State your demand (and ideas) for challenging content!

Recently, Mr. Matsui stated that if there is a demand for more challenging content, then they'll consider adding such content. Let's make the demand known!

Personally, I would love to see more old content be renovated. Unity bringing back old (H)NMs has been fun and nostalgic, but it leaves me wanting something more substantial! As my favorite old endgame events were Limbus and Salvage, I'd like to make suggestions as to how to give those new life.

My proposal is to simply add a hard mode designation to all Limbus and Salvage areas that raises the parameters of the monsters and bosses to be appropriate for 119 Superior players. I feel that they should require a party of at least 6 players, and 119 versions of Omega and Ultima should require an alliance. Of course, the rewards would have to reflect the increased difficulty and increased number of people required! This would mean greatly increased currency drop rates, and powerful equipment. As an example, a 119-appropriate Salvage zone completed fully would ideally drop enough Alexandrite so that every member of a party of 6 could leave with a little more than what they could get soloing an outdated zone.

Although Unity has me on a nostalgia kick, entirely new zones for both Limbus and Salvage would be welcome too! Just so long as any new zones convey the same feelings the old ones did, I'll be satisfied.

Fellow players, whether you agree or disagree with my specific suggestions, if you want to see more challenging content, please post here and make it known! Also, if you have suggestions for what kind of content you'd like to see, post that too!

And to the community reps, please ensure the developers know that there are still many players who wish to see exceptionally challenging content!

To be fair, I'm not really waiting for another revamp of the Salvage and Limbus areas.
I don't really have any ideas, but I would really like to see some challenging alliance content making a comeback.

Hard mode campaign!!!

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Originally Posted by Shirai

To be fair, I'm not really waiting for another revamp of the Salvage and Limbus areas.
I don't really have any ideas, but I would really like to see some challenging alliance content making a comeback.

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Eh, personally I don't think the player base right now can handle required alliance content anymore, hence why everything released nowadays is mostly cleared by a single part or at most 2.

I am of the opinion that "challenging content" doesn't actually exist and cannot exist. All content follows the same cycle.

1) New content is released.
2) Skilled players in the vanguard attempt the new content. They fail a couple times before they get the strategy down pat.
3) The strategy becomes public knowledge.
4) Everyone becomes familiar with it, gets good at the content, then bemoans the lack of challenging content.

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Originally Posted by Tidis

Eh, personally I don't think the player base right now can handle required alliance content anymore, hence why everything released nowadays is mostly cleared by a single part or at most 2.

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And I'm pretty sure the playerbase can handle this.
I'm sure it's not the same on all servers but on Bahamut I still find myself in full Voidwatch alliances, apart from that I see plenty of shouts for DM (D+), Delve and Incursion groups.
Sure, the latter 2 usually don't bring full alliances but do bring more than 6 characters on a regular basis.
I'm not asking for content which can only be cleared by the top tier Linkshells, but content which does require more players/job diversity than the regular cookie cutter 6 or less player parties.
Preferably containing mobs that do not die within 5 seconds of it spawning.

And sure, at a certain point it'll all end up becoming easy, dull and repetative. But there'll also be new content to replace it.
The thing right now is however, all content that has been added lately hasn't been challenging, at all, to begin with.

Alliance size voidwatches really only work because the fights themselves are easy and any Tom, Dick, and Harry can roll in. You can build pretty quickly, and you can even go in without a full alliance. Something with more strict job / skill / gear requirements would be tougher to fill. I almost never see any groups forming for Divine Might, and when Delve still required an alliance, Delve groups took hours to form.

This isn't to say that I object to Alliance based content. I think it'd be a nice bonus to those rare groups who do have the resources to pull it together. It would, however, likely upset most of the playerbase who feels excluded. Just look at all the hard feeling Job Points are creating.

I can't really sympathise with people like that, most of the people that post about being excluded are usually the ones that don't undertake anything themselves, nor join when someone else happens to set it up and expect things to be handed to them.
And some of them simply have a reputation.

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Originally Posted by Zarchery

I am of the opinion that "challenging content" doesn't actually exist and cannot exist. All content follows the same cycle.

1) New content is released.
2) Skilled players in the vanguard attempt the new content. They fail a couple times before they get the strategy down pat.
3) The strategy becomes public knowledge.
4) Everyone becomes familiar with it, gets good at the content, then bemoans the lack of challenging content.

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This is largely true, however I don't know anyone who does VD BCNMs because the extra risk is not worth the reward to most, not that I really want to, just saying.

I personally would love to see the ending mission battles hardmodes:

Shinryu: Updated Twilight gear!
Promathia: Rajas Ring!
Apocalypse Nigh: Ethereal! Suppanomimi! (They didn't put it in DM2 ; ; )
Ultima/Omega: Loquacious Earring! Brutal Earring!
Atomos: Moonshade Earring!
Maat: Black Belt!

