[Fortified] New Dungeon Idea

Currently, we have these types of dungeons.

Normal (Satasha)

Hard Mode (Satasha Hard)

MSQ (Dungeons that don't get a Hard Mode but are a bit more difficult than other dungeons)

I propose we add a bit of excitement to old and new content by implementing a system similar to the WoW Mythic+ Keystones.

However, the process would be different than what "they" have in place.

Let's look at what our economy has in abundance, Materia? Old crafting mats? Gil?

For our new dungeons to work, they would need to have a form of upgrades that require the said item slot. Each dungeon then turns into a deadlier, shinier and more rewarding version of itself.

Rules for Fortified Dungeons:
Always ilvl synced, wipe and you are kicked (like PoTD)
Can only be created through PF (for the time being)
Ilvl will be consistent with the level of Fortification.

Edit Clarification: The Ilvl sync will always be equivalent to the difficulty of the dungeon. This allows you to fight a higher tiered dungeon with better gear but prevents you from over-gearing.

These dungeons will have a new currency system in place. It would be similar to those at a Fair or Carnival, each time you clear, you will gain a token, trading in X tokens nets you a higher tier dungeon upgrade, continual upgrades will increase the difficulty of the dungeon, which in turn increases drop rates and unlocks rare rewards. (IE: Satasha Seashell Tier 1 Base Rewards, Satasha Seashell Tier 2 x.25% drop rate, Satasha Seashell Tier 3 .25% drop rate +1 Treasure Chest, etc)

The Price:
Each slot will require a substantial amount of points worth of X to fill per adventurer, I.E: 1,000 points of Materia, 1,000 points of Crafting Materials, 100,000 Gil.

Tier 1 Materia; is worth 10, Tier 2 50, Tier 3 100, Tier IV 200, Tier V 500.
Crating Materials are worth their NPC sell back price divided by 10: 100 Gil item = 10 points.

Edit: The Price for each Tier will be different as the risks and rewards will increase as well.

The Story:
The Beastmen, City-States, and various other friendlies want to strengthen and convert the various dungeons into strongholds/hamlets. To do this, they need supplies and lots of it. With the constant threat of Primals and outsiders (Garlemald), they beseech you to aid them in creating such a place.

After you pay your portion of the quest, you receive a token which you need in order to enter the new dungeon [Fortified] Amdapor Keep, for example.

This will have completely new mechanics to deal with, not just killing monsters, mini-bosses and then the last boss.

It will have puzzles to solve, riddles to solve, deadlier monsters to fight, traps! and a boss fight worthy of the price tag.

Edit Clarification:
Puzzles: When I think of puzzles, I picture 3 magic pots, one has an imp inside, you trigger the event and play something similar to 3 card monte, a failure may reduce your skills for an amount of time. Other puzzles might include a small jumping game/switches that might involve the party to split up to hit /stand on 3 different platforms at the same time while the 4th touches the door.

Mechanics:

Forced Job Change: You might be required to change to a Gatherer/Crafter inside the dungeon to complete a side quest. Inability to do so will make progression significantly harder. (Create a poisoned stew for the next boss, make potions of bar-fire to protect from massive fire dot)

Riddles: Word games, Picture games, a memory game or even a short quiz, similar to the Quiz Monster in FF IX (Ragtime Mouse), they ask you questions and if you X then you suffer, a correct answer lets you continue unhindered.

Traps!: Some monsters should be avoided, hitting them deals 0 damage and they might kill you. A jumping puzzle or even a CC of sorts could help you get passed them. Other Unique Monsters might shut off your UI for 10-20 seconds. 3 switches on the wall, 2 could be deadly. A false door that leads to a disadvantaged fight. Also the traps from PoTD were pretty sweet.

Deadlier Monsters: Aside from the obvious HP/Damage, monsters could have unique mechanics such as /pray to remove their buffs, require stun/silence to prevent additional mobs being summoned. A limit break bar cued to physical/magical damage dealt. Monsters that create environmental hazards throughout the rest of the dungeon depending on their death knell. (death by magic, mp drain miasma, physical tp drain miasma) I also liked the unique monsters in Diablo, some were resistant to physical/magical etc. It would be nice to have that sort of thing.

