Purpose of this post
What would a potential system look like if we were to update the current gear treadmill with something that incentivizes participation in forgotten cotent?
There are three main constraints with any new system that attempts to replace the gear treadmill:
(1) New players can easily catch up
(2) Veteran players do not have a significant gameplay advantage over new players, especially at the start of each raid tier.
(3) Casual players, in both time commitment and skill level, do not have a power level significantly below raiders, and have the same access to fun systems as raiders.
With these constraints in mind, here is my idea for a system that could be implemented in 7.0 (though I doubt SE would ever bother, so it's more of a fun thought experiment than actual feedback since they don't really listen to any these days).
The goal is to utilize existing content and promote participation in those content, while setting up midcore grinds that midcore players can easily achieve without it being too casual or too insane (like pteranodon), with tangible effects on power level and gameplay.
Semi-horizontal progression
Right now, a player's power level in the endgame only comes from two sources: gear and materia. Materia is basically an afterthought since it's incredibly easy to purchase the materias you need, so really there's only one source of power level that matters: your gear's ilvl.
The benefit of vertical progression the way FF14 implements it is that new players can easily catch up to be at the same power level as veterans. The downside of course is that it becomes, frankly, pretty boring.
At the same time, adding other forms of progression other than gearing will undoubtedly piss off raiders if not handled carefully, since the convenience of being able to jump into Savage by just making a crafted set and melding some materia is unparalleled.
My idea is to create four streams of power level that are balanced in a way so that one does not need to grind too much in order to participate in raiding content:
- Gear
- Materia
- Main Stat
- Lost Actions
I'll describe them individually next.
Gear
Currently, gear is used for two reasons: to meet the minimum item level of an encounter, and to deal more damage and increase the health pool so as to make encounters more forgiving. This shouldn't be tinkered with too much.
Every 2 patches, we have the same sets of gear used for various purposes:
Dungeon gear: practically irrelevant for most players who remain subbed.
Crafted gear: let's call this item level 0, as it serves as the base item level for the next 2 patches. These appear in even patches.
Augmented crafted gear: ilvl 10. These appear in odd patches.
Tomestone gear: ilvl 10. These appear in even patches.
Augmented tomestone gear: ilvl 20. These appear in even patches, but become accessible without Savage in odd patches.
Alliance raid gear: ilvl 10. These appear in odd patches.
Normal raid gear: ilvl 0. These appear in even patches.
Savage raid gear: ilvl 20. These appear in even patches.
Primal weapon: ilvl 5 during the even patch, and then ilvl 15 during the odd patch
Savage weapon: ilvl 25
Tome weapon: ilvl 10. ilvl 20 with Savage upgrade or odd patch.
Relic weapon: ilvl 5 during the even patch, and then ilvl 20 during the odd patch; ilvl 25 during the final tier.
As is clear, gearing in terms of ilvl is already very tightly tuned and balanced, and adjusting these values, adding, or subtracting components can cause the whole system to become imbalanced. So we would want to leave this mostly intact.
Materia
Materia, on the other hand, can be vastly expanded. Currently there are four main sources of acquisition (for Materia X):
- Hunts (nuts)
- Wolf marks (pvp)
- Marketboard
- Tokens (mostly from roulettes and hunts)
There are other sources of acquisition, but they're probably very unpopular (Orthos and Variant/Criterion). In most cases, hunt trains are the most efficient way of acquiring these materias, since it gives the tokens and the nuts at the same time. Otherwise, I suspect most players just naturally accumulate the tokens by doing roulettes normally.
The change I will propose is to add a second materia system to the game that functions in a similar manner. The second materia system would empower job skills directly. These would be white materia, black materia, and grey materia. We can call them monochrome materias. The player would only be able to equip monochrome materias on select gear. Unlike current vertical progression, however, these materias will remain useful for the rest of the expansion.
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Types
Let's use Bard as an example. White materia will boost a player's mitigation, utility, and healing. On a job like Bard, some white materias would look like:
- Second Wind Materia X: Cure potency increases from 500 to 750.
- Peloton Materia X: Peloton can be casted in combat, but at a reduced movement speed boost of 10% (vs 20% out of combat). Furthermore when casted in combat, Peloton goes on a 120s cooldown.
- Arm's Length Materia X: Duration increases from 6s to 7s.