Mini Expansion gear would be cool revamped!

I would love to see updated versions of these classic accessories and other items we still sometimes use but feel like they should be better and have at least (99) next to them.~

Also, inventory space, still all time crisis, please help, I'm drowning in gear... halp... halp...mfmffrmfmhlp

Inventory is kind of another unsolvable problem. There's a saying that "junk expands to fill the space". Every inventory expansion seems to satisfy the populace for about 2 months at most, then they begin asking for more. What we have now is already leading to some obnoxiously long load times whenever I zone. You guys gotta stop hoarding so much. Mule or toss old equipment when you get new stuff.

I think maybe instead of more space maybe smarter inventory management. Part of that could be done by SE. For example, add Porter Moogles to Mog Houses (or at least add their functionality to our Moogles). But now we're starting to drift.

Everything I have unstored, I use, frequently, I can't toss old gear because there aren't upgrades to those slots yet, either give me gear that works on several jobs and is an upgrade in all the situations I go to, or stop giving me things i need to hold onto to upgrade things, though i get those done as quickly as possible (-.- Unity) sometimes they sit there for a while.

A system that I brought up before would solve a lot of inventory space, and the porter moogle was a huge boon for me, personally, and it's not a matter of months, for me it's a matter of patches, more patches bring more gear and more gear means more space is used, unless things are obsoleted, for example when adoulin came out I got A TON of free space, because my upgrades allowed me to toss several old peices and partially completed peices, the game hasn't been like that again for a while, because yes it bothers people to lose things they spent a lot of time getting, but, at this point it would be good for inventory space.

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Originally Posted by Selindrile

Shinryu: Updated Twilight gear!
Promathia: Rajas Ring!
Apocalypse Nigh: Ethereal! Suppanomimi! (They didn't put it in DM2 ; ; )
Ultima/Omega: Loquacious Earring! Brutal Earring!
Atomos: Moonshade Earring!
Maat: Black Belt!

Mini Expansion gear would be cool revamped!

I would love to see updated versions of these classic accessories and other items we still sometimes use but feel like they should be better and have at least (99) next to them.~

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I really hope they don't go that far. Reusing some old mission and BC fights that most only did once, sure, I guess, at least if they're years, if not over a decade old. But going all the way like that, where does it stop? Furthermore, once we go to say ilvl 129, then what? We going to spend a year with no new content except for the 129 version of all this content and gear? I get that they needed a stop gap, something to fill in with during SoA, I've even enjoyed it for the most part. But they need to figure out another solution for new content rather than create an endless carrousel with the same content being upgraded to the newest ilvl.

If you haven't figured it out, all we're getting is stopgap content with the exception of the final delve probably, until the next expansion, if it ever comes, that's generally how XI has always done it.

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Originally Posted by Selindrile

If you haven't figured it out, all we're getting is stopgap content with the exception of the final delve probably, until the next expansion, if it ever comes, that's generally how XI has always done it.

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wut?

With the exception of 99 Limbus (new floor, modified TP moves on bosses), Salvage (entirely different mechanics and layouts), and at a stretch 99 Arch NMs in Dyna, reusing entire events has never been how FFXI has done it. They've reused mob and gear models, and that's really it. Regardless, ilvling old things that most haven't done in years or a decade are cool. ilvling things that we were all doing 2 years ago, not so much. Pretty lol worthy, but an ilvl Garrison with different mechanics and useful gear would be kinda cool, no one even did that when it was new to the game. Reusing existing resources is fine to add filler content. Tossing ilvl at every mission and event in the game though, doing largely nothing beyond increasing stats and adding lack-luster side grade gear, doesn't really do much positive for the game.

And as mentioned, whats going to happen once ilvl increases? Be stuck running the *new and improved* 129 versions? It'd be an easy way to paint themselves into a corner without being careful. Maybe it's why we haven't seen any new Merit BCs, considering all the sources they have to pull from, stopping when they did would hint at holding out for some reason.

Salvage and Limbus original incarnations were finishing developing content that was largely created in the expansion, and just delayed to be released, like XI always does.

Between new expansion content we got things like: BCNMs, ENMs, VW, Legion, Dyna Reforge, Salvage v2, Ultima/Omega v2, Nyzul v2, Odin v2, Monstrosity, FoV, GoV, Trial of the Magians, Aventuring Fellows, Pankration, MMM (Though they put a lot of work into MMM's system), same goes for Meeble Burrows and Walk of Echoes.

We occasionally get new monster graphics and gear graphics between expansions, almost never new zones, and it's definitely not the norm, when they're trying to keep things going between expansions, we get a lot of stopgap rehashed content, it's not all bad, and it's even nice when it tickles the ol nostalgia feels.