May 10, 2017 October 4, 2018
Monstrology for PvPers
As monstrology spreads through the spiral, many PvPers have expressed mixed feelings about it. On the one hand many are happy that its super overpowered minions won’t be making an appearance in PvP. On the other hand many are disappointed as the system offered some unique possibilities (particularly for the myth school). This thread will go over some ideas on how both parties could be satisfied and how monstrology and PvP could co-exist. Ready to get excited about Monstrology for PvPers?
Monstrology Minions
One of the biggest parts of monstrology is the introduction of minions that can be summoned based on the animus of collected monsters. The minions come with all the base statistics of the creature (minus the cheats but including health)! This is likely why they were not introduced in PvP. However, there is a way to include these monsters in PvP without overwhelming the system. The way to do this is via a few simple steps:
Adjust health based on rank
In the arena monsters’ health could be made equal to their rank x 100. So a rank 1 monstrology minion would have 100 health while a rank 15 minion or boss would have 1500 health. In this way monstrology minions could come into play in PvP without overwhelming players due to a massive health pool.
Limit tc by rank
In order to prevent low levels from exploiting higher rank monsters, the monstrology tc that could be used would be limited by rank of the monster. Lvl 1-10 Wizards would only be able to use rank 2 and below monsters for example. KI could pretty much lock monstrology tc by the highest rank monster your wizard can face via the main questline.
Monstrology TC return to deck after PvP battles
In order to stop Monstrology from being something that only players with a max lvl character on their account can realistically utilize- 
Monstrology TC would return to your deck at the end of a PvP match. In this way the amount of farming required to effectively utilize monstrology would be kept at a reasonable level. Thus, it would ensure that monstrology for pvpers does not become part of the barrier to entry that is already quite steep in PvP.
For PvP offer class “expel monster” TC
Due to the large variety of potential monsters that could be in use at any given time- Diego should offer class specific expel TC that are for PvP only. What this means is that for each monster type available- PvP would have a class expel for it (such as expel undead or expel parrot). In this way, schools without access to cheap AoEs have a reasonable way to take out monstrology minions without making the very concept of monstrology for PvPers useless. Since monstrology TCs would return to deck after PvP battles Diego could offer these expels for a reasonable amount of arena tickets.
Monsterdome Rewards
One of the most underutilized concepts in the current monstrology system is the “unique loot” that was promised at the beginning of the system. Right now, minions in the Monsterdome simply offer gold and the occasional housing item, nothing that really screams unique. An easy way to fulfill this “unique loot” promise while simultaneously making monstrology for PvPers (and PvE) more interesting is to allow the Monsterdome monsters to drop the unique spells in their repertoire as TC. Things like death ninja pigs, natural attacks, boreas ifrit are all TC that could easily be added to Monsterdome loot tables. Best of all it would require very little additional programming as these TC already exist (only as monster only spells). Of course these TC would need to similarly be rank restricted but with thoughtful implementation and a decent drop rate (I’m thinking 80%+ of the time these unique TC should drop) then the Monsterdome could see an explosion in popularity while also expanding and enhancing the PvP experience.