- Nature's Minne Materia X: HP recovery increase goes from 15% to 20%.
Black materias will simply boost the damage of actions, based on its damage contribution. On a job like Gunbreaker, some black materias would look like:
- Blasting Zone Materia X: Blasting Zone potency increases by 10%.
- Double Down Materia X: Double Down potency increases by 8.5%.
- Sonic Break Materia X: Sonic Break potency increases by 18%.
- Burst Strike Materia X: Burst Strike potency increases by 20%.
The potency increases will be balanced so that
(1) The expected DPS increase is 1% (meaning that Double Down, which usually contributes more to a GNB's DPS will have a lower potency increase than something like Burst Strike).
(2) Actions with a higher potency (such as Double Down, at 1200) will be further penalized. This is to lower the advantage of crit swings.
Grey materias affect a player's attributes beyond what is normally seen and confer small advantages. None of them boost a player's damage.
- Vitality Materia X: Increases HP by 1%.
- Defense Materia X: Take 2% less damage.
- Vulnerability Reduction Materia X: The effect of Vulnerability Up stacks is reduced by 10%.
- Damage Down Reduction Materia X: The effect of Damage Down is reduced by 25%.
- Weakness Reduction Materia X: Weakness and Brink of Death duration is reduced by 10%.
- Movement Speed Materia X: Default movement speed increases by 2.5%.
- Cast Time Reduction Materia X: All cast times (but not recast times) are reduced by 3%.
Finally, all monochrome materias are disabled in Savage content until the week 8 patch.
Acquisition
The acquisition of monochrome materias should be put in variant, criterion, and field content. Furthermore, I propose to make them untradeable, so that players have to engage in these content to acquire these materias. Let's take 6.x's variant/criterion and 5.x's Bozja as examples. In such a case, I would propose that:
A transmutation NPC (not just the one in Central Thanalan) in every city right beside the materia melder that can transmute monochrome IX to other monochrome IX's (5-to-1) and X to X (5-to-1). IX to X is impossible for this NPC.
Sil'dihn and Rokkon potsherds (from Variant) can be traded for white, black, and grey materia IX. IX materias are 20% less effective than X materias. This is 1 run for two materias.
Sil'dihn Silver and Rokkon coin (from Criterion) can be traded for white, black, and grey materia X. This should be around 2 runs for one materia.
Critical engagements drop a random monochrome materia IX. The Dalriada drops a random black materia X, CLL drops a random white materia X, while Delubrum Reginae drops a random grey materia X.
Field content coins (e.g. Bozjan coins) can also be traded for specific monochrome materias at a higher cost than Criterion. This should be something around 500 Bozjan coins for one materia X, and 30 for one materia IX.
Interaction with gear and release timeline
x.05:
Savage releases. NO gear can be melded with monochromes.
x.08:
An NPC appears that upgrades weapons with nuts and previous field content/variant/criterion currency, of the player's choice. Monochrome materias can only be melded on weapons initially in the x.08 patch, on the tome, augmented tome, relic, savage, and ultimate weapons. At the beginning, players can only meld one black, one grey, and one white materia on their weapon. Only materia VIII's will be released/continue from the previous expansions, in old field content/old Criterion/Variant. VIII will have the same stats as X, but will be 50% less effective above Lv90.
x.1:
The x.1 and all subsequent primals and unreal trials also drop accessory tokens that can be used to upgrade RIGHT SIDE augmented tome and Savage accessories, allowing them to be melded with a monochrome materia.
RINGS: Black Materia (damage)
WRIST: White Materia (heal/utility)
NECKLACE: White Materia (heal/utility)
EARRING: Grey Materia (utility)
x.2:
New crafted gear will be used for raiding and crafted gear CANNOT be melded with monochrome materias in order to ensure that everyone is on the same starting line.
x.25:
The first monochrome materia IX and Xs will be released in x.25, from the first field content zone and the first variant and criterion dungeons. Only weapons and accessories can be melded in this patch, with an NPC augmenting the gear for monochrome melding once again.
x.3:
A revamped deep dungeon content released in x.3 will allow players to augment augmented tome and Savage armor (LEFT SIDE). This augmentation does not change any stat, but allows for the melding of one monochrome materia.
