Grand Company suggestion

[Nalien]

So, this concept has been knocking around my head for a while now, and I think it's mostly fleshed out enough now, so... Enjoy?

Firstly; The quests need to have a bleedin' story, similar to the Class/Job quests, you know, something to make players care? The fact that we effectively just farm Company Seals for a rank up and there is nothing else to it is a massive waste of potential. There is not "nationalism" in this game because the nations offer no such thing. There is no story diving in depth to their ideologies and so on, they have very little character or charm, and having actual quests for rising for the Grand Company ranks would go a long way to fixing that. Oh, and when I say this, I don't me "Go farm 50,000 Seals and we'll give you some story!", I mean proper quests with proper objectives. Could even tie in some old stuff, like the Odin FATE perhaps?

Another issue is that Grand Companies just don't offer anything meaningful... Remember how Signet and Sanction were basically a must have in XI? Why isn't Grand Company Sanction a similar thing here? It could effectively be like a Free Company Action (increased EXP/Seal gain, perhaps?). Then you've got the gear, which was worthwhile for all of five seconds upon hitting Lv50 back in the day. Would it be a challenge to implement Grand Company gear in a way that it acts as an alternative to something like tomestones? Perhaps, but here's an idea;

Stronger Set/Sanction bonuses. Lets say we get new ranks, and new gear to go along with it. Lets make that gear i190, but lets make the Set/Sanction bonuses effectively boost that to i195. Better than Prototype gear, just under Esoterics. What happens when you upgrade to Esoterics though? Well, you lose that Set bonus, don't you. Suddenly the same stale gear progression we've got since 2.0 is slightly more dynamic. Sanction bonuses are a different animal, but I'll touch on them later. The other thing though, is obtaining this gear; Grand Company Seals are by no means rare. It would be absurd to effectively hand out i195 in that manner, right? Well, why hand them out in that manner? You can compound the grind quite easily, 10,000 GC Seals buys you a token, 10 tokens gets you the gear. Something like that, perhaps even go a step further and involve Rowena; 10 GC Tokens, 10 Rowena (Tomestone) Tokens = shiny new Grand Company gear that's worth a damn.

Now, Sanction... First lets bring up a piece of content from 1.x that hasn't made its way into 2.0 or 3.0; Hamlet Defense. Hamlet Defense was obviously modeled on XIs Besieged, and how did that work? Beast tribes would attack the city, trying to steal the Astral Candescence. Having the Astral Candescence allowed the nation to provide Sanction. I would propose the exact same thing here; Reintroduce Hamlet Defense to XIV. Have it work in a similar fashion to Besieged. Your Grand Company bands together for a world event in which they defend the Hamlet. Success garners everyone involved rewards. Failure stripes you of the ability to obtain Sanction, you then have to go enter a special instance to win it back. This is exactly the kind of content XIV needs right now. It's still PvE (though PvP can be incorporated), but it's the kind of content that keeps people playing. You're not logging on each day to do Roulettes and whatever, you're logging on because you're invested in your Grand Company and you want to make sure you Company keeps succeeding. It's sandbox content, something like this would be valid content from release all the way till the servers shut down, if played right. Add. This. Now.

To "briefly" go into Besieged a bit more, and extrapolate to XIV; In XI Whitegate (the city the Astral Candescence (AC from here on) was held in) had three beast tribes to content with. They had their own level (feel free to correct me anyone with a better memory) which I believe went up to Lv5. At Lv1 they sent a small attack force, at Lv5 they sent in the big guns, including their bosses. Not entirely sure, but I believe they'd attack based on what they tried last; If they last attacked with Lv1, and failed, they'd go for Lv2, and so on. If they won, they didn't need to attack, not until players ventured into their strongholds and took the AC back, then they'd start back with Lv1 assaults. Naturally, there was a preparation phase in all this, they weren't attacking none stop.

For XIV this could be used to provide players with a preparation phase, and some content involving that. Obviously, we'd need new zones to accommodate something on Whitegates scale (luckily I think all the City-States have a few closed gates we could expand into), and in those zones we can have various FATEs and Company Levequests to help fortify the area and fend of scouting parties, that sort of thing. Stuff like those daily turn ins we get for Grand Companies could also contribute to fortifying the area (while I'm here, can the rewards from various FATEs like Odin/Behemoth be turned in for a substantial Seals reward as well?), and one other thing could; PvP. Frontlines and Seal Rock have the Grand Companies fighting over something, why not have the victorious Grand Company walk out with something? Twin Adders win a round? All the Twin Adders take an item back to their server, which they then trade in to boost Hamlet Defense.

