I'd love to see a large PVE based dynamic war based zone in FF14

In more specifics, a zone where players fight an enemy army for bases throughout a large zone. Something a couple of MMO's have done for PVP, but none really have done PVE (Discluding Tabula Rasa).

The reason I think it would especially work for FF14, is the Disciples of the Hand. Including a means for crafters to come in and actually directly help with overall gameplay would be a unique, and I think very neat feature. Have Carpenters rebuild walls, blacksmiths making gates/increasing armor of allied NPCs, alchemists making siege oil/healing potions for players and NPC's.

Then add bases that hold resource based roles, like mining. Where miners can help mine for zone specific ores to help the blacksmiths. Give them certificates for their work that they can turn in for special rewards, and player related crafting resources.

Have supply lines that might need protection depending how close to the frontline it is. Plenty of small, and large things for players to do throughout the zone.

TLDR: A zone where players fight an AI controlled army for bases. Every class, combat and crafting, come together to help towards a zone wide goal.

P.S. I debated on making this a lot longer and detailed. Buuuuuut, I figured I'd keep it much shorter.

Honestly the game world just needs a lot more interaction and life so they're not just pretty terrain with splashes of monsters in groups wandering aimlessly for you to kill.
FATEs and untargettable wandering NPCs aren't enough. :T

I hope that SE will look to GW2 for future map design inspirations like they looked at WoW for ARR's system overhauls.

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Originally Posted by Roda

Honestly the game world just needs a lot more interaction and life so they're not just pretty terrain with splashes of monsters in groups wandering aimlessly for you to kill.
FATEs and untargettable wandering NPCs aren't enough. :T

I hope that SE will look to GW2 for future map design inspirations like they looked at WoW for ARR's system overhauls.

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Couldn't agree to this more. GW2 does a pretty good job at bringing the community together with the way that public quest system works. Everyone in FF14 seems super disconnected, super rare for me to see anyone talk outside of the capital city.

Even in GW2 though, I'd love to see the PQ's mean something on a greater scale than just a mini-quest. Want to see it matter as a whole across the map, from minor things, to major.

Look up Hamlet Defense from 1.0.

Then see dev comments about Hamlet Defense and how they never want to do it again.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

Look up Hamlet Defense from 1.0.

Then see dev comments about Hamlet Defense and how they never want to do it again.

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That is indeed sorta similar. Cept I wouldn't create a wait period, that seems annoying (Warfronts in WoW have this issue, among many others).

I was however unable to find why they don't want to do it. Do you have a link by any chance?

Hmmm.

Maybe ... Something like Eureka or Diadem, where its a large scale PvE zone separated from the main world. Borrow from the Firmament, with constant Crafter tasks focused around building up structures with constant Battle tasks clearing the land of hostiles to enable the crafters to work.

If it was tied to a Story similar to how Eureka played out with a hostile force intent on invading a location with the players tasked with helping build fortifications and forward bases to push them back, We'd be able to progress it ourselves up to a point like how Firmament works with each new patch opening the map more as players clear invaders and build the necessary structures to push forward.

Could do something like BA, with largescale open world 'raids', except players would need to defend locations or lose progress in the location of the raid. Maybe let crafters participate by building and placing defensive structures during those events to ease the burden on the players fighting. Have it so an NPC Commander 'orders' a specific set of constructions at a location, with Crafters producing and supplying parts 'onsite'.
Example being, NPC Commander orders a set of cannons atop a wall facing the raid event. Crafters would see an outline of the cannons, interacting with it allows you to drop off specialized parts that you craft right next to it. Finishing the cannon allows the crafters to either man the cannons themselves, or move to repair damage structures and such.
Hell, even allow Gatherers to participate by supplying ores and woods etc to a global 'supply box' that the crafters draw from to build those specialized parts, with the gatherer being rewarded based on their contributions to the supply box.