HEAD: Black Materia
BODY: Black Materia
HANDS: Black Materia
PANTS: White Materia
FEET: Grey Materia
x.45:
More criterion and field content that drops monochrome materias. Augmented gear that allows for melding is released this patch.
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Main Stats
In addition to materia, players can also directly upgrade their main stats by engaging in various activities in FF14. The idea is to encourage players to try out a wide variety of content to boost their power. A careful balance is needed here: players should be expected to reach 90-95% of the maximum power boost from this system, equating to around a 2-3% DPS increase and 5% HP increase by casually engaging in a wide variety of content, with the last 5-10% of the boost coming from midcore grinds (something that takes around 20 hours of grinding altogether at most).
I propose a few new casual-friendly content types to go with this new system:
(1) Open-seas sailing system, where players can sail the Indigo Deep. Players can visit various islands to participate in casual, bite-sized content, and engage in cooperative sailing missions. This would be perfect for 7.0 (but obviously would be a pipe dream currently).
---> A ship progression system will be added, where players can upgrade their ships to sail faster and to perform better at cooperative sailing missions.
---> Cooperative sailing missions would include missions like chasing down a rogue pirate, defeating a berserked Kraken, friendly on-sea races, or diving for treasures.
---> Islands will present a variety of bite-sized content, like a notorious monster, or a small daily quest trying to nurse a sick child back to health, etc. These should take no longer than 5 minutes each per day.
(2) Open-world chocobo racing, where players can compete with each other in the open world along a prespecified race-track, and massively expand the chocobo racing and breeding system.
(3) Massively expanded Island Sanctuary systems to integrate with crafting/gathering much more.
These new and old systems will then provide the player with 4 or 5 collectible currencies, with a reward structure that very frequently provides the players with a boost. Furthermore, a new UI should be added to display the player's collectibles that can be accessed at any time so that they can visually track their progress easily. I'll just touch on 3 examples: Indigo Deep Shanties, Chocobo racing, and Akasa Crystals, though there should be slightly more than that in the actual implementation of course.
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Indigo Deep Shanties
Sea shanties collected from the sailors of the Indigo Deep. An NPC in Tural, a retired pirate and now ethnographer, wishes to collect these shanties and will reward you with various rewards along the way:
[Sea Shanty #1] - Defeat the Indigo Kraken
[Sea Shanty #2] - Finish first in friendly on-sea races 5 times
[Sea Shanty #3] - Fully upgrade your ship to Lv10
[Sea Shanty #4] - Assist Lucia to help the sick child recover on Indigo Island
[Sea Shanty #5] - Successfully solve the murder mystery of the Ghost Pirate
etc.
Reward Structure:
3 Sea Shanties - 450 tomestones of Comedy
6 Sea Shanties - 1,000,000 gil
9 Sea Shanties - /yarrr emote
12 Sea Shanties - Indigo Pirate Glamour Outfit
15 Sea Shanties - 2000 tomestones of Poetics
18 Sea Shanties - Potion of Major Vitality (+1% Vitality) <-- around 1 hour of playing this content, most of which is naturally completed by the MSQ.
21 Sea Shanties - Legendary Rosewood Lumber (for upgrading the ship to Lv10)
24 Sea Shanties - Pirate Ship Outdoor Furnishing
...
60 Sea Shanties - Potion of Minor Strength (+0.5% Strength, Intelligence, Mind, Dexterity) [LAST power boost in the reward structure] <-- around 15 hours of playing this content
...
87 Sea Shanties - /gunduel emote
90 Sea Shanties - Kraken Indoor Furnishing
93 Sea Shanties - <Indigo Wayfarer> Title <-- around 200 hours of playing this content
Crucially, 80% of the rewards should be cosmetics and glamour. 20% will be direct power boosts. Of those 20%, most of them should be frontloaded so that players can casually participate in them to get those power boosts, while keeping one or two at the end to require some midcore grinding. The tail end of the reward structure should be trophies or titles to show that the player has grinded out all of these sea shanties.
Most of these grinds will be one-time. In order to help new players also participate in these content, especially ones that require co-op, all of these activities also award a new currency which we can call Tural Coins, which will allow players to trade for glamours, materias, crafting materials, mounts, and minions, with it getting new items every patch.
These systems need to be carefully balanced so that we don't have currency bloat, however.
