2006 - (07/19/2006) New Notorious Monsters and Battlefields!

In the upcoming version update, new notorious monsters and battlefields will be introduced into the Treasures of Aht Urhgan areas. Also, certain monsters will soon possess an accumulative resistance to magic.

New Notorious Monsters
Now that everyone seems to be used to the new areas and enemies of the Treasures of Aht Urhgan expansion disc, a number of notorious monsters will be introduced in the next version update.

In addition, a new type of high notorious monster (HNM) will be added to the beastman strongholds.

Victory will not come easy when facing these new challenges!

New Battlefields
A number of new battlefields are scheduled for the Treasures of Aht Urhgan areas. You can attempt these battlefields by using Imperial Standing credits.

We have adjusted the system so that most players should be able to make an attempt once or twice a week with the Imperial Standing they earn, but players can enter the battlefield every day if they have enough credits. This should make the new battlefields more accessible than orb battles.

Accumulative Magic Resistance
Currently, a large number of players can team up to overpower the enemy in certain battles by hitting the enemy repeatedly with only elemental magic. This tactic has had an unbalancing effect on the game, and we decided a change was needed.

However, altering the effects of powerful magic spells would have a negative effect on black mages and other magic users. Rather than altering magic effects or strengthening monsters, we determined that the adjustment to solve this issue should be as small as possible in scope and affect other gameplay mechanics as little as possible.

Therefore, for the next update we have decided to implement an accumulative magic resistance effect for all monsters whose strength reads "impossible to gauge."

We have also made several other adjustments to minimize the effect of this change on black mages and other magic users. For example, a party fighting a notorious monster with one to two black mages will probably not notice the difference.

However, we have decided to give Bahamut in the quest "The Wyrmking Descends" and Diabolos in the quest "Waking Dreams" a stronger accumulative magic resistance than other notorious monsters.

When a notorious monster is repeatedly hit by the following types of magic, it will accumulatively build magic resistance:
 * Types of Affected Magic Damage

Black magic (elemental), white magic (divine), ninjutsu, magical blood pact abilities, magical blue magic, magical weapon skills (e.g., Spirits Within and Red Lotus Blade), and certain job abilities (e.g., Chi Blast and Mijin Gakure)

When a monster with accumulative magic resistance is hit by a magic attack, the amount of damage it receives will decrease in accordance with that monster's resistance. At the same time, its resistance will increase.
 * Resistance Fluctuation

The monster's resistance will increase in accordance with the amount of damage incurred, but each monster has a maximum resistance level.

In addition, the monster's resistance will decrease with time if it is not hit by any repeated magic attacks.