Timeworn Maps Adjustments

Adjustments need to be made
Like not level syncing Portal instances
Stacking Maps
Better RNG on Doors
I feel like Maps have been partially dead content on arrival. It’s hard to find a group and plus RNG is really bad.

RNG on RNG on RNG. What's not to love?

Gathering together a group in the hope that maybe you get a portal and maybe it gets past floor 2 and maybe you get a thiefs map and maybe that goes somewhere is not exactly a model that's going to encourage widespread excitement.

RNG chance to get a treasure map from the node ONCE a day.
RNG chance to get PF filled
RNG chance to NOT get a blank map with no ***kin landmarks
[Dragonskin maps] RNG chance it's not on Sea of Clouds with triple layers of sky to check
RNG chance that spot on the map doesn't have an A/S rank sitting on top of it. (Yes! It happened!)
RNG chance to get a portal
RNG chance to pick the right door
RNG chance to get a thief
RNG chance to get that piece of rare glamour mat (and hope your party respect the owner's need rule)

It's the true endgame

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Dragoon4life

I feel like Maps have been partially dead content on arrival. It’s hard to find a group and plus RNG is really bad.

---

I can't say for Adamantoise, but from what I've seen on both Balmung and Louisoix it's an extremely active content. Almost always parties recruiting, especially during peak times.

Sadly I can barely get 5 others to join. Maybe it’s a slow server issue?

Over 30 green maps, not a single last door in Hidden Canals.
Guess what happened? I stopped doing them.
There's only so much time people can waste without any result before they lose interest.

I’m fine with bad RNG but Dragon skins can’t be soloed bc of lv syncing.

The problem is just loads of rng on top of it. Also getting a map is easy if u have miner or botanist takes like 30 secs. Aquapolis was fine why they decided "hey we should add another rng map inside canals so they can access hidden canals, that sounds amazing." One of their many worst ideas to date.

At this point I wish they would just make all maps scale based on the number of players in the party or make the crafting reagents attainable by other means.

whats the point of having rare items if they're easily obtainable? =p

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DrWho2010

whats the point of having rare items if they're easily obtainable? =p

---

Rare items would be one thing, but locking 90% of the new crafted glamour reagents behind a massive RNG wall is not cool. It harms the crafters who want to make the items and the players who would buy it and don't have over 100 million Gil to obtain it.

I could see things like PotD where you can get minions, mounts and special housing items. Not a single piece of cloth for a blouse... that you need 4 of to make...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DrWho2010

whats the point of having rare items if they're easily obtainable? =p

---

There's a substantial difference between difficulty and annoyance. This is squarely on the annoyance end because it's a lottery. Got bad luck one night? Too bad, you're wasting your time.

We did maps last night on Cactaur (took a while to get a group, it's not terribly popular) and had good luck getting portals. We never got past the third door and never got a thiefs map, so loot wise it wasn't really worth it. That's why maps aren't worth hardly anything.

The RNG slot machine is nice when it goes your way, but when it doesn't it's pretty discouraging.

Dragonskin and Gazelleskin maps are the best thing to ever happen to XIV. Most enjoyable parties since FFXI. The RNG is fine, and like Dr Who said, thats kind of what makes them exciting. They are absolutely worth it in the long run. Yes some nights are better than others. My dad has estimated that he has made 200 million since Thanksgiving just on 60 and 70 maps.

Our FC makes nights of it. We love maps. Never felt it was partially dead on arrival however. Square just loves their RNG. And I'm ok with that. It makes the parties interesting XP

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by QueenSophie

Dragonskin and Gazelleskin maps are the best thing to ever happen to XIV. Most enjoyable parties since FFXI. The RNG is fine, and like Dr Who said, thats kind of what makes them exciting. They are absolutely worth it in the long run.

---

no they are not worth in the long run. i mean i could see an activity for months / years until i get my stuff for the new rare glamour gear. but since we know everything will get dumbed down after a while i don't see any point in investing so much time. at the point i have all pieces together for the craft we can get the items through deep dungeon 2 or retainer ventures or whatever... >.>

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DrWho2010

whats the point of having rare items if they're easily obtainable? =p

---

Whats the point of those items, that are rare right now (mainly the two new wools) being this rare to begin with?The devs put all the work into designing new items (something that seems to take a lot of time/development for them) and now no one can wear them because the mats are to rare. And by "to rare" I mean: Me and my friends did well over 60 maps and got 2 thavnair wools in total.


