Content Idea: BOSS RUSH MODE

SPOILER WARNING regarding trial boss names in case you haven’t progressed through the story to date.

You've bested some of Eorzea's strongest in their prime. Can you do it without respite?

Battle Summary: You and seven of your allies will strive to challenge an entire expansions worth of Extreme Trials, one after another, until all bosses fall… or you do!

After enlisting, the full party will be transported to the initial boss’s room. Upon besting the current encounter, a portal will open to take the party to the next encounter in the lineup. Cooldowns will reset between encounters and all statuses removed, however an overall time will continue to countdown throughout the duration of circuit (i.e. kill all bosses in 60 minutes).

There are two difficulty modes for each circuit: Normal and Savage. The difficulty determines the item level your party is sync’d to for each encounter. Normal mode uses the max item level available when the Trial was introduced, and Savage mode uses the current minimum item level for the trial.

Beware, if your entire party falls during an encounter, the duty fails and its back to start!

Below are examples for each circuit:

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https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...4df6b92a54.jpg
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https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...5a95e57982.jpg
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https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...ad76071885.jpg
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Rewards:
Each circuit (both Normal and Extreme) will have an achievement associated with it. This achievement will reward players with something special determined by the circuit bested and the difficulty selected.

• Besting a Normal mode circuit could reward a possible Title/Minion/Mount.
• Besting a Savage mode circuit could reward a possible Title/Mount/Special Weapon Glamour/Armor Glamour.

Conclusion: I thought this would be a cool way to introduce some more (challenging) content to tackle into FFXIV without requiring a lot of development time. When an expansions content comes to a close, a new circuit can be introduced (barring a changeup in the content structure).

Let me know what you think!

That's a nice idea. And instead of a portal opening up, the arena itself could change with an animation just like in O4s, O8s and O12s for each boss (eliminates the need for loading time for each member). This can be a part of the achievements that you can do, since currently all achievements are either Level up X class, complete objective X, or do objective X for Y times. There's nothing really challenging unless the content itself is challenging. The only thing there that can really be considered an achievement is doing PotD or HoH solo.

They could spice up the achievements by adding stuff that required you to kill a certain boss under a certain time limit or with a single healer (I was in a party that almost had O10s with one healer lol), defeat Rathalos with all DPS party (They all ready did it with 4 DRGs and I had a party that almost managed to beat him in phase 2 with all RDM party before 4.4 release day).

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Originally Posted by Alucard135

That's a nice idea. And instead of a portal opening up, the arena itself could change with an animation just like in O4s, O8s and O12s for each boss (eliminates the need for loading time for each member). This can be a part of the achievements that you can do, since currently all achievements are either Level up X class, complete objective X, or do objective X for Y times. There's nothing really challenging unless the content itself is challenging. The only thing there that can really be considered an achievement is doing PotD or HoH solo.

They could spice up the achievements by adding stuff that required you to kill a certain boss under a certain time limit or with a single healer (I was in a party that almost had O10s with one healer lol), defeat Rathalos with all DPS party (They all ready did it with 4 DRGs and I had a party that almost managed to beat him in phase 2 with all RDM party before 4.4 release day).

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This is what ultimate is doing.

1.0 had a boss rush mode. I think it was pretty fun.

This is beautiful. But, but, but what is the lore?

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Originally Posted by Hercub

This is beautiful. But, but, but what is the lore?

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It's funny you asked, because I actually had a section in my original post where I gonna give some loose lore but just ended up scrapping it.

It was just going to be some Allagan Primal "Contingency Plan Training Scenario" (with an entrance in Azys Lla) for their elite troops in case all the prisons were to fail at once, and all the Primals were released.

One big VR training scenario.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Ravenguard

SPOILER WARNING regarding trial boss names in case you haven’t progressed through the story to date.

You've bested some of Eorzea's strongest in their prime. Can you do it without respite?

Battle Summary: You and seven of your allies will strive to challenge an entire expansions worth of Extreme Trials, one after another, until all bosses fall… or you do!

After enlisting, the full party will be transported to the initial boss’s room. Upon besting the current encounter, a portal will open to take the party to the next encounter in the lineup. Cooldowns will reset between encounters and all statuses removed, however an overall time will continue to countdown throughout the duration of circuit (i.e. kill all bosses in 60 minutes).

There are two difficulty modes for each circuit: Normal and Savage. The difficulty determines the item level your party is sync’d to for each encounter. Normal mode uses the max item level available when the Trial was introduced, and Savage mode uses the current minimum item level for the trial.

