 5 AAs (normal level or higher) and the two Zilart bro fights, the whole set of which could be redeemed for your choice of one weapon/armor drop from those fights. Doesn't sound too out of line with current developer thinking about player rewards either.

I guess I get that the new subjugation quests are more of a little bonus of exp/sparks when you happen to encounter a listed NM, but that doesn't really make it less underwhelming. At least it was good for the humor value of getting me to go kill Simurgh, Roc, and Serket in the span of 20 minutes after login Monday and marveling at how much that would have blown my mind back in 2005.