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Chocobo Racing
Let's use another example now. This time, chocobo racing will put the players on a LONG quest to compete with NPCs from around the star in a chocobo race, from Gridania to Elpis. Almost every zone (where it makes sense) will have an NPC competing with you, along with 6 other random NPCs from that region. The quest will contain story, cutscenes, and will be regularly updated every patch. Every once in a while, chocobo breeding will also get updates, such as releasing pedigree 10, new race abilities, and such.
The quest will be linear, but along the way you get little rewards and bonuses, with a quest completion tracker available under the new collectibles UI:
Reward Structure:
Ul'dah Questline Completion: Chocobo Boots, 6 Sil'dihn Potsherds
Gridania Questline Completion: 1500 Tomestones of Causality
Limsa Lominsa Questline Completion: /chocobowhistle emote
etc.
Because this quest is long and requires engaging with chocobo breeding (since later NPCs will become increasingly more difficult), there should not be many, if at all, power boosts associated with this sort of content. However, participation can still be encouraged by giving weekly rewards of tomestones, nuts, materias, etc.
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Akasa Crystals
Nidhana wishes to study akasa further, now that the Final Days are over, and wants you to bring her akasa crystals to study. This would involve a long quest of discovering the properties of dynamis/akasa, but unlike the two types of content mentioned above, this would mostly involve playing through content that already exists now.
[Akasa Crystal #1] - Complete 20 unique battle levequests
[Akasa Crystal #2] - Collect 50 Triple Triad Cards
[Akasa Crystal #3] - Lead your frontline team to victory 3 times
[Akasa Crystal #4] - Complete a Lv80 role quest
[Akasa Crystal #5] - Kill 5 A-rank hunts
...
[Akasa Crystal #35] - Complete 40 unique battle levequests
[Akasa Crystal #49] - Collect 100 Triple Triad Cards
[Akasa Crystal #51] - Lead your frontline team to victory 15 times
[Akasa Crystal #53] - Complete a Lv90 role quest
[Akasa Crystal #55] - Kill 100 A-rank hunts
...
[Akasa Crystal #120] - Complete 80 unique battle levequests
[Akasa Crystal #144] - Defeat 100 NPCs at Triple Triad
[Akasa Crystal #152] - Kill 300 A-rank hunts
[Akasa Crystal #189] - Lead your frontline team to victory 45 times
[Akasa Crystal #190] - Win 20 Open Triple Triad tournaments
[Akasa Crystal #193] - Collect 100,000 Skyward points across any crafter/gatherer
[Akasa Crystal #205] - Defeat Nerva
Most of these grinds should stop at around 5%-50% of the associated achievement grind. For example, the current battle levequest grind is at 150, but we want to stop at 80. The current maximum grind for A-rank hunts is 10,000, but we probably want to stop at 500. The point of this system is not to force everyone into an achievement hunter (because that's fairly insane), but to provide a light version of that that encourages players to have a long-term grind that mixes and matches all kinds of content instead of making you do the same type of content ad infinitum.
Reward Structure:
5 Akasa Crystals - 500,000 gil
10 Akasa Crystals - 2000 nuts
15 Akasa Crystals - Potion of Minor Vitality (+0.5% Vitality)
20 Akasa Crystals - Potion of Minor Strength (+0.5% Strength, Intelligence, Mind, Dexterity)
25 Akasa Crystals - New Akasa quest from Nidhana
30 Akasa Crystals - 1000 Tomestones of Poetics
35 Akasa Crystals - Wind-up Nidhana Minion
40 Akasa Crystals - 1,000,000 gil
45 Akasa Crystals - Potion of Minor Strength (+0.5% Strength, Intelligence, Mind, Dexterity)
50 Akasa Crystals - New Akasa quest from Nidhana
60 Akasa Crystals - Potion of Minor Vitality (+0.5% Vitality)
70 Akasa Crystals - /thavnairianeureka emote
80 Akasa Crystals - New Akasa quest from Nidhana
etc.
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Other side content progression
Two other ideas I have, which I don't want to detail to stop this post from bloating even more, are:
- Ironworks Manufactory
A progression system for DoH/DoL, with a long questline aimed at building a new manufactory for Ironworks, with crafting and gathering challenges and midcore grinds that unlock new power levels for DoH/DoL (such as boosts on Excellent rate, unique new specialist actions etc.)