I think about the dungeon should be changing, just slightly but just enough, similar to POTD, not every area is the same, so no 2 dungeon excursions should be the same. Unique Monsters, and "side quests" are generated randomly. In an essence, it would be a reskin of the current PoTD levels, but they would be inspired by dungeons like Satasha (water, grotto) Amdapor Keep (Castle walls, gloomy skies)

The Loot:
Be honest, how many of you skipped all that to see what was in this portion first?

Let's face it, the rewards have to be epic. Your party just spent half a million Gil in resources to complete this quest. Your reward?

Job Specific Gear that grants real bonuses to skills you own. Set bonuses, Sets that have conversions (similar to FFXI +10mp/-10hp) etc.
Glamours from previous FF games (Rinoa, Selphie, Quistis outfits. Kefka outfit) /SE Games that have the FF feel. (Bravely Default; most of the jobs had unique outfits., Dragon Quest)
Chocobo Bardings such as Moogle Mail Courier, Scion themed choco barding,
Unique mounts based on the dungeon being Fortified.
Ochestrian Roll: Faerie Battle (FFIX)- Soken Remix
Hair Styles
New Collector Item: Stickers (Think Minions, but stickers are worn on your clothing like FC symbol) What kind? All the kinds!
Tattoos

In conclusion:
We all want the same thing. to have fun, but if the content is too easy, we burn through it and get bored. If it is too difficult, we doubt the reward is worth the effort. With this implementation, you get to decide how much you are willing to risk, for the rewards within.
If you liked this idea, you know what to do, If you don't tell me what you'd change.
If you are here because servers are down, Well they're not, so go back to grinding your ponies, pigeons, and doggies!

Community Ideas:

KaldeaSahaline: Thanks for asking questions. Also for sharing your own idea: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Eureka-Concept

Rilifane: How about this as rewards?
- gear (obviously) - exclusive gear/ skins welcome
- tokens so RGNesus can't screw you TOO hard or crafting mats to craft an exclusive item of your choice
- exp tomes to level your alts and/ or (perhaps as a choice similar to Khloe's rewards) things like Materia token, HQ buff food etc. Nothing big, more like a little bonus.

Keridwyn: All you need are various rewards of various prices. The more rewards you have, the more you entice collectors to earn all of them. Or you make them quality crafting mats and require x2 or x3 of the materials to make things. give it unique rewards including unique crafting materials for BRAND NEW items. Not the ability to craft cash shop items.

So, if I understood this correctly, you pay up a form of "currency" to enter a ramped up old dgn to get better loot?

Loot boxes are like the worst kind of reward ever. Probably, a lot of players would rather buy the items with actual cash than going through lengths of obtaining them in game... if the reward was some kind of item not related to the cash shop maybe it would be better

If that's the case why not just borrow from WoWs Mythic+ dungeon ideas? Where you can have modifiers and timers on the dungeon for better loot it's easier to put into the game than putting cash shop items.

This gives casuals/mid cores/raiders chances at getting better gear while running Mythic+ dungeons every week and giving them a reason to do so other than glamour.

Yeah it's nice but then gil/loot boxes are more incentivised towards gil spammers making gil more appealing to those kind of target audience which is out of SEs control unless they get caught, not to mention if I want the Lyse outfit then why don't I just buy it instead of wasting all my gil at a chance for it?

Interesting..
something for those people who say that cash shop stuff isn't available to them because they have time but no money AND something for the "omg no hardmode" people smushed into one. Add on a decent Gil Price for a "certificate" componant for entry or something and you have a good Gil sink too.

As long as this is optional content and has nothing locked behind it that can't be obtained by other means (cash shop is fine) I'm all for it. More content with less Dev investment is always nice.

You want to add loot boxes?

Hard Pass.

The idea of fortified dungeons with improved loot is a good one. Make it have plenty of boxes full of shiny things and have it drop a token that people can spend on even shinier rewards. But no thank you to more RNG.

