Weekly AF Runs? - Putting out Feelers
This is a linkshell concept I've been thinking about implementing once I reach 50 (sometime this week I imagine, my main is 45 now), and I'd love to hear everyone's thoughts.
:D~~~Please feel free to be as critical and honest as you'd like.~~~:D
We've (nearly) all been there - [Looking for members!] [Black Mage] AF [Please help me out!] - spamming something like this every couple of minutes in Ul'Dah for maybe even hours at a time. I did this in FFXI, so did many of you.
This could just be me, but I think we're doing it wrong!:confused:
FFXIV like FFXI is a game about community, and helping others out. Everyone is helpful at one time or another, but it can be problematic when you need 8 people to do an AF run and there's only 5 people you're able to find. That's no fault of the community, which I find is actually quite helpful, just an asynchronicity in schedules.
Well, I have a solution for it (and I'm probably not the first to think of this).
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Concept Linkshell: "Three EST Saturday AF Club"
That'd be the actual Linkshell name - since there's no /lsmes command, it lets people know what its about, and when to be online. The actual time and name will be determined by popular demand by the most enthusiastic on the forums - provided anyone's actually enthusiastic about this.
It would be nice if everyone would be altruistic, but the fact of the matter is people like rewards. that's why the Linkshell would be based around Helper Points
Helper Points - Helping for one fight grants you one Transferrable helper point (HP). You can give it away, sell it, buy one from someone else, trade it, do nothing at all with it, whatever you like. These points will never expire, so long as the LS is in operation, so if you have 50 of every job, help out now and save them for 2.0.
Any Helper Point Transfer would need to go through myself or an LS officer to prevent scamming.
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Tentative Rules
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- The linkshell would be free-social. Invite anyone you like, come and go and put on any other linkshell as you like, so long as it's not during a run time you're participating in.
- Runs would be done on some given day of the week (or month), every week (or month), at a set time, Saturday was only a sample. The final set time is negotiable.
- One AF fight as a helper nets you a transferrable HP.
- One AF received costs one HP, and no member will be eligible to earn another artifact piece until his or her HP balance is zero or positive. Obviously first-timers would be allowed to go to -1, otherwise we'd never be able to get started.
- Members who wish to spend HP will be invited on a first come, first served basis. This may, at a later date, be changed to "by appointment" by visiting the linkshell website.
- The order of the runs would be done in the most time-efficient fashion. Example: All classes' AF fights in zone A, before moving to all classes' AF fights in zone B and so on.
- AF Recievers would be responsible for teleporting the group to the appropriate aether node for their particular fight.
- Ideally, runs would persist for a set time (say two to three hours). This may or may not be enough time for an efficient, determined group to make a full circuit of all classes' AF. There is potential to expand beyond one set time, if participation and demand is high enough.
- In the event there is an imbalance in the group, and after several attempts, an AF fight is not defeated, members may be asked to leave to make room for a more balanced party. All members -including the ones asked to leave- will recieve one HP for their effort, barring intentional negligence (went afk, wiped the group on purpose, etc).
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Additional Thought
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I'd like to encourage members who are interested in acquiring HP to be online and available during the runs in case they're needed - I'd want to implement some system where they're rewarded for being ready to go when called for. Perhaps an extra one or two HP if they're online for the duration of the runs.. (I'd have to randomly check to make sure they were, but I'm willing to do that.) This way we'd have all the people we need to dole the AF out to the members who need it - or the people whom you've sold your HP to.
If you have anything to add - concept, question or criticism - please do! This is just a wild idea at the moment. I'm not even 50 yet, but when I am, I'd be willing to lead this project weekly.
If you're interested, feel free to message me in-game, and please post here so that everyone else knows you're interested. I'm usually always online from 6-9 pm CST, and at other times randomly -SV
TL;DR - Go back and read it, there's a potential to get all your AFs and make friends and gil doing it.