The FFXI "Gyms of Vana'diel" Self Improvement Reborn!

[kingfury]

You're his muse Rambus! lol. Hey fury mind drawing something with the taru female face with the green, shoulder length hair with bangs? (It's normal color is blonde.) You can see my taru's avatar if you look up "harpalina" on ffxiah.com under valefor.

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BLM gear was what I found on ffxiah.com so that's what I based this off of ^^/ A raging Harpalina!!
-Battle Royal Game Mode

**Edited the art into the PvP Post**
>>Player vs Player (PvP)<< Full Details(Link)

[kingfury]

You forgot my mithra kicking the elf though. lol

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Lol nah, there's still room for this with two more modes to illustrate ^^

[Harpalina]

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BLM gear was what I found on ffxiah.com so that's what I based this off of ^^/ A raging Harpalina!!
-Battle Royal Game Mode

Ooooohohohohohohohoho~ FEAR ME!!!! I'm more fearsome than Shantotto!

EDIT: I look badass. Thanks for immortalizing me in your sketches

[kingfury]

Ooooohohohohohohohoho~ FEAR ME!!!! I'm more fearsome than Shantotto!
EDIT: I look badass. Thanks for immortalizing me in your sketches

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Lol It's funny cause I did think of Shantotto while drawing it
My pleasure, and thank you for your inspiration ^^/

[Strife]

I apologise for the length of this post but I'm entering the discussion on page 23 so my 2 cents x 23 pages= long post lol.

Let me just say I love this idea (& your sketches) & I'm glad SE is taking notice of it, massive props mate.

I must admit though I don't particularly like the idea of getting constantly healed for the amount of damage you take (why have the monster deal damage at all in that case?) I think some aspect of effort & risk should be involved & I think the the idea mentioned of using this system as a way to teach people about certain aspects of their jobs is really smart.

I suggest that the regimens be carried out more like a mini game format than just going into a room & whacking something for 30min as I think this would just encourage people to enter, engage & go AFK for 30min while they get free skill ups
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An example of a regime for defensive skills might be to select a monster that has constant hundred fists but low damage, to make it more fun & not a cop out 'enter & go mow the lawn while you skill-up' scenario you could make so you have a meter where you need to tap a certain button or combination of buttons at certain times the effect of doing so might be that after a certain sequence/ number of perfect hits you receive a cure or buff & a bonus skill-up or a bonus to the rate at which skill-ups are gained for the duration of the regimen up to a certain cap. Higher tier regimes might require faster, more precise & complex combinations to be hit & cap at higher skill bonuses. The consequence of doing poorly might be the monster looses interest & eventually de-spawns ending the regimen (so as to stop people entering & walking away & getting free skill-ups).

As a guy with only one toon this would be a godsend for me as unless I drag a friend along to help me (& I don't because I don't even want to be out there so I'm not going to drag my friends into it lol) it can often be perilous for me to pull multiple mobs at a time and only fighting one is so slow for skilling defensive skills. I have died many times (mostly from falling asleep out of boredom) & had to run back to some out of the way place and start again. Add to this the trouble of lining mobs up so you can face them all & keeping your 'dummy target' in range so you don't disengage & stop parry/ guarding as well as constantly countering & killing your skill-up mobs if your MNK not to mention the fact it is mind numbingly boring & you can see why my defensive skills are so woefully gimp!

Examples for teaching aspects of jobs proficiency might be:
*For elemental magic have a mini game that gives bonuses to elemental magic skill based on how many times you MB off two NPCs.
*For healing magic you could need to cure a NPC fighting a mob that will attack you if you pull to much hate, your bonus would then be higher the fewer times you drew the mobs attention by cleverly timing your spells/ tiers of cures.
*For a THF you could have to TA 2 tanks a certain number of times a bonus would be rewarded on how well you kept the hate equal between the two. You could have a hate meter in beginner levels & introduce the need to use accomplice/ collaborator in the intermediate level regimens.

Just some ideas off the top of my head but you can see where I'm going with it. This might be a bit to involved for the Dev team with all they already have going on at the moment but hey a guy can dream.^^

With regards to XP & other rewards I think as there are already other systems in game to solo XP that SE no doubt worked very hard on & wont want to see abandoned rewards should be more geared to raising your skills. I like the medal system though to differentiate it from campaign you could call them “Belts” like you might get in a dojo (just a thought).

It's true there are many other ways to skill-up already in the game but they all have their draw-backs. Waiting for campaign battles (if they allowed you to skill in them again) can be tedious & if your not a job that can solo dangerous & defensive skills are still a pain to level especially when people run up and take hate on the mob your tanking.
Shouting for a skill-up party can be annoying and mage jobs especially don't get the full benefit of these as our accuracy is often low & delay high plus you can often spend most of the time curing the party or being yelled at for haste ><.
And while Abyssea has made solo'n a lot easier not every job can do this effectively & for every skill (a BLM trying to kill an IT mob with a staff often doesn't last to long lol) & it CAN drain your stones (yes I know you can do it certain ways to alleviate this but it doesn't always work out & you need to spend time building lights first. Some people don't have the time IRL for all that). Kings system could make these notoriously annoying activities actually enjoyable instead of a chore which a lot of people just put into the to hard basket.

