Adjustments to Ballista and/or PvP?

[Sovereign]

Now I'm fully aware PvP is not a vastly popular thing in FFXI... virtually no one does Ballista.

But I personally thought Ballista had a great premise, and while fun and entertaining, it was a little cumbersome to understand and had no rewarding factor to participation. I feel this led to Ballista being all but abandoned as viable content, and it's basically non-existent today.

I'd really like to see some adjustments to the PvP system to breath some new life into the content. Some things to consider would be including new, simpler games to participate in such as "Capture the Flag" (self explanatory) or something like "Outpost Defense" (where one nation must defend an Outpost from having their flag replaced by the opposing nation).

I'd also highly recommend the revision of Ballista points. Where both sides are rewarded points in accordance to their participation in battle, but the winning side is awarded a bonus. Also, uncap them. 2000 total Ballista points is too low. You could use these points to purchase items and gear to use both inside and outside of Ballista. I'd like to see rewards similar to Salvage gear... entire sets that are multi-job with great stats and "set effects." It also may not hurt to make other sets that have Ballista only latents.

I dunno, I feel there is a lot of replay value in PvP content and it's not something that should be overlooked.

[Natenn]

Ballista would be fun but to many ppl don't like the penalty from changing gear during match. it forces you to full time gear.

[Yugl]

Ballista used to be popular because gear related activities were fixed or regulated. When the only endgame was Sky, Dynamis, and Ground NMs, you only had the option to XP, Farm Gil, or do Ballista. The development in the type and flexibility (No longer working with 6-18 people) of events has changed this dynamic. If you add gear to Ballista, it has to be competitive gear. Particularly, accessories (Rings/Ear/Ammo/Grip) serve this function well. You can also add Ballista as an alternative for obtaining gear. In addition to the changes mentioned, you will also need to removal teams based on allegiance since Bastok and Windurst are shitty cities.

[Cream_Soda]

Ballista would be fun but to many ppl don't like the penalty from changing gear during match. it forces you to full time gear.

Which forces strategy. Have to find a balance between that offensive and that defensive set. Being able to swap gear freely, honestly, would take away from the fun for me. Attacking someone? full DD gear. Being attacked? oh hey PDT. As far as mages go, would just fulltime PDT and have their spellcast put their nuke/enfeeble gear for that split second and put PDT and essentially never be fully vulnerable at any time.

If you want to go the turtle route, then your offense should suffer for it.

[Cream_Soda]

you will also need to removal teams based on allegiance since Bastok and Windurst are shitty cities.

If you sign up after 18:00, it puts you down for random instead of as your nation. I'd always wait for then to sign up.

[RaenRyong]

Which forces strategy. Have to find a balance between that offensive and that defensive set. Being able to swap gear freely, honestly, would take away from the fun for me. Attacking someone? full DD gear. Being attacked? oh hey PDT. As far as mages go, would just fulltime PDT and have their spellcast put their nuke/enfeeble gear for that split second and put PDT and essentially never be fully vulnerable at any time.

If you want to go the turtle route, then your offense should suffer for it.

This: fulltiming is a very good method of introducing balance/variety in Ballista.

I love it and wish it was properly revamped/made CONVENIENT to do.

[Mirage]

I'm all for a ballista revamp, but it would have to be a serious update for it to matter. Nothing half-assed. I never got a chance to participate in ballista before it was completely dead, which i think is a shame.

[Sovereign]

Yeah personally I really liked the idea of not being able to swap gear during PvP matches. It adds a new element of strategy as stated earlier, in that you've gotta find a good balance of stats in your gear rather than just swapping for every situation. Not to mention they could make Ballista latent gear sets with some pretty cool set effects. For example, a WAR/DRK/PLD/DRG set might give Attack+150 when wearing the full set in Ballista matches.

As Yugl posted, randomizing certain parts of Ballista would make it more equally competitive... most specifically matches based on allegiance. There's only two sides to any one match anyway (in current Ballista, and in new games such as Capture the Flag or Outpost Defense), and a randomizer would just sort players into one of two camps and keep things relatively even.

[Arcon]

This: fulltiming is a very good method of introducing balance/variety in Ballista.

I love it and wish it was properly revamped/made CONVENIENT to do.

Very much agree with this. Convenience is what stops me from doing it mostly. Same goes for Brenner. Just make it easier to access, less cumbersome to use, and more people will naturally participate. I know I will.

[Chilzen]

It needs some great incentives to get people that play the game nowadays interested in it once more. The Gil payout is laughably bad at this stage of the game, the exp reward may as well not exist with how small it is with the time invested, and the only other rewards are titles that most players never cared about to begin with.

Chocobo Racing has it where you can earn special clothes to show off your prowess to the entire world, Campaign Battle has it where you can use your points to buy special weapons with unique weaponskills for use in battles, on top of optional gear that was great in regular settings. I know the above examples are pretty miss matched, but it's just nods to maybe inspire others to see how they could rework the system. Us old Ballista fans aren't asking for something crazy, like Relic / Mythic / Emp rentals in matches, or some centralized arena deal for people to bet on, we just want a good reason to come back and wail away on our fellow adventurers again.

By all means, revamp the system and give us a reason to enjoy some old fashion gloating ingame! Lakshmi had some fun Ballista rivalries that died out, and I'd love to see such a fun element returned to the game.