First off, I love this game-how much effort has gone into making this much better than the original FFXIV and how much it has progressed. That said, I was wondering if we could see a little more variation of battle content. As it is, you get to level 60, get geared up for hardcore raids, fates and... that's really it. I'm not knocking on the hardcore raiding, I'm just wondering if there can be other battle content to spice things up a bit.
I understand that some of these examples made sense within the context of their stories, but I think it's possible to make these work.
Some examples/ideas I'll cite:
1) Example: City defense (Besieged from FFXI):
-Defend a city against an invading army. Repel them from reaching their goal and defeat their bosses within an hour to route their attack.
How this could work in the story: Perhaps defend against Imperials skirmishing against Eorzean patrols.
2) Example: Outpost defense/attack (Garrison/Campaign)
-attack or defend your own outposts while enemy NPC's invade/defend an area.
How this could work in the story: See above example.
3) Example: Invade Other World (FFXI's Dynamis)
(Diadem seems to be a step in the right direction toward this, but not quite)
-Invasion of another world in order to put a stop to evil and defeat their boss in an alternate dimension. Must take careful planning to achieve end goal.
Story suggestion: There are plenty of encounters with the void that we have in FFXIV. Why not go and take the fight to this Void? (Or Imperials)
4) Example: Castrum Meridanium (FFXIV)
A long dungeon with a lot of of different elements, including using cannon emplacements to destroy enemies (Also seen in Dusk Vigil Hard), loading ammo into weapons that team mates would control. Being able to take a player out of just doing their rotations was great!
Point: Got players out of their usual Dungeon-based jobs and mixed things up for some.
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5) Example: Steps of Faith (FFXIV)
-Coordination to destroy enemies using people who DPS, people who used cannons, and those that used snares to hold back the boss from the end goal. Fun when you can get a group of people to cooperate successfully.
-Point: See above.
6) Suggestion: Make fates matter for an area
-Perhaps the number of successful fates contribute to a "fortune" meter. If meter is high, benefits are given to the area (Perhaps for gatherers and exp for low-level players), or even the nation in charge of this territory. Too many fates lost and detrimental things may occur (Hunt bosses much more difficult, Void monsters/Imperials/Eikons appear and attack players, etc.)
7) Suggestion: Stop enemy advancing bosses
-Perhaps enemy strongholds may, at some times, spawn megabosses that travel through their areas and wreak havoc. A warning is given for players to participate and contribute to knocking down these bosses to keep players or resources safe.
8) Suggestion: Battles involving mounts
-I know I personally liked using the magitek armor to cut down imperials while my magitek still had HP in The Praetorium. Why not use them again (load temporary lethal ammo or something) in battles/raids? (And yes, I loved seeing them in Alexander too).
9) Suggestion: Airship battles
-Perhaps an on-rails adventure where players use cannons with certain HP to defend against pirates/monsters attacking their airships. Might mesh nicely with the pirates from the Void Ark quest. If players fail, ship may be boarded and players must defend their ship.
How these could be implemented is anyone's guess, but I'm hoping that this is not asking for too much. To the very least, seeing something different in battle besides just raids and dungeons. And yes, I know there are PS3 limitations that some will cite. But I honestly think that the PS3 can't be a block for all of these being possible.
What do you think?
(Sorry for the long post length)
Variation of content?
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01-22-2016, 11:26 PMMiakisuVariation of content?
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01-22-2016, 11:49 PMAlahra
You can edit your post to to get around the character limit.
