Crystal Tower

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Originally Posted by Hulan

Server bloat. If they do not include a time-limit, it would be entirely possible for the entire FFXIV population to camp out in individual instances at the same time; and they would have to plan for that. Which is entirely impractical from a hardware perspective. You need something that limits the flow of players through instanced content or else the servers will explode under the strain.

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WoW's instances don't have time limits, and they seem to do okay.

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Originally Posted by Eekiki

WoW's instances don't have time limits, and they seem to do okay.

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That's interesting, I wonder how they managed it. Server strain under large numbers of instances is a very real problem, so the fact that they solved it is quite fascinating. So, in theory, every person in WoW could enter their own instance and stand there forever, regardless of how many other people have their own instances?

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Originally Posted by Eekiki

WoW's instances don't have time limits, and they seem to do okay.

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WoW is WoW and XIV is 1.0, the current system most likely puts a lot of strain on the system so something that may look simple in WoW such as multiple instances isn't possible with the way the game is currently setup. When 2.0 comes around they may be able to change "challenges" from speed runs to something else by allowing more people to enter said instance. As it stands now however speed runs and such are used to alleviate the instance server strain so that people breeze through events quicker so that other get the chance to do events without being limited by the limiting instances allowed.

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Originally Posted by Jynx

Crystal tower in concept just screams Nyzul isle, I can't see it not being instanced.

Some stuff is fine instanced and this sounds like a concept better placed in a instance than open-world. Wouldn't mind it having some elements outside of the instance though like quests that are unlocked the higher up you climb.

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I don't see why they couldn't mix em together in this Tower, i think it would be fun.

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Originally Posted by Eekiki

WoW's instances don't have time limits, and they seem to do okay.

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That would make things a lot nicer :) Its the speed runs and rushing that I can't stand in XIV >_<

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Originally Posted by Babydoll

That would make things a lot nicer :) Its the speed runs and rushing that I can't stand in XIV >_<

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That's why they should just mimic Nyzul Isle (not uncharted), 30 minutes total, different objectives each floor (though can repeat.) I like fighting mobs in dungeons.

Speed Runs I can understand being a bonus..but as a requirement eh..

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Originally Posted by Babydoll

That would make things a lot nicer :) Its the speed runs and rushing that I can't stand in XIV >_<

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I have a feeling even if speed runs were eliminated, nothing would change all that much. Groups would still push through dungeons as fast as they can because the faster you burn through it, the faster you can do it again for another shot at drops.

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Originally Posted by Hulan

That's interesting, I wonder how they managed it. Server strain under large numbers of instances is a very real problem, so the fact that they solved it is quite fascinating. So, in theory, every person in WoW could enter their own instance and stand there forever, regardless of how many other people have their own instances?

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They handled it the same way FFXIV does. Doesn't allow any more instances to be created past X number of instances. Before cross-world parties, many lowbie instances hit cap and you had to run back and forth across the zone in until a party left to get their spot.

However their instance's are on separate servers than the world server, and possible groups several worlds together on the same instance servers. I am unsure if FFXIV's are ran on a separate server or their worlds server but since some worlds had hit instance capacity and others didn't, they probably just run on the same server as the world. Separating that would make more space and speed up instance connections probably but cost more money and they'd need to develop the coding to do that.

Ah good to know, for a second I thought someone had broken physics. Writing code to transfer tasks between physical servers isn't terribly difficult. Really the trouble is the cost of the hardware.

If you make drop rates normal, and increase instance timer to 1 week, you can still spend the same relative amount of time (in terms of length) farming (1 month ish) to get at least 1 piece of your gear, and possibly additional pieces.

That's what WoW does. Instead of punishing people who can't do the same raid 10 times in a row each day to even get a shot at drops, they make the drop rate normal and extend content by increasing instance timers.

I think a system that actually drops the items without needing to spam it, is much more amenable to a player in terms of fun and replay factor.

Requiring a speed run to get chests is also silly. I think it's fine for Relic items, but not really as a limiter to what a group of people will get to experience/obtain