- Cartographer Guild
A progression system mostly revolving around exploration, that rewards the completion of sightseeing logs, engaging in FATEs, and exploratory content such as Eureka. A new system is introduced that lets the players take pictures and send it back to the Cartographer Guild where they will display the picture showing notable landmarks. This system rewards players with a few power boost potions and various emotes, mounts, minions, and furniture.
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Lost Actions
The final source of power progression I think should be tied to a system like Lost Actions. This could be something that is entirely field content-based, or something else. Personally, I think it might be cool to incorporate it into a modernized deep dungeon system.
Deep Dungeon 2.0:
Instead of 200 or 100 floors, a deep dungeon run will now consist of only 44 floors total. However, each floor is significantly more sophisticated and labyrinthe, with several design differences:
(1) Deep dungeon will still be pseudo-randomly generated, but this time incorporating significant verticality within each floor. Each floor should feel like a maze, but a maze that has purpose.
https://rpgcharacters.files.wordpres...production.jpg
(2) NPCs who are deeply tied to the deep dungeon's story will appear throughout the DD for run-wide quests. Let's take Orthos for an example, and let's just set up an example:
--- From Floor 3, you will encounter Artorius, an unknown NPC who joins you in a boss fight. You talk to Artorias, and his motives are unknown.
--- On Floor 5, you encounter Artorius again, this time he mentions something about purging Orthos of its sins, but he needs your help, and you can either give him pomanders of strength or refuse.
--- On Floor 10, he appears again struggling against a boss. You can either leave him alone or help him. If you help him, he will gift you with a random permanent buff for the rest of the DD.
--- On Floor 20, depending on your numerous choices involving Artorius, you'll either face Excalibur alone, or with Artorius helping you. When you see Excalibur, you see the same face as Artorius, and it is then that you realize that you've been talking to a demi-clone of Artorius this whole time.
(3) Integrated Lost Action-like system. Throughout the DD, by doing minor quests or opening coffers, you sometimes get random Lost Actions that you can use, such as Lost Regen, or the more powerful ones like Lost Blood Rage, all with limited charges.
(4) Floors are now divided into different sections as follows:
F1-5 (4-man midcore storyline), F6-10 (midcore storyline), F11-15 (midcore storyline), F16-20 (midcore storyline).
F21-23 (large scale raid)
F24-28 (4-man hardcore)
F29-33 (hardcore)
F34-38 (hardcore)
F39-44 (hardcore)
Completion of F1-20 completes the story, and doing F16-20 gives EXP. These floors allow you to grind for aetherpool and level up alt jobs.
F21-23 is a large scale raid, with 24-man or 48-man, like Delubrum, but with significantly more randomness, traps, and the necessity of coordinating. Vertical design would be extremely cool in these floors, as alliances need to split up, and you see the other alliances battling below you while you're battling above them, making it feel like a truly massive-scale encounter. These floors serve as the primary way of grinding for potsherds.
F24-44 is the hardcore mode, and solo achievements start here instead of F1. These would be hard from the get-go and require careful time management and Lost Action/pomander management. The hardcore floors reward potsherds as well, but will be mostly for glamour, titles, and mounts/minions.
Reward structure
Potsherds can be traded for a new type of power system: Lost Actions. Furthermore, accursed hoards also have a chance to drop these lost actions. These Lost Actions can be used as many times as you wish outside of Deep Dungeon, but are typically much more neutered than what they are within the deep dungeon. They can also be directly put on the hotbar. Examples include:
- Lost Regen. Heals you for 100 potency per tick for 18 seconds, with a cooldown of 120s. (Slightly more than Second Wind)
- Banner of Honored Sacrifice. Increases damage by 3% while draining your HP. Duration: 15s. Cooldown: 90s
- Lost Font of Power. Increases damage dealt by 2% and critical hit rate by 3%. Duration: 30s. Cooldown: 180s
- Lost Chainspell. Temporarily eliminates cast time for all spells. Duration: 15s
Additional Effect: Magic Burst
Magic Burst Effect: Increases spell damage by 5% while increasing MP cost by 200%.