But ultimately, it would end and we'd get a similar type of content in the following Expansion. For example, Having a Garlean themed one during ShB and then a Beastman war scenario for 6.0 etc.
Kind of like how once the Firmament is 'finished', we wont be able to reset it back its launch state. The story is finished and we'd move onto the next story somewhere else with the mechanics and 'playstyle' of Firmament.

eehh I really don't want a zone that is basically a large-scale instance, timer and every other restriction that comes with instancing. Eureka never felt like it was a part of the world. It was just another mini-game content like guildhests or chocobo racing, except large.

I had been hoping we'd see something similar to FFXI's Besieged when HW and later SB were announced. Large zones that get attacked by hordes of enemies and everyone bands together to ward them off while protecting/assisting key NPCs and would carry punishment for losing. We see a small scale version of this with the Highbridge FATE series in Eastern Thanalan and I was so sure a more intricate version would've been a good fit for expansion content. Hamlet Defense was also similar and it's a shame that it got thrown out in the transition. Could even throw in a minor hi-score aspect like they did in XI and keep track of each server's successful defenses.

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Originally Posted by Roda

eehh I really don't want a zone that is basically a large-scale instance, timer and every other restriction that comes with instancing. Eureka never felt like it was a part of the world. It was just another mini-game content like guildhests or chocobo racing, except large.

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Every world zone in the game is essentially a big instance. Having a dedicated place to go for a particular kind of content helps keep the players present focused on the relevant tasks. Also lets them go a little more wild with the kinds of things that could happen there.

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Originally Posted by Sylve

Every world zone in the game is essentially a big instance. Having a dedicated place to go for a particular kind of content helps keep the players present focused on the relevant tasks. Also lets them go a little more wild with the kinds of things that could happen there.

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I mean the fact that you have limited social functionalities like you do in dungeons, and like you still have this arbitrary timer ticking down that you have to refresh despite the zone being supposedly persistant. :T

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Originally Posted by Roda

I mean the fact that you have limited social functionalities like you do in dungeons, and like you still have this arbitrary timer ticking down that you have to refresh despite the zone being supposedly persistant. :T

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Curious, why would there be a timer?

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Originally Posted by Klaleara

Curious, why would there be a timer?

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Cause that's how Eureka works and that was their attempt at openworld content with a twist.

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Originally Posted by Roda

Cause that's how Eureka works and that was their attempt at openworld content with a twist.

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I mean, that'd be pretty lame in this case. This should just be an open world zone that is always changing via mechanics, and the interactions between players and enemies. Having a timer would kill that.

Final Fantasy Warriors XIV: Empires?

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Originally Posted by Rasikko

Final Fantasy Warriors XIV: Empires?

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I wouldn't complain.

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Originally Posted by Klaleara

I mean, that'd be pretty lame in this case. This should just be an open world zone that is always changing via mechanics, and the interactions between players and enemies. Having a timer would kill that.

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Hence why I'm kinda laying it on thick trying to differentiate between an "open world" instance and a true open world zone. :>

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Originally Posted by Klaleara

I wouldn't complain.

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I wouldn't either, I love the Empires games.

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Originally Posted by Roda

I mean the fact that you have limited social functionalities like you do in dungeons, and like you still have this arbitrary timer ticking down that you have to refresh despite the zone being supposedly persistant. :T

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Yes it sucks... Eureka would have been 100% better if you werent this isolated in there... You still could lock to battle and gather jobs only but add retainer bells etc...

Naw pretty sure if they ever implement something like what you want, the playerbase would grow to hate it and it will die out. Diadem and eureka are hated by this community. Only the few actually do it. You would have to tie it to story as we’ll pump it with end game items/gear or else it’ll die out.

I think OP wants something akin to Cyrodil in ESO where you zone into a war zone thats constant and forever changing.with factions battling for control ? Sounds fun!

To be honest, a large PvP zone is what I thought Frontlines was going to be back before 2.3 released.

^Commodore 64 limitations.

Yep, Besieged and Campaign in FFXI are really cool.

