Unity Concord [dev1237]

First of all I want to congratulate the devs this looks like a relatively cool system that could help with some of the problems people are having with joining other people in content and making friends.

Obviously I don't know any details but what has been offered but I want to make a couple suggestions that I hope you've already thought of, but if you haven't, here they are:

Rewards: if you want people to actually do this content the rewards really need to be decent. Even good sidegrades will motivate people but they actually have to be useful.

Teams: I see you saying that teams in first place or what not will get better rewards. That's useful! Cause obviously you want people to be motivated to be competitive.

I am just wondering - do you also plan to motivate people to stay on teams that don't do as well? I can see people all switching to the team that does the best, and no team ever being able to beat it.

Job Balance: Are there plans to ensure people can join this content on jobs they like to play?

Anyway, those are my thoughts, this looks cool and I am pleased to see it being developed. Wondering if others also have thoughts on this.

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Originally Posted by Olor

Teams: I see you saying that teams in first place or what not will get better rewards. That's useful! Cause obviously you want people to be motivated to be competitive.

I am just wondering - do you also plan to motivate people to stay on teams that don't do as well? I can see people all switching to the team that does the best, and no team ever being able to beat it.

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This is a main concern of mine. If the system allows for everyone to be on a single Unity and there's nothing unique or desirable about separate Unities, then we'll be bypassing a large reason behind this content simply to have better drops. Not that I anticipate Unity chat to be overly useful, but it'd be kinda cool to have a server wide chat channel for people doing relevant content, just not for everyone to be in the same channel due to the drop scaling. I can imagine blists filling much quicker. XD

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Job Balance: Are there plans to ensure people can join this content on jobs they like to play?

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Along the same line of thought, will these fights be something like popped WKRs? Where anyone from the Unity (or maybe any Unity?) can show up and take part? Or will it be restricted to an 18 person alliance? If it's the former, I could see job balance not mattering that much as long as your bases are covered.

My take of it atm is essentially VW v2 that comes packaged with 1 of 9 additional server wide chat channels, with the best one receiving better loot, causing everyone to flock to it. Gear strength is up in the air as always. I hope by now you've learned that content lives and breaths on the gear you add to it.

Seems a lot like FFXIV's Grand Company/Free Company system.

Another thing that was brought up by my linkshell, a point that was actually pretty interesting, was the concept of making the rewards for each team different. At least, the base rewards would favor a handful of jobs here and there, or be niche pieces for certain jobs, etc; combined with an attractive pool of boosts from being in first, that would encourage diversity, rather than clustering on one team only. It would be difficult to balance out, but it would definitely make it more interesting if different players had different stakes in various areas for unique items.

Again though, it would eventually become a bit top-heavy in some areas; example, we have a lot of people who favor melee as their main jobs, and likely want to get something to benefit them. A melee-oriented bonus would probably get the most support. I dunno, the concept is there, but the balancing would be difficult.

Well I completely misunderstood the whole thing so I'm just going to wait until it comes out and they work out any and all bugs, then I will try to leave feedback about it. Feedback I hope they pay attention to.

I read the update notes on this feature and the first possible outcome that came to mind with the data provided was that people would immediately pick Aldo or Maat Concord because most of their characters/bazaars are already in Lower Jeuno, then pressure their LSes to do the same in order to maximize that Concord's points. One month later the scoreboard would look something like:

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1. Aldo 99999pt
2. Maat 10000pt
3. Pleuje 100pt
4. Flaviria 50pt
5. Naja Salaheem 10pt
6. Ayame 1pt
6. Apururu 1pt
6. Jacoh Wacondalo 1pt
9. Invincible Shield 0pt

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So I showed up here to post. Turns out I wasn't the only one. To summarize with the few posts in this thread only thus far:

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Originally Posted by Olor

I am just wondering - do you also plan to motivate people to stay on teams that don't do as well? I can see people all switching to the team that does the best, and no team ever being able to beat it.

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Originally Posted by Malithar

This is a main concern of mine. If the system allows for everyone to be on a single Unity and there's nothing unique or desirable about separate Unities, then we'll be bypassing a large reason behind this content simply to have better drops.

[...]