Beware, if your entire party falls during an encounter, the duty fails and its back to start!

Below are examples for each circuit:

=======================================
https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...4df6b92a54.jpg
=======================================
https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...5a95e57982.jpg
=======================================
https://img2.finalfantasyxiv.com/acc...ad76071885.jpg
=======================================

Rewards:
Each circuit (both Normal and Extreme) will have an achievement associated with it. This achievement will reward players with something special determined by the circuit bested and the difficulty selected.

• Besting a Normal mode circuit could reward a possible Title/Minion/Mount.
• Besting a Savage mode circuit could reward a possible Title/Mount/Special Weapon Glamour/Armor Glamour.

Conclusion: I thought this would be a cool way to introduce some more (challenging) content to tackle into FFXIV without requiring a lot of development time. When an expansions content comes to a close, a new circuit can be introduced (barring a changeup in the content structure).

Let me know what you think!

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A friend a I have been talking about this concept too, and we would love to have in the game.

This is a great idea, I like how you thought of a normal and savage mode. I hope this idea will make it to the dev team :)

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Originally Posted by Hercub

This is beautiful. But, but, but what is the lore?

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Lore is a mercurial thing, it can be changed to fit whatever the needs are. A common one used in FFXIV is that the fight is you reliving it in memory, or reliving it through song, or as Ravenguard said there are even Allagan holographic training simulations. There are always a million ways to fit something into the lore of a fantasy game.

I like it. Make encounter counts towards titles/unlocks/achievements and we got a deal!

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Originally Posted by Deithwen

A friend a I have been talking about this concept too, and we would love to have in the game.

This is a great idea, I like how you thought of a normal and savage mode. I hope this idea will make it to the dev team :)

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Thanks!

The idea for using the minimum item level sync numbers for a more savage experience came from when I tried a Min Isync Titan Ex a while back for fun and was promptly reminded that "Damn! This guys hits hard as ****!".

I guess I got too used to the Wondrous Tails 20 second fight.

The problem I see is that if you have a party that can already defeat these primals...it's not any more challenging at all. You already can do marathons like that and count your time. The difference would only be the achievement and other rewards.

And if you don't...then it's a huge waste of time ordeal. Something that is extremely frustrating. Lock valuable stuff behind it other than achievements and you WILL get tons of outcry. Not because "people don't want something difficult". Because this is not much more difficult than what we already have, but it requires a lot more time than that.

On a different note, is it even possible?! Normal aside, extreme is supposed to use the lowest item level. You have 8 and a half minute for each primal (together with whatever preparation you have). Is it possible to kill all those primals with an average time of eight and a half under the minimum item level?! I don't think so.


A boss rush would only have sense if it was either throwing you against successive enemies without healing you or resetting the cooldowns and/or if it did use some new mechanics. That's the bare minimum. Of course, best option would be for there to exist a new list of bosses unique to it, but that's a big piece of new content.


Either way, reward should be offered based on the number cleared, not only at clearing all. The more you kill the higher chance for rare stuff, but the only one that should require beating it all should be an achievement and maybe a title. Otherwise the content will be limited to only those statics that can put in time and are bored of the current savage content. So...those that can probably farm all of those primals anyway.

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Originally Posted by Ravenguard

Thanks!

The idea for using the minimum item level sync numbers for a more savage experience came from when I tried a Min Isync Titan Ex a while back for fun and was promptly reminded that "Damn! This guys hits hard as ****!".

I guess I got too used to the Wondrous Tails 20 second fight.

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Indeed, titan ex was a challenge at the time, although it was more because of the lack of experience of the player base and the crappy servers we had ^^ (hello 300ms refresh).

One cool feature could be having a random mode, fighting the primals in an unexpected order can add some challenge.


I've always felt the extreme primals were among the best content in the game, this mode would be the perfect occasion to put the spotlight on them, and not letting them disapear after each expansion, and just become unsynch content.


Oh and one last idea : never ending mode, the further you get, the greater the reward, and if your group succeeds in clearing all of them, guaranteed gread rewards AND a chance to continue with even lower item level for an even better reward (mounts, craftable primal weapon, titles, gils, materias, or else depending on the time they can spend on it). I know it sounds crazy and will only appeal to the most dedicated players though.


Anyway, I really feel they can do something interesting with this concept.

I like it. As long as it cannot be unsynced, even when the next expansion comes out.

This is a fine way to get people to care about to learn old encounters by putting a reward in front of them.

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Originally Posted by Ravenguard

Let me know what you think!