Something like this could probably be introduced into MMM & a lot of the other ideas already have similar aspects in game -PvP for example- so just bolstering in game content may be easier & as effective but I like the way King has put this forward as a whole package.

Just as a fun little add-on I'd like to see a super buff 'Drill Moogle' as the NPC for this & when you complete a regimen successfully you might be rewarded with a little CS where your toon flexes & looks comically buff lol.

+1 to adding NPC Kingfury if this is implemented (possibly as a boss battle lol)

BTW - Have you thought about hosting a FFXI comic section?

Please do this! =D

...Idle Wanderers (and a couple other mobs) which are EP and seem to serve no other purpose in the game...

I think these were put there as a non-abyssea XP mob after an earlier level cap rise.

[Liam]

Reading through a good chunk of the comments, I appear to be in the great minority on this topic. I guess I'm just and old school gamer type, but the only thing that frustrates me about this whole idea is the risk free skill ups, but I guess that's because I fought for my skill ups and it seems kinda sad for them just to hand them out to people that just jumped from lv 30 to 75 in a few days.

Much like crafting skills, combat skills are one of the major differences from player to player. The level of your skill showed how much effort you put into fighting things that wanted to make you die.

I've got no problem with them adjusting the rate at which we get skills to kinda compensate for the speed we get exp now, (I was surprised when I came back after a year or so, and netted 500 exp in a few minutes punching easy prey to death) but sitting in town and skilling up effortlessly seems like another hand out for the lv 90 players that don't know how to play the game that I keep hearing about lately.

[kingfury]

I must admit though I don't particularly like the idea of getting constantly healed for the amount of damage you take (why have the monster deal damage at all in that case?) I think some aspect of effort & risk should be involved & I think the the idea mentioned of using this system as a way to teach people about certain aspects of their jobs is really smart.
I suggest that the regimens be carried out more like a mini game format than just going into a room & whacking something for 30min as I think this would just encourage people to enter, engage & go AFK for 30min while they get free skill ups

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1st Thanks for the awesome feedback, compliment, and effort you put into detailing your idea ^^/ I completely agree with your suggestion! I'm sure SE would agree that any mode of gameplay shouldn't allow a player to put down the controller and receive benefits effortlessly. I suppose this didn't really hit me as a problem since I personally love seeing those little yellow skill up numbers, so I'd stay glued to the screen just to see what kind of progress I was getting regardless lol. Plus I like using weapon skills during skill up so I again wouldn't just leave the controller and walk off, but your point is valid and there should be a counter measure of some sort for this kind of thing. I really dig the mini-game aspect of the idea as well It leads me to thinking the "cures the player for the same amount of dmg" should be the reward of successfully following whatever directions the regimen is opting the player to follow. Love this idea ^^/ I'll Edit this in since it makes perfect sense and adds a myriad of lvls of possibilities for fun to the system. I'll credit you of course for this capital concept ^^!
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Examples for teaching aspects of jobs proficiency might be:
*For elemental magic have a mini game that gives bonuses to elemental magic skill based on how many times you MB off two NPCs.
*For healing magic you could need to cure a NPC fighting a mob that will attack you if you pull to much hate, your bonus would then be higher the fewer times you drew the mobs attention by cleverly timing your spells/ tiers of cures.
*For a THF you could have to TA 2 tanks a certain number of times a bonus would be rewarded on how well you kept the hate equal between the two. You could have a hate meter in beginner levels & introduce the need to use accomplice/ collaborator in the intermediate level regimens.

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Brilliant lol
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With regards to XP & other rewards I think as there are already other systems in game to solo XP that SE no doubt worked very hard on & wont want to see abandoned rewards should be more geared to raising your skills. I like the medal system though to differentiate it from campaign you could call them “Belts” like you might get in a dojo (just a thought).

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Yeah, I wouldn't want the exp rewards to be anything monumental from regimens. nothing above what one would get from FoV. I think the Dev Team could call the enhancing items whatever they wanted and I wouldn't mind lol I think I chose Medals for the olympic-style nature that gyms are usually based on.
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Something like this could probably be introduced into MMM & a lot of the other ideas already have similar aspects in game -PvP for example- so just bolstering in game content may be easier & as effective but I like the way King has put this forward as a whole package.
Just as a fun little add-on I'd like to see a super buff 'Drill Moogle' as the NPC for this & when you complete a regimen successfully you might be rewarded with a little CS where your toon flexes & looks comically buff lol.