Duration: 15s
- Lost Blood Rage. Reduces damage taken by 3% per stack. Stacks increase with each use of a dash attack while effect is active, to a maximum of 4. Duration: 18s
Maximum stacks grant the effect of Blood Rush. Blood Rush Effect: Shortens recast times by 75%, and gradually restores HP and MP. Recast time reduction does not apply to charged actions. Duration: 30s Can only be executed while in combat. Cooldown: 600s
Actions like Lost Arise would not be available because they would be overpowered. Furthermore, the more powerful Lost actions and essences will be more expensive. For example, Lost Regen would cost 5 potsherds, but Lost Blood Rage might cost 200, which might take 2-3 weeks of grinding. Similarly, while bronze sacks from accursed hoards might drop Lost Regen, something like Lost Blood Rage would only drop from gold sacks.
Essences can also be acquired, but these would only last for 24 hours each use. You would need to do the deep dungeon raid once or twice a week to keep these essences stocked. These can be purchased on the market board. Examples include:
- Deep Essence of the Irregular. Increases damage dealt by 4.8% and damage taken by 100% while reducing maximum HP by 30%. (Tank)
- Deep Essence of the Aetherweaver. Increases damage dealt by 2%. (Healer)
Restrictions
- Multiple essences can be used at any time, and their effects can be toggled off or on without losing that essence. However, you can only select the effects of one essence to be active at any one time. An essence lasts for 24 hours.
- Lost Actions and essences cannot be used in Savage in the initial patch (first 8 weeks of Savage), nor can they be used in Ultimate in the first patch (on-patch clears).
- Otherwise, lost actions and essences can be used anywhere.
- You can only choose two lost actions to use at any given point.
An end to the gear treadmill
Printable View
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08-01-2023, 09:36 AMKorosAn end to the gear treadmill
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08-01-2023, 09:53 AMAwesomeJr44
If anyone calls this a troll post then this is the most high-effort troll post of all time, because Koros has not only written us a novel, he's written an entire book series.
As you said, leaving this intact is probably for the best, although I would like to see things like Criterion and Alliance raids offer max ilv gear that acts as an alternative to current BiS items. For example, the current best gloves for DRK are the raid gloves with Crit/Tenacity on them, so why not have the Alliance raid gloves be 660 with Crit/Det? This would incentivize those who already have BiS to care about new gearsets that are released mid-tier.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koros
I really like the idea of more specialized materia, as it offers a good pseudo-gear incentive for side content. I also think the system could even be expanded even further than what is here. Perhaps certain more powerful monochrome materia could take multiple slots to meld, thus forcing you to give up more basic materia to meld the stronger monochrome ones? (not referring to IX vs X tier monochrome materia here, I mean within a tier)Quote:
Originally Posted by Koros
I'm not sure how I feel on this one. I feel that if you improve materia, there isn't a need to make a system to directly boost main stats, but if handled well it could be a decent system.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koros
I love the idea of this. It almost reminds me of the pvp series passes but with more pve casual content, and without a time-limit. Perhaps the comedy tomes and stat potions would be replaced by something else after the expansion is over, (or when the current tomes swaps to something else) but this could offer some long-lasting content that doesn't become worthless after the expansion is over.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koros
I never got into Chocobo racing so I just won't comment on this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koros
I feel that some of the numbers seem a little bit too high on this but it's generally a very good idea.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koros
I feel like I'd be mostly in favor of everything here. Deep Dungeons need a rework to make them less stale, and I think this would accomplish that.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koros
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08-01-2023, 10:11 AMRufalus
I will take anyone's suggestions at this point, even bad ones. Anything other than repeating the same content pattern until we die or quit. These ideas look interesting actually.
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08-01-2023, 10:55 AMKorosI think SE's concern is raiders getting pissed and/or invalidating tome gear for casuals. Not really sure why they care since it's an odd patch anyways. But yes, this is a good idea IMO.Quote:
Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44
This is definitely an interesting idea. If the designer pursues this they would need to be careful to balance this so that it doesn't take too long and lead to burnout. I think longevity can be partially guaranteed since most players will probably want to do the content for alt jobs, so the primary concern is probably that these more powerful monochrome materia don't require 20 runs of Criterion or something because that would require like 100 runs and lead to immediate burnout for people who want to get it done in a week. At the same time a weekly lockout is just predatory and overused at this point...Quote:
Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44
Makes sense. The idea was to put some very minor power progression in side content like chocobo racing to incentivize players to participate in them. But perhaps the playerbase likes glams/emotes/mounts enough to want to do this content without power progression. Maybe one could replace those main stat potions with stuff like monochrome materias or Lost Actions.Quote:
Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44
I hope that they're actually trying to rework deep dungeons and not just throw a random bone during that interview, and quite a few ideas have been tossed around about using Lost Actions in deep dungeons for a while now, and I think both systems just naturally lend to rogue-like systems. At the same time, I honestly am not expecting much more than PotD 4.0 though...Quote:
Originally Posted by AwesomeJr44
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08-01-2023, 11:18 AMKageTokage
I think the thing I miss most from other MMOs is the ability to have any degree of personalization when it comes to how a given job plays.
