Let's make Triple Triad relevant!

So 3.1 came, and I was really excited to see that SE was adding a whole slew of new cards along with (blessedly!) increased drop rates for a lot of pre-existing cards. As somebody who's played Triple Triad since Final Fantasy 8 back when I was growing up, these changes excited me greatly! All of those modifications, along with the new Gold Saucer achievement book, made me genuinely hope that we'd be seeing a new breath of life into what's otherwise a pretty dead, neglected minigame.

When Triple Triad was first announced, I was thrilled at the idea. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to be able to play it with other people, and now FF14 would finally enable that! However, the Triple Triad scene is a barren wasteland, nobody ever wants to play or has any cards, and tournaments are nothing but scummy win trading for platinum packs. :(

So I was thinking, what exactly needs to happen in order to make Triple Triad actually relevant in FF14? And the answer came pretty quickly! Simple! Make it more like it as in FF8! In Final Fantasy 8 you could break down excess cards for useful items and spells! In many cases, it made the 'draw grind' that so many people hate FF8 for nearly trivial, and gave you many of the best spells in the game for free!

What does that mean for FF14? Well, what if we could break Triple Triad cards down into crafting materials? It could act somewhat like de-syntheses, where the rarity of the card being broken down impacts the loot table that it draws from. For instance, you have a FAR greater chance of getting expensive, ultra-rare materials from a 5* card than you do a 1*.

For the sake of game balance, I think it would be for the best if these crafting materials remained exclusively for glamour, but think of the possibilities! I know for certain that *I* wouldn't mind grinding a few (... dozen) TT cards if it meant I got a snazzy Squall or Seifer cosplay costume for my efforts. :D. Not to mention that this also helps crafters out too, since obviously these outfits can be sold for HUGE prices, since they'll obviously be in demand. I don't craft myself, but I hear they've been hurting lately...

What do you think? Personally, I think it's a fantastic way to take one of my favorite Final Fantasy past times, and make it into a fun, rewarding experience that brings more of the community on board! Who knows? Maybe those taverns would actually see some use on non-RP servers!

People can hardly care about it when SE doesn't even care about banning win traders. And almost every "hard" NPC has the random rule but his deck isn't random at all and it makes it unfair and not fun. Drop rates on cards don't help much either...

I kinda like your idea tho.

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Originally Posted by Rose-Wild

People can hardly care about it when SE doesn't even care about banning win traders. And almost every "hard" NPC has the random rule but his deck isn't random at all and it makes unfair and not fun. Drop rates on cards don't help much either...

I kinda like your idea tho.

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There's nothing more that I hate than the random rule on an npc only to play the a dozen times and see they have the same cards every time, meanwhile I'm working with whatever I get. Even worse is random with chaos....

I like the idea. However, it's not gonna happen. Earning cards is too easy and then TT wouldn't be a "source of fun" game anymore, even though no one really plays TT. I do wish something like this was implemented, but there's no hope in that, really.

I'm usually happy with Chaos because that means the NPC maybe can't use his op cards in the right way to beat me :P
But the random rule should be really random and not what it is atm.

Get rid of the randum rule (or make it truly random) to stop punishing us for collecting cards, let us have more than 1 four star in our deck so those cards are actually useful, don't let NPCs cheat with having 2 five stars and multiple four stars in their deck (smurf off, Tataru), get rid of the horrendous RNG drop rate that makes getting even a simple 1-star card an endless grind (looking at you, Gaelicat card), remove the time-limit on NPCs which combined with the RNG makes getting cards even more of a chore, and finally, for smurfs' sake don't make us pay ONE MILLION MGP for one measily card. (Even 200.000 is already borderline ludicrous.)

There, Triple Tiad fixed.

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Originally Posted by Kit-Kat

I like the idea. However, it's not gonna happen. Earning cards is too easy and then TT wouldn't be a "source of fun" game anymore, even though no one really plays TT. I do wish something like this was implemented, but there's no hope in that, really.

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I don't believe that's the case at all. I'm speaking up right now because I hope that maybe, if it gets enough attention, SE will make the change. The way I see it, it does nothing but good! Not only does it revive crafting, but it's also a VERY easy revenue source for casual players, and it incentives older content. We all saw the reddit post about the 800 minute LotA queue...

Nothing will change if we stay silent.

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Originally Posted by Rose-Wild

I'm usually happy with Chaos because that means the NPC maybe can't use his op cards in the right way to beat me :P
But the random rule should be really random and not what it is atm.

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Yeeeeeeah, the random rule is a bit silly. I wish that they would start toning down how often it shows up in later game duelists. All it does is push people away right now. :(

That's the problem of most of the stuff they introduce to the game. They have something with a lot of potential and they manage to make it a chore, and instead of fixing it they move to the next thing and let it die, like pvp. It's funny because really small simple fixes could make it so much better.

I think TT is suffering on two different Front atm. 1: The NPC grind is really rough (as many have commented on and posted some suggested solutions) and 2: There's no good system in place to pit TT players against each other.

I find playing against other people the real fun behind Triple Triad. NPC are great and all, but I feel that they're chief purpose is to unlock new cards. Playing other humans is where the meat of the game is, but the game does very little to encourage players to compete against one another in TT. As the OP mentioned, the Tournaments are sadly a failure that most people don't bother with or don't really try with (my FC and I just play against each other for tournaments, just to get whatever MGP and card packs we can. We don't really make any effort, knowing that we'll always be beat by win traders) and the only other system in place to encourage matches is the few extra MGP a day from playing against human opponents.

I think one of the simplest ways to encourage players to TT with each other is to include it in the duty finder, as LoV is, with an MGP bonus that isn't limited to a number of matches (unlike the current MGP bonus for playing against humans is, which I assume is there to combat excessive win trading as an MGP farming method).

The worst random NPCs I have run into are 1, the wood wailer guy that drops the odin card, 2. Yellow Moon.

Allow people to somehow watch the matches would go a long and I mean long way to making triple triad worthwhile to hosting community events.

I'm still experiencing super-low/almost non-existent card drops from NPCs after the "increase in rates". It's a bummer... RNGESUS HATES MEH!

Low drop rates are even worse when you can only play against opponents for a fixed amount of time, and there is no IN GAME indicator of an NPC's triple triad availability. Why does an NPC say "come back later" rather than "come back after 10am"? Oh don't worry, SE, I'll just have an open net browser to tell me the things you are too lazy to put in your game.

You know what my favorite part of FFVIII was? Being unable to play anyone in triple triad because it wasn't the right arbitrary moment.