@SenorPatty Yes
@msfakefur The main issue is that gear is plentiful, endgame already fills the role of "gear" The only items that we don't have access to is cash shop.
@Awful That is the goal, however I wanted a way to burn of resources we already have. Why add a new key item when our inventories and retainers are full of old clutter we "hope" we be reused later and never is.

I know nobody likes Loot Boxes and I would gladly accept a "token" system like we currently have but is that any better? 7 weeks of clearing Fortified for one piece of ilvl X?

As for why? I already spend money on this game, to play this game. Having to pay 25$ for glamour gear is insane. That's 2 months worth of subscription.
Not everyone has that kind of money to throw around.

@Krotoan this is most definitely not locked behind anything other than having already cleared older content. (AK, AK hard etc) The reward is the dungeon itself, something fresh, new, challenging, plus the chance at Cash shop items.

@Keridwyn It's an MMOrpg, RNG will always exist. A token idea is fine too, but you'd have to collect several weeks worth of tokens to get something.

Hmm I dunno. Will Fantasias be in these loot boxes?

@Fredco191 It would be up to the devs but I don't see why they wouldn't. The idea is to give players a chance to get cash shop items without paying RL money for it, but due to the value of the reward, the risks are higher.

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Originally Posted by Rubieus

@Keridwyn It's an MMOrpg, RNG will always exist. A token idea is fine too, but you'd have to collect several weeks worth of tokens to get something.

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My point is enough of it already exists. Also I pointed out the idea of opening boxes in the dungeon full of unique loot, that too would be RNG. But RNG for cash shop items, no. Or are you going to make the cash shop items from those loot boxes sellable on the auction board for those people who are lucky enough to get multiples of an item they already have bought?

Also you don't need to make it take several weeks. All you need are various rewards of various prices. The more rewards you have, the more you entice collectors to earn all of them. Or you make them quality crafting mats and require x2 or x3 of the materials to make things. There are a lot of rewards you could do for such a system without just tossing random boxes with cash shop prizes in there.

@Keridwyn having special materials to craft cash shop items is brilliant. I don't like the idea of farming the dungeons to sell duplicates on the market boards. This dungeon should reward players for clearing it, not others.

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Originally Posted by Rubieus

@Keridwyn having special materials to craft cash shop items is brilliant. I don't like the idea of farming the dungeons to sell duplicates on the market boards. This dungeon should reward players for clearing it, not others.

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Well therein lies the issue why should I be rewarded for clearing the dungeon and getting a random item from a loot box when I have a friend who bought it all from the cash shop and doesn't have to do it? To me it seems backwards is it the reward of me getting the item? If so it doesn't feel very fulfilling to me if someone who doesn't even have to do it can get the item I want where I spent hours upon hours and still don't have it.

It's like the 24 man loot system which is already terrible enough as it is we have a multitude of 15+ items per boss (using this as a guesstimate), now if we took the Mogstation items and slapped em in an RNG lootbox it's basically the same with dupes. I'm all for ways to do more dungeons and make them harder and a lot more fun however, this falls short as you can just buy the items without putting any effort into this new dungeon mode, don't get me wrong i'd love all this but others wouldn't as there's an easy out solution.

A lot more people are attached to glamours than actual gear in this game and if it's behind RNG then they probably won't stick with it and turn to the Mogstation instead to alleviate the RNG process.

@Awful Cash shops were a terrible idea, to begin with. So the issue here is to fix that problem with players having to pay real life money for items that should have already been put in the game and acquired with other means. Not every person can afford cash shop items, nor do they want to continue to pay extra money, sometimes several months worth of game time for one piece of clothing or a mount that isn't even account wide.

Sure it might take you time to collect these items, but isn't that the whole point? Grinding for loots is what we do.

Honestly I think you’re letting your dislike of the cash shop hamper what is otherwise a decently idea for additional content. Not to mention it’s a little idealistic to think SE is gonna give you a way to obtain items they make money on for “free”.

Ditch the cash shop loot idea entirely and I think we’re a lot more likely to see something like this implemented.