Building a MMO is partly wasted if not for creating large scale system like these, actually.
But it feels like the FFXIV dev team has lost any motivation or inspiration in creating MMO, so I wouldn't expect much. The best they could do in 7y is Ishgard restoration (do a bunch of trash crafts to fill a gauge, click-click fate, repeat) :|

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Originally Posted by Genz

Yep, Besieged and Campaign in FFXI are really cool.

Building a MMO is partly wasted if not for creating large scale system like these, actually.
But it feels like the FFXIV dev team has lost any motivation or inspiration in creating MMO, so I wouldn't expect much. The best they could do in 7y is Ishgard restoration (do a bunch of trash crafts to fill a gauge, click-click fate, repeat) :|

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So what in the twelves name is Eureka and the upcoming Bozja front line? Or do certain parts of the game just fall into a memory hole if they don't fit your opinion?

GW2 has this portion cornered. It's basically supposed to be it's thing although it's semi-permanent stuff since it resets. Silverwastes is basically this minus the crafter/gatherer thing, and the next release has something that sounds similar.

FFXIV just has poor open world content and always has, but that's because that is not the main focus. The main focus is story and instanced content. Their servers would probably melt if they tried really large scale stuff like this tbh. I remember trying to do Ixion and it was unplayable, certain parts of Eureka where everyone would just disconnect, not to mention the model culling issues where you sometimes can't even see the mob or it's telegraphs so you end up getting 1 shot and you don't even know what happened.

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Originally Posted by Vaer

GW2 has this portion cornered. It's basically supposed to be it's thing although it's semi-permanent stuff since it resets. Silverwastes is basically this minus the crafter/gatherer thing, and the next release has something that sounds similar.
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GW2 is the game I expected to have done this by now, but just hasn't. And I'm not sure Silverwastes count. While you do defend bases and such, there is no real interaction with the rest of the map. And as far as I'm aware, it's just 1 or 2 bases? Plus, the whole map is filled with the most annoying mobs known to MMO's.

Even more so, mobs just spawn on top of the base. Nothing really "Dynamic" about it. It's just time period based public quests.

Silverwastes trigger me, cause its so close, and so so so far.

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Originally Posted by Klaleara

GW2 is the game I expected to have done this by now, but just hasn't. And I'm not sure Silverwastes count. While you do defend bases and such, there is no real interaction with the rest of the map. And as far as I'm aware, it's just 1 or 2 bases? Plus, the whole map is filled with the most annoying mobs known to MMO's.

Even more so, mobs just spawn on top of the base. Nothing really "Dynamic" about it. It's just time period based public quests.

Silverwastes trigger me, cause its so close, and so so so far.

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It's 4 bases, they can flip from player controlled to AI controlled during the event, 4 sets of mini bosses spawn once enough contribution is acquired at all 4 bases. (escorting supply caravans, holding and defending the bases, rebuilding destroyed walls, etc) 1 at each base and the entire map has 5 minutes to kill them all, and then a world boss spawns that needs a bit of coordination at the end. It's not exactly permanent and it sounds better than it is in reality since holding the bases is pretty easy, but it resets even if the world boss fails so there's no permanent change.

I think most of the GW2 is like this, the map is somewhat affected by completion or event failures, but the changes eventually reset after a while and it loops.

The first map, Verdant Brink in HoT is similar. There are a ton of small camps that have to be held, and you gather supplies and things to build these camps up and there are phases where you have to defend all the camps and ones where you are allowed to go scavenge supplies. It's a map wide effort and the better you do the better rewards everyone gets.

It's not exactly as complex as what you want but I thought that idea was pretty interesting.

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Originally Posted by DrWho2010

Look up Hamlet Defense from 1.0.

Then see dev comments about Hamlet Defense and how they never want to do it again.

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Except that has almost nothing to do with what the OP is requesting? Hamlet Defense was discrete, insular battle content. Sure, it allowed for DoHs to help (somewhat), but it still took place only in a particular area, alike to any other instance, and in no way made the world feel more connected or dynamic.