For me the real point of rare items would be to be able to "show off" - but that would require those items to be rare and include some difficult way of obtaining them, aka the current Ex-primal mounts for example or the unique PvP-tournament-rewards.
Nothing to "show off" about when its only RNG, RNG, RNG and the mercy of your friends who know that you'd really, really like to have that dress so they'll let you have the wool...

I've said it before in a different thread and I'll say it again here: Currently maps arent fun - the gameplay behind them isnt much fun, so the whole excitment comes from the rewards and there simply arent enough to make it worth your while...

Even though chances are slim that the devs see this or even consider it, I'd like to share some ideas I had during my FCs map sessions. I'll split it in two sections - gameplay and rewards, because both can be improved to make mapy more fun!

Gameplay

Right now the main gameplay aspect of maps, or rather: The Canals is to kill trash mobs. Isnt that fun?!
...no, it isnt.
The Hidden Canals had a good idea by adding something else - The madrakes and Abrahamus cardgame. By a stretch you can also count the miniboss in the 4th room and the mainboss in the last room of each map aswell as Abrahamu und the Namazu. Bottomline: Anything that breaks away from killing one pack of trash after the next one is good!

So, here are a few ideas of mine how to achieve that:
- add O3's animal farm: Once the chest is being touched, some curious smoke turns everyone into a frog/pig/imp and three circles appear. If every circle has a matching player in it, the cages stay closed and you dont have to fight the trash. If you dont make it, you have to fight. You have a 10 second time limit to match the circles.
- add one friendly mob that you dont have to kill - the reverse Namazu, if you want. It doesnt has to drop from the ceciling but could rather hide among the normal mobs
- add an optional "killchain" - most often mobs come at least in pairs, but I'm thinking mainly about those groups of 4 elementals - manage to kill all 3 wind, then all 3 fire, then 3 earth, then 3 water without breaking the chain will award you an extra chest or a guranteed rainbow-door
- adapt the "collect things and turn them in"-FATE-mechanic - add an NPC/monster that wants you to collect the gems on the ground. Either as replacment for the trash mob fight (then with a time limit) or rather while fighting the trash. The reward would be an extra treasure or a rainbow-door.
- make the treasure a "heal-mimic": The chest turns into a monster upon touching but you get a time-limit to heal it to full HP. If you do, you dont have to fight the trash - if you dont, the chest calls for help (aka the cages open up)

Rewards

I understand that items for this content have to be put into the game and that thats work and so on - so here are a few simple ideas on how to increase the amount of rewards because, lets be honest: maps would be a lot more fun if you had at least something to show for at the end of it.
For me the worst thing that happens in the Canals is: Opening a treasure and the only thing that happens is some rubycotton yarn dropping into someones inventory and... nothing else. Thats okay-ish in the first room and frustrating in the third - and it happens far to often. Give me some loot to roll on!

- add the Aquapolis-loot, specially the songs and housing items
- increase the droprate for the rare glamour-drop-items - it doesnt has to be an extremly common drop or anything but the current amount of RNG makes it really, really unfun for no good reason.
- take some of the cute, small monster-models and turn them into extra-minions! Those fluff-things (Halgais?)! A different sheep-minion (maybe a recolour or add a little bow)! A Red Bird! A Green Bird! A Yellow Bird! A Purple Bird! All the birds! Cant be to difficult to change the colour of that bird and you regnerate a bunch of minions easly (also: everyone could have the bird in their favorite colour! Make it a full 7-colours-of-the-rainbow-thing and have the birds interact with each other if all 7 are together!)
- add more songs. There is still a lot of music in the game thats not for the Orchestrion yet and I honestly cant stand to see one of the twon-themes drop again... hey, add some "fun" ambient-sound like "Coins" or so!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Vidu

snip

---

With the Gameplay you could also argue none of this game is actually fun......None of it is particularly new or ground breaking.

MAKE IT FUN.

and no mimics of any kind...go home youre drunk...

In regards to rewards, adding aquapolis rewards would defeat the purpose of the dragonskins which we do alot since they have the biggest gil turnaround in gil simply earned. Keep the canals seperate, but add in a new reward or two. I have lost count how many Uldah orchestration rolls have dropped...Other than that, I love the maps. I think they are decently rewarding, not just in money/items, but time spent with friends/FC.

Content is what you make of it sometimes. If its that much of a drag for you, don't do them... (I know people will probably find this inflammatory but it's really not. Every game is what you make of it. :D )

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Tint

no they are not worth in the long run.