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I'd say so long as there is easy access to the Gyms from city zones, I wouldn't mind where they put these wonderful Gyms lol. Lol, I'm almost positive SE would love to see a buff Moogle in this mix I feel a sketch coming on ^^
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+1 to adding NPC Kingfury if this is implemented (possibly as a boss battle lol)

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^^; That would ultra cool, but still crazy to see lol. I would absolutely love to do an official FFXI comic, that would be the next coolest job in the world, only being over shadowed by working with the FFXI Dev team directly ^^

Again, VERY awesome feedback! Other's have voice their concerns, but none have taken the time to really detail an alternative that make as much sense as this. I appreciate you taking the time to read all my lengthy post ><; and still have the energy to post lol. I'll make sure to put a link to your post so folks know where this **EDIT to OP** came from^^/ Thanks again and /salute.

[Rambus]

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BLM gear was what I found on ffxiah.com so that's what I based this off of ^^/ A raging Harpalina!!
-Battle Royal Game Mode

**Edited the art into the PvP Post**
>>Player vs Player (PvP)<< Full Details(Link)

lol Shantotto

[hollowsgrief]

Honestly....one of the best ideas for FFXI I have seen on the forums, the only thing I could say to improve such an idea is since you can be knocked out: add a "No weakness" factor into it, or something of that manor. Such as skilling up guard or parrying, etc. you have to actually get hit, and being knocked out and waiting 5min for weakness would still suck lol; other than that it sounds like an awesome idea.

[kingfury]

**Continued from "Self Improvement Programs" on the Original Post(Thanks to >Strife's post<)**
Examples of Healing Magic/Enhancing Magic and Defensive regimens-

Healing Magic regimens- An Npc and a monster would appear and begin battling each other upon starting the regimen. The Npc will gradually take damage throughout the regimen and will need to be cured to survive the battle with the random monster. Should the Npc fall in battle due to the damage sustained, the regimen will end.
Occasionally throughout the battle (every 1-2 minutes), the monster will display a 2 hour-like animation and repeatedly use a series of high damaging TP moves on the Npc. The player will have to successfully cure the Npc in-between each TP move to meet the regimen condition to fully restore the the Player's HP/MP. Upon successfully curing the Npc per each TP move, the Npc will flash a "Level Up" animation that will increase the Npc's Vitality, Enmity, restore all HP, and enhance dmg resistance throughout the session. Special care to choose the appropriate tier of Cure spell will have to be taken to ensure the Npc will be able to hold "hate" on the monster, or the Player will generate too much enmity causing the monster to attack them instead. Repeatedly succeeding to level up the Npc will result in slightly higher skill up rates.
*Note: Before selecting this regimen, based on the level of the Player, a prompt will show which tier level Cure spells will be needed to be successful for this type of regimen.

Enhancing Magic regimens- An Npc and a monster would appear and begin battling each other upon starting the regimen. The Npc will not take direct damage throughout the regimen initially, but will have a series of enfeebling/elemental spells cast upon them by the monster throughout the session that if left unchecked will result in the Npc sustaining damage.
Occasionally throughout the battle (every 1-2 minutes), the monster will display a 2 hour-like animation and repeatedly use a series of random enfeebling/elemental spells on the Npc. The Player will not have to "remove" any status effects, but rather cast the appropriate opposing enhancing magic spell on the Npc after each enfeebling/elemental spell cast upon the Npc to meet the regimen condition to fully restore the Player's MP (ex. If the monster cast Slow on the Npc, the Player must cast Haste. If the monster cast fire on the Npc, the Player must cast BarFire. If the monster cast Dia on the Npc, the Player must cast Protect. etc.). Failure to properly enhance the Npc will allow them to take damage. If the Player fails repeatedly, the Npc will be K.O.'d and the regimen will end. Upon successfully enhancing the Npc per each of the monster's 2 hours, the Npc will flash a "Level Up" animation that will increase the Npc's Vitality, restore all HP, and enhance dmg resistance throughout the session. Repeatedly succeeding to properly enhance the Npc will result in slightly higher skill up rates.
*Note: Before selecting this regimen, based on the level of the Player, a prompt will show which enhancing spells will be needed to be successful for this type of regimen.

Defensive skill regimens- A circle of Npcs surrounding a monster would appear and begin battling each other upon starting the regimen. The Npcs will not take direct damage throughout the regimen initially, but will be occasionally subjected to multiple Hundred Fist moves directed upon them by the monster throughout the session that if left unchecked will result in the Npcs sustaining damage. Occasionally throughout the battle (every 1-2 minutes), one or more of the surrounding Npcs will use a Weaponskill on the monster causing it to display a 2 hour-like animation and use "Hundred Fist" on the Npcs. It's up to the Player to quickly position themselves in front of the targeted Npcs to shield them from the barrage of attacks using shield, blocking, or parrying methods(any of these methods will activate 100% during this time as long as the Player is correctly positioned in front of the targeted Npc). Failure to properly shield the Npcs will allow them to take damage. If the Player fails repeatedly, the Npcs will be K.O.'d and the regimen will end. Upon successfully shielding the Npcs per each of the monster's 2 hours, the Npcs will flash a "Level Up" animation that will increase the Npc's Vitality, restore all HP, and enhance dmg resistance throughout the session. Repeatedly succeeding to properly shielding the Npcs will result in slightly higher skill up rates.
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(More cool ideas from Strife regarding regimen details)