Further insights about Frenzy, the Inclement Four and monster spawn parameters, and other Monster Tags
Title.
We've known for a while Frenzy is coming back and it's been a bit of a mystery, as only a very select set of monsters have frenzy parameters at the current moment. Those being, Gypceros, Yian Kut-Ku, Nerscylla, Hirabami, and Blangonga. That subset of monsters (and also Kut Ku) are definitively native to Iceshard (with Kut Ku being in question), which is where Gore Magala lives and has its nest.
This lead to a few possible conclusions, as I noted in part 3 of my Datamine Encyclopedia series :
- There are only these frenzied monsters as Gore Magala is slain by FW Arkveld before it can moult thus ending the frenzied outbreak and repeat fights are non-canon.
- There are more frenzied monsters in the full game and these are the only ones programmed at the time of the beta because they're plot-relevant.
- Every monster gets frenzied versions on top of legendary versions but they're just not in the beta yet and Kut Ku indicates it because it's not in the Iceshard Cliffs (completely unknown).
I now am leaning on a combination of 2 and 3.
There are things that point to this which at the least I was not privy to until the last several days, or that might have been swept under/forgotten with all the other data.
- One thing I did know was something called "FrenzyPop" which I had believed was something that allowed Frenzieds to spawn in the Cliffs possibly when Gore is around.
- There is a Frenzy Crystal icon in the files, the 4U one, meaning they have some sort of role in the game, but given the data present I had leaned more into it just being something acquired from Gore and the select Frenzieds.
Now for the stuff I was not aware of:
- Every monster in the game seems to have a unique frenzy ID value or, or at least most of them do in the file "Enemy Frenzy Name". Unfortunately they are mostly just garbled values currently.
- There is a parameter called "FrenzyChance", which seems to exist on Chata, Dosh, Gypcer, and Chata in the beta files, but interestingly -not- Rey Dau.
- In addition to FrenzyPop there is also "FrenzyPopParamsByHR". This can be on every map, including Iceshard, who's chance is set to 0 in the files (making sense because this map basically barely exists). There is also such a tag for Legendary:
There's also BattlefieldPopParamsByHR and CocoonPopParamsByHR. Not a damn clue for battlefield, but Cocoon definitely relates to Guardians, probably the chance for Guardians to spawn naturally in the wild in High Rank (evidenced by The Guardians having turf wars with monsters like Quematrice and Rompopolo).
There is also several achievements, one referring to hunting 10 "RARE_SPECIALTY" as well as a trophy for hunting 50 Apexes and a trophy for hunting 50 of something that is undefined. Rare Specialty or the 50 undefined ones could be referring to legendary or frenzy.
There's also some other info regarding monster states I can't recall being mentioned:
What the hell is Chiled? Cocoon relates to Guardians, but tf is that? Please give any thoughts about this in the comments if you have any possible insight.
It is also possible that Legendary King has something to do with frenzy? But I would need full confirmation if there even is any way to get confirmation of what monsters Legendary King can apply to. While I had prevously thought it was just the Inclement Four that is referring to "IsChampion" which is the internal reference for Apex for this game it seems, so we don't know for sure what this applies to, unless I am mistaken (I will correct this if I am). If Rey Dau cannot be frenzied, I can see a couple explanations as to why;
- It'll be like Sunbreak where extra frenzied monsters are added over time via TUs
- The Inclement Four, because they are basically the replacement for Elder Dragons in this title, are immune to the frenzy virus (though it would be CRAZY that Jho/Raj can get it but not these guys) entirely
- Legendary King refers to the Inclement Four and Arkveld having an Apex-esque state, like Risen Elder Dragons
- Legendary King solely refers to the Inclement Four and FW Ark serving as the Elder Replacements and having AT equivalent forms and has nothing to do with frenzy
The Apexes seem to have a separate spawn/call system to normal monsters, rather than normal functionality they are tied to weather events, but have additional spawn params. They use a system called the NushiPop, Nushi referring to apexes (annoyingly this is also the internal term for the Apexes in Rise despite it being separate... meaning that even in Japanese they have the same annoying overlap, Gog I wish they used more words). This parameter has a Legendary spawn rate, but not a Frenzy spawn rate from what we can see:
The chance for them to spawn seems to be 15% during Fallow, 5% during Plenty, 100% during Inclemency.
Now it COULD be that Rey etc CAN be frenzied, but that the Nushi spawn system does not have them spawn naturally, but there's no way to be able to tell as there's literally nothing there for it.
Now as for specifically apexes, this is something I'm not sure about, but we have this:
This is from the original chinese leak back from august. From 2 sources the chinese text seems to refer to "No Apex State" in the last text of the image (beneath Frenzy Virus) but I'm not 100% sure. This could indicate that point 3 is incorrect.
I would also just like to note that for a little bit I got REAL excited because the text when directly translated says "No lImit/extreme" which sounded like Apex because 4U Apex is called Extreme State, but with nuance/proper translation it seems to basically mean "No Apex State", which was a bit deflating because I thought I had solved legendary king since I was under the belief Gore did not have one but now I'm not sure if we actually know what does/doesn't have Legendary Kings.
Regarding the spawn/Pop things, I think it's possible that the HR15 quest being most likely G Fulgur and Legendary Lala might allow for Legendary monsters to begin spawning naturally, and the HR20 quest if it's an intro to Frenzy could be what allows Frenzy monsters to spawn naturally, going by "FrenzyPopByHR" and "LegendaryPopByHR" implying HR increases the chances of them spawning naturally in expeditions. But we don't know for sure which quests lie as the main urgents except Kut Ku and Arkveld. You can refer to the HR weapon tree analysis on part 3 of the datamine encyclopedia for more thoughts about that.
As my own personal autistic obsession aside, if there is something this vast that is truly missing from the beta files then that is just even more evidence that Lagiacrus and Seregios are just indev.
This is also just generally more proof that the Inclement Four and FW Ark replace Elder Dragons entirely in this game given that they seem to be immune to frenzy, have an achievement for hunting a total of 50 of them like the Elder Dragons in World, and are probably the recipient of the AT/Apex/Risen equivalent forms. Even if I'm still not the biggest fan of FW Ark as the final boss, I can understand it from this sort of perspective, if the Inclement Four are the new equivalent to the Elder Trio then FW Ark is the equivalent of a big top tier elder dragon like Shara or Gais relative to them, so they're REALLY pushing back elder dragons significantly.
I'll be adding this information to part 3 of my big document as well.
So to everyone who was sure that they wouldn't do just 5 Frenzied Monsters, you very well might have been right, which is the preferable outcome, meaning that for the first time there are 2 wholly separate monster states with both Legendary/Tempered and Frenzy. So, much like how I'm reasonably confident on Lagia and VERY confident on Sere not being TUs and just being indev due to old beta jank, I'm now pretty confident that Frenzy extends to more aspects of the full game, and that the ones in the beta are just story relevant ones that were programmed first.
And again, what the hell is "Chiled"? Feel free to discuss as usual.