@Emstidor SE has always held the right to take anything we say or do and implement their own version of it. If there is enough desire for a Dungeon Upgrade System [Fortification] They will do it, I just like the idea of getting cash shop items in the game as part of a risk/reward system. I'm not asking them for free mind you, it's still going to require effort and luck.

Lootboxes? NOPE

@Rinuko Would you rather I use a different word? How about Treasure Chests? Loot Crate? In reality, it is all the same thing, Loot Boxes can be fun, there is no Real money involved. It's an RNG box that grants you loot, in this case, loot reserved for the Cash Shop.

The only way it'd offer Mog Station items is if it involved a cash shop purchase (for example, "Tales of Adventure - A Fortification Bible 1"), which then becomes the equivalent of paying extra on top of sub/expansion fee for new dungeon content (which would cause such an outrage it'd be unreal). So, the best they'll do is pull a Diadem and offer unique rewards in there not tied to the Mog Station.

No to loot boxes. If it was crysta that would be alright.

Yes to harder 4 mans. We already have PotD but that requires a static and a lot of time to reach the harder floors.

Hard four man content would be lovely.

Lootboxes would suck. I already have most of the cash shop items I want. Woohoo, a random drop of a genderlocked Yda outfit! What an incentive!

They’re never going to put in a mechanic which favours people who never buy optional items over those who do.

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Originally Posted by Rubieus

Loot Boxes.

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How're those Black Friday sales looking, EA?

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...17/038/fb2.jpg

O-oh...

@Serilda I see how that could be a problem. What if instead of getting a genderlocked outfit you would receive crysta like Reinha mentioned above?
@Renha I like the crysta idea.
@Paladinleeds Currently there are in-game ways to acquire cash-shop only dyes, I don't see it being a stretch to add more items to an in-game dungeon.
@NolLacnala Good thing I'm not charging players extra fees for this chance at Loot Boxes, just time and energy.

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Originally Posted by Rubieus

@Paladinleeds Currently there are in-game ways to acquire cash-shop only dyes, I don't see it being a stretch to add more items to an in-game dungeon.

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Except they were originally in-game only items (for gold/silver), and red/green/blue being mog shop only. That was more a consolidation. So not the best example unfortunately. Plus, the in-game and cash shop items are separate. Cash shop can't be traded, non cash shop can.

Hum I would prefere exclusive item than Cash shop reward. A big part of the cash shop is currently previous event reward which I already had for free.

Spending the entry price to possible get something you already paid for it or got during an event will be a big dissapointment since you will earn nothing back.

In addition if aquapole was popular on release if was because the reward could be sold for a nice amount of gil. However here since you will like to put cash shop item those will not be exchangeable so no way to get money from it. So it may be harder to find people to run this content.

To sumarize: the concept is nice but putting cash shop reward inside is not a good idea since generally people prefere to have new stuff which can be trade/sold.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Serilda

Lootboxes would suck. I already have most of the cash shop items I want. Woohoo, a random drop of a genderlocked Yda outfit! What an incentive!

They’re never going to put in a mechanic which favours people who never buy optional items over those who do.

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I mean easy fix just make it so you get an item for your gender don't see how this is an issue at all, but I agree with the it'll never favor people who don't buy over the optional items that do, like so what if I worked 5 hours and got 2 items and spent X amount of gil? My friend just got 2 outfits that they wanted while I got 3 dupes, the RNG would never work in this kind of style as the whole game revolves around RNG we don't need anymore RNG, especially a lootbox system which never works especially in an MMO.

Not to mention people will just outright buy them off the Mogstation vs putting work into it, you could farm it all day but the guy next to you can pay $10 to get what they want.

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Originally Posted by Rubieus

@Serilda I see how that could be a problem. What if instead of getting a genderlocked outfit you would receive crysta like Reinha mentioned above?

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It would be a little odd as it would mean getting credit towards my subscription (I've bought a lot in the cash shop in the past...), so S-E would pay a lot of money to develop the new content in order to reduce their income as subscriptions and cash shop purchases decline. I'm also not sure that crysta is as much of an incentive to me as a night pegasus whistle or glamour weapon because I have never especially struggled to pay my sub. The main reason for the new content would be the challenge, so it feels like an in-game trinket would be a more appropriate reward than something anyone else can just get with real money as people say.