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I'm someone who has mentioned a "boss rush" as a good idea a few times before.

Lore-wise it doesn't really require anything as the mechanism for it exists with Deltascape Savage (playback.) But if you want to make it more than just a tacked-on element you pull the main idea used in Ultimate, where the arena changes for each boss without going anywhere.

Every fight would be recorded by the server since they have to be compared to better and worse times. Those with SSD's would clearly be at an advantage over those with regular hard drives, and those with Geforce 1080ti's would be at an even greater advantage than those with any weaker card. So you want to make sure that the time's only tick when the server receives a "ready" command from the clients.

So it would do something like:

"GET READY", first boss skips straight to their opening move. From that point forward a timer ticks down that would list a letter rank. So if you can get a SSS rank that means you got the best score on the server. S/SS/SSS = top 1% of times and for all that matters. A = beat the developers best time. B = Top 10%, C = Top 30%, D/E = middle 30%, bottom 30%, F = Run out of time, or any player KO'd. Title reward given to players who score A or better, minion/mount given to B or better. C/B/A Dynamic rewards change every week (eg materials or non-market consumables.) S/SS/SSS = SE global leaderboard entry and "time to beat" listed on the leaderboard.

If a player KO's, a "reset box" will show up announcing the boss rush failed and will give the option to quit or restart with the same party, which would reset the time.
Parties get three tries, and then the bosh rush is auto-abandoned and can't be attempted again for an hour. Role-enforcement would be in effect so that players can not be carried to get the reward, and can't cheese a result by consumables or not playing a role as intended. Eg, time penalties for using any buff or healing items, any buffs applied before entering would be erased. DPS players would be time penalized for healing themselves or other players, tanks would be time penalized for dropping tank stance or using any healing skills, and healers would be time penalized for using targeted DPS skills, and penalized for healing players already at full health. Boss-rush entry can have a forward declaration of "no rule breaking" which would actually lock out anything that would penalize the player/party.

Some of this idea comes from another game that had it in two forms. The first form was a dungeon-boss rush, which simply removed the dungeon, so you just had three consecutive boss-rooms (since the game only had one boss per difficulty, each boss was harder than the last, but it could be cheesed with cash shop items, and was solo.) The other form was more of a chain of boss-rooms, and yes the party was penalized for all consumables, including reviving players with the latter.

Player KO is kinda of a mixed bag. A player that is KO'd is not contributing, so you'd want the boss rush to auto-fail if a KO happens, but it could also be framed as a time-penalty, so for every second a player is KO'd, the time remaining is reduced by an additional second. Consumable use meanwhile depends on what it does really. A consumable to immediately recover HP/MP or remove a debuff would be a time-penalty. If a party decides that they should cost themselves a few seconds in order to use a buff, then that's their own prerogative.

SE at any point can disqualify a bosh rush time if it's discovered that they have automated/optimized their play by using tools, and thus the SSS time can shift. Players should be able to play back other parties bosh rush scores if they've scored a A/S/SS/SSS rank themselves.

It does sound fun. It might even be a good way to introduce a seasonal ranked PVE ladder competition. Like along side this version where everyone can go in and do their best to get the titles, goodies and achievements whenever they choose. It might be fun too to have say once per week to be able to bring your team into a ranked version of the same thing. Where at the end of each circuit your team is graded a score based on completion time, number of deaths, damage output and damage taken, etc. At the end of the season top teams are rewarded with things such as unique outfits, weapon skins, titles, etc that change for each season in each respective circuit. Maybe on top of that have a World Circuit where said teams face all circuits back to back to back

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Originally Posted by Lyndis

1.0 had a boss rush mode. I think it was pretty fun.

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Did it ? I don't remember that.

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Originally Posted by Stanelis

Did it ? I don't remember that.

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I'm having a bit of a struggle trying to remember it too :/ unless they mean boss rush in terms of that one step in the relic quest I remember people talking about where you had to clear AV and DD in under 15 minutes for some chest to spawn at the end I don't know.

We have a boss rush mode, it's called the Omega raid.

Another note:

It might be worth considering a randomization on which boss comes out when. It would keep players on their toes. Also, the idea of animations between each phase would be nice, but add a lot of wait time, and also add development time to some extent. It's probably easier to just have some sort of dedicated arena that adjusts to each boss.

You could also have an even harder mode where the arena effects stack with each other. For example, if you clear Shiva, then Titan comes out, Shiva's ice wall remains, or permafrost remains and you have to do all of Titan with permafrost active (that would be hell but hey...)