Then we have the beast tribes, here we hit a bit of a problem. Gridania has Sylphs and Ixali. Limsa has Kobolds and Sahagin, good. Ul'dah... Just has Amalj'aa... Solution? Lambs of Dalamud. They seem to have a powerhouse in Northern Thanalan. They can summon Voidsent and so on. That works IMO. Remember how I mentioned in XI they'd send in bosses? Well, don't our beast tribes have the perfect bosses for this? Primals. Imagine seeing that the Ixali are at Lv5 and preparing to attack a Gridanian Hamlet, and everyone knows Garuda is going to show up in that fight. Do I need to explain why that would be epic? Lambs of Dalamud obviously don't have a Primal (yet?), but they could summon a powerful Voidsent, if the lore allows for it (Diabolos?!). Now, lore is perhaps where this falls apart, because having a group like the Sylphs attacking? Seems unlikely. Would mean the previous stuff we did (convincing Ramuh to chill) would have been for naught, but would I be annoyed by that? Not at all. Because Besieged/Hamlet Defense would be amazing.

So, now you've got a situation where the Grand Companies are offering some story and character. They're offering some useful gear. That gear is tied to Sanction, which itself is useful outside that gear potentially, and you've got a system where a constant series of world events is happening with Sanction being on the line. Do you keep letting your Grand Company fail to defend its AC? No, you get involved in that content. If you're bored after doing your Roulettes, you do one of two things; Go and help fortify the area in the preparation phase, or you go defend the bloody location in the attack phase. Players would basically always have something to do with content like this. Not enough for some people to get motivated to join? Boost the rewards. Something on this scale could easily justify tomestones, in the same way Frontlines/Seal Rock does.

So... Thoughts? Suggestions? Irrational hatred of Final Fantasy XI being mentioned? The keys to a DeLorean so we can get this in front of YoshiP several years ago and have it already? Certainly would cost a fair amount of the developers time to implement something close to this, but what the hell is my subscription paying for? Why is there a cash shop on top of that? Rehashing the same linear dungeon each patch is only going to take this game so far...

Oh, right... TL;DR - Make Grand Companies worth a damn and lament the poor literacy levels of todays youth culture. Just hit Like. I wrote a bleedin' essay, it's the least you can do.

[WellFooled]

I agree with mostly everything you discussed. FFXIV is a great game, but so much of its content is left barebones. I would love to see them go back and flesh out features, like what I hope is happening for Wolves Den in 3.2. Grand Companies are a feature that needs an overhaul.

Plus Besieged remains one of the most epic things I've ever done in an MMO. I would love to see something similar introduced in FFXIV.

[Wobi]

I have to say I agree on all points, as for further making your GC actually matter they could add in the Conquest system or something similar based on performance of staving off beastmen attacks by having a winner 1st/2nd/3rd whereby the first and 2nd places have special vendors in their hometown that sell unique or harder to find items to members of that nation only during that week and the tally could reset along with tomes/etc every week and a new winner could be crowned. This would allow for friendly competition while the nations are not exactly "at war" with one another but more of a friendly sport. It would behoove them to increase the cooldown for switching nations to prevent people hopping GCs all the time, perhaps only obtain the bonuses if you were part of the nation when they won which would prevent any shenanigans.

Also regions where you nation has higher influence could lead to cheaper teleports/etc for the region while your nation has the bonus, small perks but something to work towards and be proud of. FFXI actually had a lot of good concepts and I'd hate to see them die along with the game (which feels pretty close at this point). There is no reason they cannot improve/modify them for use in this game a bring me a bit more pride to calling myself an Immortal Flame.

[Nalien]

Plus Besieged remains one of the most epic things I've ever done in an MMO. I would love to see something similar introduced in FFXIV.

Yep, sadly I think the developers figured FATEs were an adequate replacement for Hamlet Defense, which pretty much was Beseiged... Something like the Odin/Behemoth FATEs get that half right (fairly big and epic), while stuff like Battle for Highbridge gets the other half (had consequences for failure), but there is absolutely no instance of a FATE nailing both halves. Odin is a do X times for the rewards then kind of forget about, same for the Battle for Highbridge (think a minion vendor goes missing there if you fail?), there was no long term consequence or need to come back to these FATEs. The result is that I just hate on FATEs, because 99% of them are uninspired pieces of content, with pop culture references as their only saving grace...