Even something simple like being able to "specialize" in specific non-offensive abilities to reduce cooldowns slightly or increase their effects would be nice. -
08-01-2023, 11:23 AMForsakenRoe
I can't comment on every single thing posted here, but I can say that I did have a similar idea regarding materia, but it was much more limited in that you'd have only one slot on the weapon for it, and it provides a job specific, non-damage effect that affects your gameplay style slightly. Mostly your 'white materia' kind of effects, like Minne boost vs 'Peloton can be used in combat but now has a 3min CD' kind of thing, so that one's either a case of 'great minds think alike' or I'm actually a member of the Drakon extended family too
Feels horrible from a design perspective that most damage related 'choices' will be mathed down and made into 'this one is best, rest are trolling'. I guess the next best solution would be to have absolutely bonkers 'set effects' in the next Bozja/Eureka instead of +3 Haste. Stuff like 'Each time you use Fell Cleave, your next Fell Cleave within 30s has 10 increased potency. Stacks up to 99 times'
Oh yeh also, I'm gonna assume that, like my thoughts included, a similar kind of materia system from yourself would exist for 'customizing' crafter/gatherers, such that we'd be able to have things like 'Rapid Synth is guaranteed to succeed for the first use per craft' vs 'Delicate Synthesis is increased to 125% Progress/Quality', and idk Fisher could get things like 'Chum lasts for 3 casts' vs 'Mooch can now be used with any fish, but costs 200 GP when a NQ fish is used' -
08-01-2023, 11:55 AMTheOperator3712
I like the general concept, can't say I agree with all of the details(Battle Leves? Really?). I will always have to disagree though with keeping crafted gear in a position where it both completely resets gear progression AND makes normal raid gear obsolete on day one. It just doesn't seem logical to do Savage in that system unless you plan to do Ultimate, or it is the final tier and you'll be taking the gear into the new expansion. And, it's just bad allocation of development resources to release normal raid gear with a lockout and then have the same ilvl gear from crafting with no lockout. Why make normal raid gear at all if you're not even going to make it worthwhile to go after?
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08-01-2023, 12:02 PMKarious
Overall, there's a lot of really cool ideas here. Just giving us more control over our actions and potencies with different variety of materia would be great. Of course it would lead to people just going "but the meta!!!" like always and get mad if you make a sub-optimal build. Really though, Koros is putting more thought into stuff than the devs seem to be at least.
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08-01-2023, 12:12 PMZachia
TBH coming from WoW this game already has an amazing form of gearing up. Unless you meant to catch up to people who do all their weekly stuff every week and a new player comes in like 2 months later than I can understand the frustration there but... i'm pretty happy. Unless we wanna fix how we can gear our alt jobs since i find it impossible to casually gear more than 3 jobs at a time within a single patch. Not saying i'm disagreeing with OP or anything but like gearing in my opinion is very easy and i'm happy for it. But I do agree that materia grinding is a bit of a annoyance.
