How to Make The New Field Content Fun For All.

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Originally Posted by Valence

- story, because I like stories
- relics, because SE has so far never been able to come up with a fair system where you either can grind them inside those field operations, or casually outside with tomestones by doing roulettes and other types of content you actually enjoy.

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If they were smart they would make it so it's an equal amount of time grinding content in and out of the instance and they would add the ability to get currency from savage and EX and not have it all on easier boring content. And this si my main issue with rouls, the odds of getting fun content is always a 50/50.

I think there can be different levels of completion. For example, you can do variant dungeon once, and get most of the story and you open the variant dungeon specific currency shop in Old Sharlayan. Clearing all 12 routes will be somewhat time consuming but you get an actually decent mount and rest of the story with it, and it's definitely locked behind a grind that a casual gamers can easily enjoy. Criterion is then for the midcore-hardcore crowd, and it's a bigger time investment with more rewards.

If we take Eureka (today) as an example, it's a considerable time investment JUST to get the basic story, and the time investment is basically all for naught as you've reached level 60, because there are really no rewards unless you plan on doing the relics, bunnies or BA. The lockboxes only drop anything worthwhile pretty rarely.

So I think they need to divorce the actual field content and the story it provides, at least a little bit. Kind of like you need to clear the Hildibrand questline to get to the relic weapon stuff, but if you for whatever reason don't want to do that, the Hildibrand questline itself will net you a minion and a mount, and depending on your humor, some fun times, and a trial to boot. So I feel like that's where they should guide the experience, without neglecting the actual field content of course.

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Essences are literally the best part of eureka and Bozja because they give infinite build variety

Do you really want to spend more content pressing your same rotation you do everywhere else when you could be doing 20 times your damage, have fun gap closers you don’t usually have, infinite life steal and the ability to run faster forever

Essences are the best thing field content has going for it

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Only essences. Everything else (actions, banners, items) is fine, though honestly it was a huge mistake enabling players to skip them altogether. Also it wasn't nearly as fun going ham with your holster loadout if there weren't many others doing it too.

I think it would be a neat idea if the essence was its own separate system with the rays from Zadnor baked in. You would start with the basic buffs (damage, healing, HP) but unlock more options as you progress though the zone.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

And thats what I don't wanna see them just throwing in as an alternative to relics again, but it's something I could see them doing again, over just creating fun ways to grind your relics over time.

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I guess I'm probably out of the relic system then if the only way is through field operations again like eureka. Although I guess I can still get a single one if it just requires story completion. Really hinges on exactly what kind of effort it will be...

Fun for all? No. I'd rather have them be fun for the same reason Bozja and Eureka were for those who liked that kind of content and polished to deal with the caveats people that enjoyed those zones found. Trying to appeal to everyone with them is only going to take the enjoymentaway from those who already liked Field Operations while failing to draw in most other players. Let everyone enjoy their particular cup of tea.

And, as far as improvements on FO they should:
- Keep customizable duty actions and essence and balance them to make the choice more flexible. This goes specially for Lost Flare Star and Lost Cure IV.
- If they keep essences, make the off-role tanking option an actual option by improving the aggro generation.
- Increase the amount of interaction with the map. Bozja/zadnor had star ranked mobs that people hardly interacted with because they offered no substantial rewards and, other than Magitek npcs, you could ignore pretty much every normal mob, for example. To come up with a couple ideas:

• Create instance Hunts for elite mobs spawned through special triggers (aka not just kill X mobs until Y spawns) that reward better essences, parallel to critical engagements
• Create global instance events. Take a page off weather effects (and maybe from the Ishgardian Restoration too?) on NPCs spawn and develop it to a more interactive concept.

- While there is more community interaction in Eureka, I could never stand in the slightest spawning NM and then having to wait not just for those inside the instance but also for people from other instances to jump into that one because of Discord groups. Which is why I appreciated the Critical Engagements. Please keep them.
- I have no issue with the way Duels work. As long as they keep the RNG failsafe mechanic, they're fine with me.
- Make the instance raids either be only accesible with an organized group or make them not need organization at all. The middle point where random people get in and blatantly refuses to show any sign of cooperation or comunication in fights that need them some cooperation (looking at first fight in CLL, fpr example) took away any appeal the bozjan raids had for me.

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Originally Posted by BokoToloko

- Make the instance raids either be only accesible with an organized group or make them not need organization at all. The middle point where random people get in and blatantly refuses to show any sign of cooperation or comunication in fights that need them some cooperation (looking at first fight in CLL, fpr example) took away any appeal the bozjan raids had for me.

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I think they need to work on this the most out of everything. I want the content to not be a faceroll, but I don't want them to be based on only being organized. This will just cause people to push onto Discord again which, while I like using Discord to look for help to get Achievements, I kinda wish they'd use in game methods more often. I think there's a middle ground for being able to run difficult content with pugs, but it's a balancing act.

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Originally Posted by strawberrycake

How to Make The New Field Content Fun For All.

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You can't. This is a literal impossibility. Nothing is fun for everyone. And trying to please everyone ends up pleasing no one.

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Originally Posted by Valence

I guess I'm probably out of the relic system then if the only way is through field operations again like eureka. Although I guess I can still get a single one if it just requires story completion. Really hinges on exactly what kind of effort it will be...

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We don't know what the system is yet. Field content has been announced but nothing has been said about tying relics to it. I hope for their sake they don't and let field content stand on its own with the relic questline utilizing the content as one of the options. That will help the relics avoid the sort of FOMO Eureka especially promoted.

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Originally Posted by Dorito_Burrito

Only essences. Everything else (actions, banners, items) is fine, though honestly it was a huge mistake enabling players to skip them altogether. Also it wasn't nearly as fun going ham with your holster loadout if there weren't many others doing it too.

I think it would be a neat idea if the essence was its own separate system with the rays from Zadnor baked in. You would start with the basic buffs (damage, healing, HP) but unlock more options as you progress though the zone.

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Still what was wrong with essences, they were just as much the cornerstone of making the system work as the lost actions considering they generally held the primary effects that the lost actions built off

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Originally Posted by Supersnow845

Still what was wrong with essences, they were just as much the cornerstone of making the system work as the lost actions considering they generally held the primary effects that the lost actions built off

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What I disliked with essences is the fact you need to grind or buy more to continue using them.
The actions themselves are great.