I have to say I agree on all points, as for further making your GC actually matter they could add in the Conquest system or something similar based on performance of staving off beastmen attacks by having a winner 1st/2nd/3rd whereby the first and 2nd places have special vendors in their hometown that sell unique or harder to find items to members of that nation only during that week and the tally could reset along with tomes/etc every week and a new winner could be crowned. This would allow for friendly competition while the nations are not exactly "at war" with one another but more of a friendly sport. It would behoove them to increase the cooldown for switching nations to prevent people hopping GCs all the time, perhaps only obtain the bonuses if you were part of the nation when they won which would prevent any shenanigans.

Also regions where you nation has higher influence could lead to cheaper teleports/etc for the region while your nation has the bonus, small perks but something to work towards and be proud of. FFXI actually had a lot of good concepts and I'd hate to see them die along with the game (which feels pretty close at this point). There is no reason they cannot improve/modify them for use in this game a bring me a bit more pride to calling myself an Immortal Flame.

A Conquest style system is another thing I've been asking for for a while. Never put much thought into the rewards, but a reduced Company Seals cost and/or Teleport fee would work well enough. The biggest issue always seemed like Grand Company switching, but there are ways to address that (no bonus if you join after the fact, like you mentioned). If they also worked on giving Grand Companies some form of character, people would hopefully be less incline to leave and more incline to make their Company win next time. I seem to recall XI didn't actually block you from purchasing from rival nations, either? It just cost you more.

Then there was the circus... Would be interesting to have something similar to that show up in the winning Grand Company and offer something. Not something just for the winning Grand Company members, but something for everyone, that just sits in the winning city. Something akin to the beast tribe vendors would be kind of nice.

The best part is, if we just drop the whole region by region part, XIV Conquest could be very easy to implement. The game already does a weekly/monthly tally on players Grand Company contributions on the Lodestone. It would not be hard to take that and extrapolate it to give points to the Grand Companies themselves, in order to rank them 1st/2nd/3rd for the week. Like, it could be done in a matter of days I think, just set the tally date in game, and everyone in those Grand Companies gets a bonus status effect when the tally is completed. Switching Grand Company wipes the status effect, leaving you with none and in a worse place than 3rd. Some of the other stuff, like the group of NPCs that moves to the winning nation, would require a bit more effort, but the basics of such a system should not be hard to produce at all.

[myahele]

I'd be happy if this expansion had new GC ranks and that each rank held a short quest/ storyline.

I feel so disconnected and indifferent towards the GCs especially after the events of 2.55

But from a practical standpoint it would have been nice way to get gear for leveling alts

[Jpec07]

I actually really like what's suggested here. I was really sad that they didn't continue the Grand Company content into Heavensward, but this would be a beautiful thing for them to add back in--and here's the other thing about it: it fits with any Grand Companies they added going forward.

Say they add Ishgard - beast tribes are the Vanu Vanu (whose primal/worldboss is the Manukmanai), the Gnath (Ravana), and possibly even the Heretics (though I'm not sure if they'd be able to summon Shiva again or not - could have odd lore implications), and Dravanians as well (at least Nidhogg's brood).

They could even do something with the Gobbies to help us see why Alexander is actually a threat.

It would need to be implemented right: the reward for success would need to make it worth doing, and the consequences of failure would need to be palpable, but not crippling.

Part of me wonders if they're working on something like this for 3.3 or 3.4 with the ramping-up of the Dragonsong War. Coerthas Western Highlands and Cloudtop would make excellent staging grounds for these conflicts. Further, with evidence pointing to Ala Mhigan resistance content in future patches, they could also have us fight the Garleans in similar fashion.

EDIT: They could also add in some kind of factional favors system, where you're able to benefit the standing of your GC with the other GCs by participating in their Hamlet Defense events. Have it tie to the cost of teleporting, FC actions, retainer sales tax, etc. - little things that can make life easier without breaking the game.

[Nalien]

On the plus side, they've mentioned wanting to add new ranks, they just want to wait until there is more to them this time. I think they realize the current ranks were utterly pathetic, think they even mentioned wanting to have some specific content tied to reaching the new ranks, so it wouldn't be a case of just going and farming Seals to rank up, you'd have to do some new content as well.