---

? I feel sorry for your map experiences, or your server's economy, because yes, without a doubt on my server, they are more than worth it. 4 hannish wools, 18 Matanga Lamps, 30+ Nax Silks, 4 Crimson Sunrise scrolls, 2 thanvarian wools, for 70's ; 3 dwarf rabbits, 8 wool tops, numerous million gil scrolls , for 60's.....all within last 2-3 weeks. ( just to scratch the surface) But idk, I guess it just depends what you think is " worth alot ". But in my experiences, it's by far the most lucrative way to make gil.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by silverlunarfox

I have lost count how many Uldah orchestration rolls have dropped...Other than that, I love the maps. I think they are decently rewarding, not just in money/items, but time spent with friends/FC.

Content is what you make of it sometimes. If its that much of a drag for you, don't do them... (I know people will probably find this inflammatory but it's really not. Every game is what you make of it. :D )

---

This post is really well said. The best things about map, even better than all the rewards, is the fellowship and time spent with friends. It truly is community based and makes for some fun etertainment. The best friends are made through map parties :) If you don't like them, do some content you enjoy, cause everyone I have talked to about them loves the heck out of them. And yes, way too many 5k Uldah and Gridania scrolls dropping lately hahaha.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by silverlunarfox

With the Gameplay you could also argue none of this game is actually fun......None of it is particularly new or ground breaking.

MAKE IT FUN.

and no mimics of any kind...go home youre drunk...

In regards to rewards, adding aquapolis rewards would defeat the purpose of the dragonskins which we do alot since they have the biggest gil turnaround in gil simply earned. Keep the canals seperate, but add in a new reward or two. I have lost count how many Uldah orchestration rolls have dropped...Other than that, I love the maps. I think they are decently rewarding, not just in money/items, but time spent with friends/FC.

Content is what you make of it sometimes. If its that much of a drag for you, don't do them... (I know people will probably find this inflammatory but it's really not. Every game is what you make of it. :D )

---

Oh, I'm well aware that nothing is new or ground breaking - it wasnt supposed to be. It was rather supposed to be something to be easly implemented because everything needed for it is already there.

I enjoy doing maps with my FC/friends aswell - oh, no, wait... we dont enjoy doing maps exactly because they're mainly dull and boring and not rewarding. All the fun we have with this content comes from our conversations on discord during it - coming up with new ways to "trigger" an open door (for a while we tried sacrificing lalafell - no insult intended, its just what we did... made one lala a tank and let him die the last second... or not, depeding on the mood of our healers)
And thats the problem here: we dont have that much fun with the content itself, because fighting one room filled with trash after the other one isnt fun. Specially not with how bad the rewards are...

Aquapolis has the better rewards, but going back there is annoying because of the level synch - removing that could help Aquapolis to be fun (again).

Right now I have to "work" to make this content somehow fun to me - and while I can often agree with the sentiment "dont like it, dont do it" I'm not sure if I can here. If the fun from this content comes mainly from spending time with your friends and not from doing the content itself, something isnt right. If you're saying yourself that your main reward is time spend with your FC/friends and not the content itself... when the content just becomes a stage, you might aswell ask "cant we do something to make the fun 50% content, 50% company?" A lot of fun I'm having with this game comes from the people I'm playing it with, no denying that - but if we do content just to spend time together, we might aswell all ask if we cant spend this time with something more fun. And the sad thing is: we all liked maps at somepoint, but with how dull they are and how bad the rewards are, we basically have to drag some people into them and distract everyone with conversations on discord so they wont notice that yes, we're fighting 16 sheeps again and are being rewarded with two ruby cotton yarns.

So... why cant we have both? Good content and time well spend with friends?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by QueenSophie

? I feel sorry for your map experiences, or your server's economy, because yes, without a doubt on my server, they are more than worth it. 4 hannish wools, 18 Matanga Lamps, 30+ Nax Silks, 4 Crimson Sunrise scrolls, 2 thanvarian wools, for 70's ; 3 dwarf rabbits, 8 wool tops, numerous million gil scrolls , for 60's.....all within last 2-3 weeks. ( just to scratch the surface) But idk, I guess it just depends what you think is " worth alot ". But in my experiences, it's by far the most lucrative way to make gil.

---

Your mileage may vary, because the RNG clearly likes you more than it likes me. What I got out of it was some creation, some gil, and some stuff that was worth barely anything. But we never got past door 3, and often didn't get past the first room.