My take of it atm is essentially VW v2 that comes packaged with 1 of 9 additional server wide chat channels, with the best one receiving better loot, causing everyone to flock to it. Gear strength is up in the air as always. I hope by now you've learned that content lives and breaths on the gear you add to it.

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Originally Posted by Stompa

I like the idea of joining my favourite Hero's team, my only concern with this so far is it sounds like people will feel compelled to leave their personal favourite Hero team and join the Hero team with the most points and better success/rewards.

Its a fun idea for a system, I like the sound of it but I have concerns about everybody joining the team with the most points.

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[Quote emphasis mine.]

Some reading here may not be aware of this, but I've been playing since NA PS2 release and I know for certain that this scenario has happened once before, at XI's population height: where most servers were 90% San d'Orian citizens and Bastok consistently came dead last in Conquest because non-Sandy nations were determined to be "marginally less convenient" and everyone went to the nation their friends went to regardless of personal opinion.

Matsui-tachi, I sure hope you have some way of preventing this from happening again--because if you don't you're likely to be spending multiple months trying to correct the situation or abandoning the system altogether. Please say you have a way.

(P.S.: I should also remind you that this same player behavior is what's currently resulting in people /yelling for only seven jobs in all Adoulin 119+ content--but that's beyond the scope of this post.)

Thanks for all the feedback on the new Unity Concord system!

The November version update isn’t too far off, so you’ll be able to try it out firsthand in just a while. In the meantime, I’d like to provide some answers to questions we’ve been coming across.

• Is there a chat filter for the Unity chat channel?
  While there is no chat filter from the regular chat settings, by accessing the Unity window from the main menu you will be able to set whether or not you wish to participate in Unity chat. So, you’ll be to participate in the Unity system but not use the chat channel.
  
  
• Can you withdraw from a Unity?
  As of right now, it will not be possible to withdraw from a Unity. It’s quite easy to transfer to different Unities, and there are no negatives associated with participating, so similar to how we do not have a system in place for leaving the nation you belong to, we have not prepared a system to do this for Unity Concord.
  
  
• Is there a limit to the amount of people who can join a Unity?
  While there are no limitations on the number of people who can join each Unity, there is however a limit placed on the amount of people that can participate in the Unity chat channel. We’re currently making adjustments so that we can increase this number.
  
  
• Won’t people just congregate in a specific Unity?
  Unities that are in the upper-tier of the rankings will have perks such as a boost to certain stat values that are on the equipment you can obtain through the “Wanted” system; however, there are also perks for Unities in the lower-tier of the rankings such as making it easier to earn Unity Accolades.
  
  
• Did you throw out the idea for having a second linkshell?
  We are still continuing to develop this feature. With the upcoming version update, we are prioritizing the creation of a community that is larger than linkshells, and we decided to implement the Unity Concord system first.

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Originally Posted by Grekumah

• Won’t people just congregate in a specific Unity?
  Unities that are in the upper-tier of the rankings will have perks such as a boost to certain stat values that are on the equipment you can obtain through the “Wanted” system; however, there are also perks for Unities in the lower-tier of the rankings such as making it easier to earn Unity Accolades.

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Good, that'll help somewhat. I wish we knew all of the perks that lower-level Unities have but I guess that'll have to wait for November. Thanks.

But...Grekumah, could you ask the devs if there's some kind of "Expeditionary Force"-like option for lower-tier Unities to boost their ranking (like Wanteds that only yield points, not items)? That could really help the rankings stay competitive in the long term.

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Originally Posted by Olor

Job Balance: Are there plans to ensure people can join this content on jobs they like to play?

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SE have rarely done that in the 12 years of the game's existence, not sure why you'd think they'd change the habits of a lifetime: this whole Unity system wreaks of SE's naivety and total failure to understand the human nature of most players .. they really think most players won't solely play the 'best' Unity team getting the 'best' gear, which is sad given the massive lessons history has to teach them.

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Originally Posted by Maledict

Good, that'll help somewhat. I wish we knew all of the perks that lower-level Unities have but I guess that'll have to wait for November. Thanks..

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Of course, here SE rely on people thinking the Accolades are worth something, history tells us there's a good chance players will take one look at them and move on as they've done many times before, heading for the content that gives them the biggest gear stat numbers.