So, while we might not see Hamlet Defense (it would be a lot of work, although it was in 1.x so would it?), I think we'll at least be seeing better quests for ranking up and perhaps some new Grand Company oriented content. If they can provide a decent story for the Grand Companies, I'd be happy. Not to jump back on the XI train, but XI very much nailed that aspect of its city alliances. Each one had its own story going from rank 1 to rank 10 (though midway they basically did the same thing for the "main" story progression), in comparison XIV has no story with its Grand Companies... It's just kinda sad... Why are they even there if nothing is going to be done with them?

Part of me wonders if they're working on something like this for 3.3 or 3.4 with the ramping-up of the Dragonsong War. Coerthas Western Highlands and Cloudtop would make excellent staging grounds for these conflicts. Further, with evidence pointing to Ala Mhigan resistance content in future patches, they could also have us fight the Garleans in similar fashion.

I actually hope 4.0 takes us to Ala Mhigo, if only so we can have something similar to Campaign... Stick outposts throughout the new regions, have the occasional battle between the resistance (us) and Garlemald (perhaps some new beast tribes, too) for control of said outpost. Keep losing outposts, eventually they're knocking on our front door. Keep winning outposts? We're knocking on theirs. Actually yeah, throw beast tribes in that mix as well, Garlemald fighting off a tribe? Well, lets go join in for a three way! It would be a lot of fun, and a hell of a lot better than the bog-standard FATEs we currently see. Besieged was a few battles every week IIRC, where as Campaign was pretty much always going on, there was always a battle you could jump into.

Campaign was the saving grace of Wings of the Goddess, a lot they could do to improve upon it here, too. I'd even rank it above Besieged TBH, but Besieged is pretty much just a set of zones to implement, while Campaign requires an entire region to be built around the concept. Perfect material for a Garlean based expansion. For Besieged though, it's basically just some lore, adapting the existing work put into Hamlet Defense, and adding the zones themselves... There are plenty of gates in Thanalan and the Shroud (East Shroud has a gate leading to somewhere, for example) for them to stick the Hamlets, I'd imagine La Noscea is the same but failing that you can just have them settle an island somewhere... Might make things simpler that way, then you only need Amalj'aa, Ixali and Sahagin to be involved, since I don't think Kobolds can swim (then again, they made it to Pharos).

[Payadopa]

Love your ideas. XIV sorely needs stuff like that. And inject some life into FATEs. Seriously... Make them chain together more. Compared to GW2 these are so lackluster. sigh

[Nalien]

Love your ideas. XIV sorely needs stuff like that. And inject some life into FATEs. Seriously... Make them chain together more. Compared to GW2 these are so lackluster. sigh

FATEs certainly are at their best when they chain... I liked the Odin FATE, but I always figured it would have been greatly improved if we had some FATEs leading up to it (same for Behemoth), and I think they at least got that right with the big Heavensward FATEs. Still, FATEs have no consequences whatsoever. I mean, we fail to defeat Odin and... He just goes away anyway? They really could do better... Anyone remember having the Dark Rider prance around in XI? Could easily have something like that happen, based on the Odin FATE.

I can actually see a lot of potential in FATEs, but SE just never uses it... Even the bog standard "Kill this group of enemies!" FATEs could be much better. They're all so static at the moment, when they could be much more organic. Say a FATE has us killing some pests, instead of the pests running off when we fail, how about having them start appearing there naturally? So, if nobody does any FATEs, the world becomes slightly more packed and dangerous, as more enemies (tougher enemies, even) start showing up as a result of FATE failure.

Then you've got the NPC driven ones, why not have them actually impact local NPCs? Perhaps we helped out an NPC, so now the local settlement are more productive and offer a discount, perhaps triggering new FATEs to spawn as a result. Hey, you stopped those monkeys taking off with our beans! Have a discount! Oh no, the monkeys got their big brother to help this time!

I mean really, if SE was serious about FATEs being a replacement for Hamlet Defense, then can we make FATEs better? I'd take 10 expertly crafted FATEs, over the 100s of dull ones we currently get. I'm sick of them churning out the same crappy FATE set ups, slapping a pop culture reference on it, and acting like I should be happy I get that instead of Besieged 2.0...