The RNG rates for Thavnairian Wool and Hannish Wool really need to be adjusted. I farmed Canals since October to get the Thavnairian Wool to make a friend the dress, and ended up only getting 2 of them in that entire time to where I just bought the last wool. In that time I have only seen a single Hannish Wool drop and a total of 5 Thavnairian Wools. All of that in the time frame of two months, farming maps several times a week. Hells the last push I ran through 6 groups in two days and saw absolutely nothing from them. 72 maps no wools, and only approx 1 mil worth of gil.

If anything needs an adjustment, it's the Thief's map. One static map group I know has done 30 thief's maps and never cleared, 6th floor twice......
Maybe 2 doors instead of 3? Or make the Theif's map drop more?

In theory, maps have a lot of potential to be fun. In practice, though, they're pretty frustrating. Finding a group for maps can be difficult in itself...and then you need to get everybody to agree to a specific loot rule. Everybody walks away with something but the truly valuable stuff is locked behind need/greed rolls and a considerable amount of RNG. It's also possible to some players to rarely, if ever, reach the final floor...and even if they do a poor group may not pay attention to mechanics and bring about a wipe.

I have been suggesting stackable maps forever, and we still do not have them...
Kind of a pita

Just recently an friend from an LS asked for a few ppl doing maps with him, so i joined, brought like 10 maps (others had 3 or smt all together) and we got a few times to floor 2-3-5 and even once to six, but always endet up on the wrong door. We got ONE nagxia silk that i barely won (it was my map) and i got two songs drop - one i passed as i got it. the other one i needed, told them that i want it, promptly followed by someone saying he already rolled need on it >_>

I told him he can always pass (i didnt roll) but got not much of an reaction, but an third guy got it on need with an 90 - didnt even say sry or anything. the song is about 4.4 mill on shiva >_>


Does the DF's setting for loot work there too or not?

On Balmung we have the universal rule of FFA on the drops. It offers much more of a chance. Sure you may end up with drops on your own map and lose out, but you may get them on someone elses, also makes it fair if people don't get a portal on their own map. FFA gives everyone a shot at the big rewards, and people don't get screwed right over like the Owner's map = rewards to owner.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Kuroka

We got ONE nagxia silk that i barely won (it was my map) and i got two songs drop - one i passed as i got it. the other one i needed, told them that i want it, promptly followed by someone saying he already rolled need on it >_>

I told him he can always pass (i didnt roll) but got not much of an reaction, but an third guy got it on need with an 90 - didnt even say sry or anything. the song is about 4.4 mill on shiva >_>


Does the DF's setting for loot work there too or not?

---

4.4 mil for the song?! Jesus. On Balmung right now it is only 200k a piece, that said afaik Loot Master does not work for maps because the loot is supposed to be random by design. I don't think SE wanted things like Map Owners only to be done for it as it is a group effort. Then again as the person above me posted on Balmung it's always FFA to make sure everyone has an equal chance at something.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by uvuvwevwevweonyetenyevweugwemu

RNG chance to get a treasure map from the node ONCE a day.

---

low RNG, you can get a map within 5-10 minutes. No RNG at all if you get it from the market board

Quote:

---

RNG chance to get PF filled

---

optional RNG. You can plan with your FC a treasure hunting day once each week.

I have admittedly lost some of my interest in Timeworn Gazelleskin map parties after two factors started feeling like a huge barrier:
- The RNG chance of finding a green map is too low.
- The RNG chance of reaching the seventh floor in the new hidden canals is too low.

I recently spent 4 hours running maps with my fc, only to enter the hidden canals 3x, making it to the third floor at most. Only made about 500k gil, maybe 800k total with the few mats that dropped. As a crafter, I could've made millions within that time frame.

Maps are really fun when you get decent luck. I don't want it all to be 100 percent, every time because the value of rare items would disintegrate, but I'd like to see some adjustment made to make the content feel even slightly more worthwhile.

Our full group had 6 maps in a row in the same spot in Ruby Sea. Portal opened every time. Five failed first room. The other failed second room.

Just more proof that their number generator is fubar.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by DrWho2010

whats the point of having rare items if they're easily obtainable? =p

---

True but seriously it's easier to gather/craft/sell and simply buy the rare stuff than spend days of frustration and time trying to get the mats needed.

I think one can judge the popularity of maps by the price they're selling for and I know on Siren they aren't selling for much and I rarely see pf's trying to get people to do them. I know it's slow but my FC used to try and get parties together but now no one even asks.

I seriously think they need to scale back the rng and make doing the maps worth the time.