POTD sacks are already lootboxes, just not lootboxes which bypass S-E's existing monetisation rules.

In light of what I have been reading, it seems the player base is really stuck on the loot boxes and the cash shop as rewards. I have removed them as options in my original post, as I truly wanted to focus more on the dynamics of an upgradable dungeon difficulty function. Thank you for your input on the Loot box/cash shop matter.

Can the topic move back to the Fortified Dungeon concept and less about the previous statement? Thank you for your participation.

I'll preface with I made a post similar to this a while back in the Exploratory Missions sub forum (a mistake by the looks of it because only one person responded lol).

It was similar to your idea in a lot of areas (the need for a "cost" to enter to minimize spamming it) affixes and scaling, etc.

Feel free to read mine. This applies to anyone: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Eureka-Concept

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Originally Posted by Rubieus

I propose we add a bit of excitement to old and new content by implementing a system similar to the WoW Mythic+ Keystones.

For our new dungeons to work, they would need to have a form of upgrades that require the said item slot. Each dungeon then turns into a deadlier, shinier and more rewarding version of itself.

Rules for Fortified Dungeons: Always ilvl synced, wipe and you are kicked (like PoTD)
Can only be created through PF (for the time being)
Ilvl will be consistent with the level of Fortification.

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I can tell you right off the bat, being always ilvl syncd can be a good or bad thing depending on what your goal is. The obvious downside to always being syncd is that your progression never matters in this form of content. Is that what you want?

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These dungeons will be locked behind a weekly quest as to avoid excessive bloating on these rewards. Players who have already cleared, cannot help others do the same.

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Being weekly isn't optimal IMO. One of the issues FF14 suffers with is a lack of repeatable engaging content and you would be adding another non-repeatable form of content, one that has the caveat of not being able to join or help play with anyone else other than your original party. FF14 should be trying to find a way to get people away from "can't raid with my friends and my FC because I reduce their loot".

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The Price:
Each slot will require a substantial amount of points worth of X to fill per adventurer, I.E: 1,000 points of Materia, 1,000 points of Crafting Materials, 100,000 Gil.

Tier 1 Materia; is worth 10, Tier 2 50, Tier 3 100, Tier IV 200, Tier V 500.
Crating Materials are worth their NPC sell back price divided by 10: 100 Gil item = 10 points.

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I'm ok with the concept of a price. Not sold I like your implementation, but I'm also not sure my idea was much if any better.

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This will have completely new mechanics to deal with, not just killing monsters, mini-bosses and then the last boss.

It will have puzzles to solve, riddles to solve, deadlier monsters to fight, traps! and a boss fight worthy of the price tag.

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All great words, but where are your examples of these riddles/puzzles and new mechanics? You need to lend some credence to your concept by giving examples of the features. How would the monsters be 'deadlier?' exactly? Just more HP/dmg? If so that's hardly exciting.

I'd rather just see an Extreme version of dungeons and call it a day. Nothing fancy. Just harder content.

You could just have them drop dungeon specific glamour sets that are exclusive for that dungeon or gear, aka not something that already exists. You have to make it appealing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Rubieus

@Keridwyn having special materials to craft cash shop items is brilliant. I don't like the idea of farming the dungeons to sell duplicates on the market boards. This dungeon should reward players for clearing it, not others.

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Completely misunderstood me. I am saying give it unique rewards including unique crafting materials for BRAND NEW items. Not the ability to craft cash shop items.

You don't like the cash shop and want the items free, we get it. The problem is the cash shop exists so giving away for free items people paid for opens a large can of worms.

I'm completely against Loot Boxes and offering Mogstation items as a reward.
Seriously, I wouldn't even look at these dungeons. Only a part of the player base is interested in Mogstation items. This just sounds like "I want to have but don't want to pay for it". :/

Instead, how about this as rewards?
- gear (obviously) - exclusive gear/ skins welcome
- tokens so RGNesus can't screw you TOO hard or crafting mats to craft an exclusive item of your choice
- exp tomes to level your alts and/ or (perhaps as a choice similiar to Khloe's rewards) things like Materia token, HQ buff food etc. Nothing big, more like a little bonus.