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Originally Posted by Genz

Yep, Besieged and Campaign in FFXI are really cool.

Building a MMO is partly wasted if not for creating large scale system like these, actually.
But it feels like the FFXIV dev team has lost any motivation or inspiration in creating MMO, so I wouldn't expect much. The best they could do in 7y is Ishgard restoration (do a bunch of trash crafts to fill a gauge, click-click fate, repeat) :|

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Campaign was good until they nerfed the living crap out of it. Never again would actual cities get captured because never enough mobs would spawn to overwhelm the players/NPC. Before said nerfs, yes Campaign had that right down to the T. Never gonna forget that BLM NM lady that come in with her legion of dark elementals and proceed to Sleepga II the whole freaking area and the start fast casting tier 3 -ga spells. Also Windurst basically being turned into Castle Oztroja(long forgot how to spell that). You spawn in, load screen going, you finally appear, dead, because 10 yagudos at the entrance deep fried you.

Besieged. Lol. I have fond memories of all three beastmen tribes at max level(7 i think???) all coming straight for Al Zhabi, and you just know if everyone is not there, the Astral Candescence is probably gonna be lost.

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Originally Posted by Rasikko

Campaign was good until they nerfed the living crap out of it. Never again would actual cities get captured because never enough mobs would spawn to overwhelm the players/NPC. Before said nerfs, yes Campaign had that right down to the T. Never gonna forget that BLM NM lady that come in with her legion of dark elementals and proceed to Sleepga II the whole freaking area and the start fast casting tier 3 -ga spells. Also Windurst basically being turned into Castle Oztroja(long forgot how to spell that). You spawn in, load screen going, you finally appear, dead, because 10 yagudos at the entrance deep fried you.

Besieged. Lol. I have fond memories of all three beastmen tribes at max level(7 i think???) all coming straight for Al Zhabi, and you just know if everyone is not there, the Astral Candescence is probably gonna be lost.

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That sounds pretty entertaining. Wish I was there for them. And I hope they reintroduce those, and expand on them a bit more.

Oh, I have all kinds of stories. Alpha Gnole Andes? He sticks out among them all - and he has a FATE in FFXIV I believe. Mind you, this was ALL possible in a game built entirely for PLAYSTATION 2. It appears mass spawning and big swaths of mobs are very possible - can see things like this in dungeons already, so it's definitely something to get them to push for!

I'd very much love to see content like this. It would be nice to have something akin to raiding that doesn't feel like an instance.

In theory Bozjan Southern Front could fulfill the OP's request (though I wouldn't expect crafting/gathering to have any interaction this time) if SE uses FATEs to their full capacity.

If you go to South Shroud and Eastern Thanalan you can find two FATE series with mechanics that would be useful. Both "The Hive" series in SS and the "Attack on Highbridge" series in ET have ongoing effects based on the success or failure of the FATE chains.

In SS, 4 FATEs of the the Hive FATE chain involves capturing a bandit base (Breaching the Hive and Clearing the Hive) and then preventing the bandits from retaking the base (Defending the Hive and Keeping the Hive). While the Hive is held by the Wood Wailers players have exclusive access to a merchant the sells stuff including the Baby Raptor minion.

In ET, the 5 FATEs have you defending and/or rescuing the NPCs residing in the location from abduction. During the chain there are a number of NPC guards (3 of which are a double entendre spewing trio that player may know from the Postmoogle quests) that may or may not survive the assault based on player action. If Act 3 of the FATE chain is successfully completed the a merchant will have a wide variety of wares for sale (including the Tiny Rat minion) if the FATE chain fails he will have a vastly smaller number of wares for sale if he wasn't abducted. The FATE chain is reset after failure by completion of an alternative version of Act 3 called Denoument, which will respawn all NPCs including the merchant (who has minimum wares).

The mechanics used in these FATE chains could easily be used to create a battlefield that goes back and forth based on player participation.