As for variation of content, that's something they are (supposedly) working on from here on out. Diadem was the first example of a new type of content we got, but it was unfortunately marred by some design oversights that have left it unpopular for the time being. -
01-23-2016, 12:13 AMFelisSouth Shroud, as a FATEQuote:
Originally Posted by Miakisu
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01-23-2016, 01:37 AMNalienBig problem being there is only like, two of these? South Shroud and Eastern Thanalan? Probably one in La Noscea as well, but the point still stands; These good kind of FATEs are extremely rare and not even that good anyway. The consequences for failure/success are a bleedin' minion vendor. There's nothing particularly big going on in the outpost you capture/save, they're just low level EXP FATEs that show what FATEs could be like, so really they're nothing more than a constant reminder that SE never did much more than churn out pop culture references with the same "Kill X enemies!" FATEs... If these kinds of FATEs were in the majority, and we had some level cap ones with significant enough rewards, well, perhaps people would be doing those FATEs anyway, perhaps getting Atma off them would be a bonus...Quote:
Originally Posted by Felis
As for something like Besieged, I made a thread earlier this week. XI got things like Besieged and Campaign down perfectly, Hamlet Defense was an attempt to mirror Besieged I think, and FATEs are apparently I giant leap backwards, seeing as they're meant to be our replacement for Hamlet Defense... Imagine a Campaign against Garlemald, in which locations across the region are constantly being fought over and changing hands... We keep losing, we have to defend our HQ from Garlemald. We keep winning? We get a special instance like Praetorium in which we storm their stronghold...
There is a lot of potential for good content with such systems, shame the developers are more interested in churning out dungeons ad nauseum... Work it correctly and stuff like this is content that could have lasted from 2.0 to 5.0, instead we're lucky to get something that lasts from #.1 to #.2 these days... -
01-23-2016, 01:46 AMDerio
I like the defense and attack idea. We already have that in pvp in a sense. However if you add a caste in. Add enemy NPC's and then add a 24 man alliance. I could see it turning out to be some really cool content.
I still think they are going to come up with random questlines that give rewards for Diadem though. I think they still have big plans for that area. -
01-23-2016, 02:07 AMNalienPvE Frontlines (Secure) would work fairly well, though making it instanced robs it of much of its charm. There is no reason something like this couldn't be open world, just tie it in with FATEs.Quote:
Originally Posted by Derio
Lets say you slap several of those capture points from Secure around Coerthas Western Highlands. Have it so they're captured/defended via FATEs. Controlling a lot of them provides some native bonus to everyone in the zone, as well as making the zone a safer place (since it's mostly controlled by Ishgard). You've then got a lot of defend/capture FATEs going on, and you can put in a few other ones (defending supply lines/etc.) to improve the defense (NPCs stationed there) of owned points. If we keep losing the points, eventually the only one we've left with is Falcon's Nest, and we have a huge battle defending it. If we own all the points, we get something similar, but with us attacking the enemy stronghold.
Obviously that doesn't work well for Western Highlands, you'd really need to design the map from the ground up with this in mind, but it's a solid enough concept. The rewards just need to be significant enough that FATEs are actually rewarding for once in their life...
That's pretty much the next step I see from Campaign in XI... Campaign had one outpost per zone, with XIV I see no reason why we couldn't have multiple outposts to fight over per zone. Multiple factions, too. Lets say we start moving into Garlemald in 4.0, we could have Ala Mhigo verses Garlemald verses Beast Tribes. Day one much of the area is controlled by Garlemald. Day two people have burnt through the area, leaving it in control of Ala Mhigo, affording players bonuses. Day three the Beast Tribes take over while we're busy on a new zone. Or, for consistencies sake, we could go with XIs Conquest "tally results every week" system. Either way, it gives us dynamic maps which we can impact. If we ignore a zone, it falls into enemy hands and we no longer get benefits from that zone, so we aim to take it back. FATEs go from crappy EXP/Relic grinds, to dynamic activities people (hopefully) want to do. People want those benefits for controlling regions, if a region is slipping out of our hands, people will want to go help out. -
01-23-2016, 02:12 AMDPZ2
Suggestions by the OP are the reason I also play Guild Wars 2 ...