I honestly liked the Myth+ system in WoW as it was. With different affixes/ suffixes the same dungeon could require different tactics and the steady increase in difficulty made it easy to find "your" spot, where the content was doable for you but challenging. And the better you and your group got, the more rewards you got until you were ready to step it up a notch.
Yes, some dungeons/ affixes/ suffixes favoured certain classes or comps but all in all it was fairly balances and every class/ spec got their spot.
Many people like content aimed towards smaller groups but in FFXIV it's pretty much "the harder it gets, the larger the groups". I think a more even distribution of difficulty among the different party sizes would be quite welcome.

I want something very strictly similar to Mythic+ dungeons in WoW. I would not like the idea of having Mog Station items on it, though I do wish less items were Mog Station only and were in the game in various ways. Having relevant gear and currency rewards are a start. Then consider things like pets and mount(s) for higher tier runs.

Thanks for the input everyone, I will be doing some changes to the OP, however, please keep in mind that I have already removed the Cash shop reward concept, as it has been stated as a universally bad idea.

OP updated. Thanks for all your input.

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Originally Posted by Rubieus

Thanks for the input everyone, I will be doing some changes to the OP, however, please keep in mind that I have already removed the Cash shop reward concept, as it has been stated as a universally bad idea.

OP updated. Thanks for all your input.

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Did you happen to give my Eureka concept a read? Curious to hear your thoughts on it.

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Originally Posted by dotsforlife

I'd rather just see an Extreme version of dungeons and call it a day. Nothing fancy. Just harder content.

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What in your opinion would make an "extreme" dungeon? I'd love to hear some more details.

I could see this being implemented BUT with a cap on the quantity of items you can get that changes per item tier (say fantasia is in category B. You can get only let's say, 3 fantasia every 3 months. You can get 1 random mount you don't have that is price at $19.99 every 5 months-that is category D. You can get 1 random piece of clothing that is gender-appropriate that is not owned by your character every other month-that is category C. You can get one random mount that is a price of $29.99 twice per calendar year -that is category F. For music scrolls you don't have, you get get around six every 2 months and they are category B. Dyes from the cash shop are category A and are limited to 100 dye per reset (not weekly reset. Monthly?). Crafting materials would be in category A and have no limits on how many you can get.)

I just put in numbers that I thought are generous with caps that would probably be seen as kind of reasonable by SE for the cost of the items. I didn't think of putting minions as rewards for tokens as they are from old events/1st-edition items and SE may want to keep them that way. The only reason crafting materials are unrestricted is that you need to be able to have a category that someone can trade their tokens for. I'd go one step further and make it so you needed probably 50 tokens for the mount roulette and 99 for the two-seater roulette (includes twintania for those who don't have the mount) so it's not exactly something that can be earned quickly. Granted, implementing the resets might be tricky on the server's end but we're talking items that are already in-game for content that SHOULD require a entry key that costs 100,000 gil OR 500 uncapped tomes of the level cap for the current expansion (2,000 of the non-current tomes). The cost per key should allow for a gil/tomes sink while the key itself is only consumed upon beating the final boss of a fortified dungeon, thus making an allowance for vote abandon's/disconnects.

My idea for the rewards is to allow for cash shop stuff while requiring a time sink-in two ways: the cost of a key and the amount needed for the high-end stuff which I gave examples for. Could twintania move to a lower tier or be by itself? of course-BUT you are looking at a mount that requires 15 gold chocobo feathers which are obtainable through 3 friend referrals or 1 friend subscribing for 5 months.

@KaldeaSahaline I did, will post in your thread my thoughts momentarily.

@wizisi2k Thank you for your advice, and I agree that it would be nice to have CS item accessibility. I have removed that topic from this thread. If you have any other reward ideas or dungeon mechanics. That would be swell. Thanks again.