and, no, I don't want FFXIV to be a GW2 clone. -
01-23-2016, 02:33 AMLexiaThey could perhaps maybe do this with a time travel expansion kind of how they did with FFXI with Wings of the Goddess for the crystal war.Quote:
Originally Posted by Miakisu
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01-23-2016, 05:26 AMMiakisuEdited so that it's in one post now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
And I'd love to see more. I really miss seeing them try different things like they did in 2.0 -
01-23-2016, 05:35 AMAlahraIt's just tricky because just about everything they've tried to do outside of the main formula has met with mixed success or negative results so far. Hunts are and continue to be a mess that they seem to have given up on reigning in. Diadem's been a mess. Lords of Vermillion seemingly took a lot of resources and has been seemingly pretty unpopular. The Gold Saucer was pretty popular for the first month and is now largely empty most of the time. Triple Triad's largely died out in popularity as well. Treasure Maps were new but ultimately have ended up being an incredibly minor part of the game, which have varying levels of player involvement. Though not directly related when it comes to new content, their experimentation with difficulty in HW has been kind of a mess, too, and I suspect the team may be getting reflexively more conservative.Quote:
Originally Posted by Miakisu
I think we'll still see one new type of content in Heavensward (perhaps in 3.3 or 3.4), but I imagine their main focus now is on getting the ship righted after the problems with 3.0/3.1. -
01-23-2016, 06:03 AMMiakisuRight. That's why I specify Battle content. Some people need a carrot for that stick. Seeing them implement minor gear possibilities may not be a bad way to go like Diadem.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra
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01-23-2016, 06:19 AMSendohJinthe biggest problem is itemization. you can make all those things and none of them will matter if they don't figure out a way to put drops in them that matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by Miakisu
Treasure Maps is not a bad system but the drops are inconsequential. put pink i210 gear in the top tier map and you will see people doing them a lot more. that would also give them reason to make the maps tougher. the hardest maps right now can be duoed by basically any Tank/DPS + Healer combo. if the drops are good, you can justify having 8 waves of mobs that you need a Full Party to clear before the time limit.
hopefully with the materia change in 3.2 they actually give us more ways to acquire materia that's not just spiritbinding and farming Diadem tokens. -
01-23-2016, 06:20 AMAlahraRight. There's not a lot of room for new battle content to really offer compelling rewards unless something about the structure massively changes (and that's unlikely). I think that's part of what Diadem's trouble was. They wanted it to be compelling for people to run, but not too compelling, and they overshot the mark on the compelling thing at first. Now it's absolutely *not* compelling after the nerfs, and I honestly don't necessarily agree with Yoshi's thought that i205 gear would have still been a compelling carrot.Quote:
Originally Posted by Miakisu
It'll be interesting to see what they try in the future. -
01-23-2016, 06:20 AMWellFooled
I couldn't agree with the OP more. FFXIV has some great variety in non-battle content (Golden Saucer for example), but I would love to see its battle side expand beyond dungeons and trials with with their endlessly circle arenas and linear hallways. The battle content has always been amazingly varied in lore and atmosphere, but not so much varied in gameplay.
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01-23-2016, 06:45 AMThayos
This is why I think FFXIV needs to adopt an exotic gear system.
Exotic armor pieces and accessories would be significantly more powerful than typical gear pieces -- strong enough to last much longer than a typical piece of gear. And they could also have unique bonuses on them to make them stronger in various situations.
The catch would be you could only equip one exotic at a time.
Likewise, there could also be lesser-tier gear pieces (legendary?) that would be similar, but not as strong. These could also drop more often, and players could possibly wear one legendary + one exotic piece (or maybe just one or the other). But the legendaries could drop much more frequently.
Imagine if the Diadem were a place to farm legendary and exotic gear? You could continue farming legendaries because each would contain different stats that would be useful in different situations. And they'd be relevant longer, so they wouldn't have quite the treadmill feeling as other types of gear.
And if Diadem were set up that way, then that wouldn't cancel out the importance of other kind of content like Void Ark or Raiding, becaues you'd only be able to wear one or two Diadem pieces at a time (and you could keep other content even more critical by making the exotic/legendary pieces be accessories, and keeping left-side pieces in Void Ark and raiding).
So there ARE ways to make itemization in this game more exciting without massive overhauls.
The development team just needs to do it. -
01-24-2016, 01:33 AMKurogaeaIf they did it like everyone assumed they would, like making hunts instanced, making us look for monsters on our own instead of competing with the rest of your server then yeah, it would've went perfectly.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alahra