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08-01-2023, 12:28 PMKorosQuote:
Originally Posted by KageTokage
Quote:
Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe
Quote:
Originally Posted by Karious
At some point I think developers need to ignore that there will be a meta. We currently have different BiS sets for most jobs that people can choose based on their preferences for comfort, speed, and need to play multiple jobs. People will math out the degree of personalization, but if it's well-balanced then there will still be a choice players can make that will be competitive with the absolute best pick. Also, the meta pick might be fight-dependent if someone is chasing for top ranks (you might go for Blasting Zone for a fight that ends at 5:40, but Double Down if it ends at 6:25). But the real key is that player enjoyment and choice shouldn't be removed just because someone is going to math out the BiS. A lot of players don't actually get to the BiS anyways and most players probably won't ever look at what the Balance says. They might be interested in figuring out their own comfortable playstyle. The developers' job is to make sure that different playstyles are competitive with each other. In Bozja there are absolute best picks but most casual players would bring something like Regen or Shell even if it's mathematically actually extremely terrible because they like healing themselves or having the feeling of applying buffs on their party members (+ it's also the cheapest lol), and as long as no one shames them for it developers should keep that choice there. Giving players the freedom to play suboptimally is not always a bad thing. -
08-01-2023, 12:30 PMKorosYeah, I just put battle leves in there since it's something that exists, but you can easily remove it.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheOperator3712
As for crafted gear vs normal raid gear, I honestly don't know. There is a problem as you say but I can't think of a good solution. -
08-01-2023, 12:33 PMKorosThey should honestly raise the weekly tome cap to 600 or something, or nerf the prices of tome gear.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zachia
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08-01-2023, 12:35 PMForteNightshadeThe original idea is the crafted gear comes at a cost. Taking a look at the market board right now, it would several me 4-5 million gil to full gear a tank. For a more casual player who really only does roulettes, normal mode is a free alternative. Yes, there's a weekly cap limit but that's the balance. Do you want to pay for immediacy or opt for the longer but entirely free alternative.Quote:
Originally Posted by TheOperator3712
Doing Savage is largely for its own sake. I do Savage because I enjoy a challenge. Which is also why I like logging on a certain website. It offers me built in replayability by essentially trying to beat my "best score". It's no different than say, the Pokemon Nuzlocke I'm doing at the moment. There's no inherent benefit to making a Pokemon game harder but the enjoyment of overcoming a much harder challenge. Especially on the significantly harder roms available. As for resources. Normal mode gear is literally the Savage set but undyeable. There are zero additional resources being put into that gear. Making the whole system quite cost efficient, actually.
Coming from WoW, I can imagine this gearing system is quite a bit of fresh air. Alas, for those of us playing the game for several years now, it's become a long and stale system due to it literally being the exact same system for more or less a decade. While I wouldn't want them to delve into WoW's constant reinviting of the wheel, I will commend WoW for at least trying new ideas. Gearing in FFXIV is ultimately quite boring, especially if you raid. Case in point, Healers basically look at gear, see if it has Piety and avoid it like the plague. This makes your BiS entirely predictable. From that point on, it's kill x Savage boss y number of times while waiting 4-6 weeks to buy tome gear. It's certainly an effective system but hardly an interesting one.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zachia
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08-01-2023, 12:36 PMRufalus
Bah can't edit my earlier post on this mobile view. Too tired atm to make my own big ideas post but I will say my favorite thing from the OP is the labyrinthine deep dungeon design with in-duty story events. The materia to reduce vulnerability or weakness duration is also an interesting consideration.
Yo, can we make desynth less useless? They haven't added new types of demimateria since ARR. Give me a battle demi IV, master demi II, etc. Require those demis in useful crafting recipes. Could also bring back the convert option, but instead of converting gear into materia it will convert in something like an enhancement item for micro upgrades... +1, +2 your gear, can be sold on marketboard.
Weapons, it would be nice to customize glow color and effect type. I don't think 'relic' quests should be repeated for every job in the game. I would like to forge just one legendary weapon but it's an adaptable form-changing weapon suitable for all jobs. May require a cost to transform. May have special properties such as triggering certain enemies to drop some rare item when slain using a relic. -
08-01-2023, 01:16 PMkcj
While it's both a well thought out and presented idea...You really need to remember that gear grind IS endgame.
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08-01-2023, 01:19 PMTheOperator3712The problem with the cost/time ratio angle is that it doesn't work if you're going into savage week 1, because the crafted gear is mandatory at that point(and even more expensive). It also makes the difficulty of getting crafted vary wildly depending on how long you've been playing and how much you spend. Which fair enough, if someone manages to stockpile gil that's not a problem. It just doesn't really seem to me that crafted is the equal playing field I hear people make it out to be.Quote:
Originally Posted by ForteNightshade
As for doing savage for the sake of difficulty... all I've got to say about that is Criterions are dead because they don't reward gear. Take the gear out of savage and the only people left running after a few weeks are the people who enjoy chasing their numbers on websites. A lot of us just seem need to get something to justify doing something, especially when it's hard. -
08-01-2023, 01:24 PMZachiaYou do bring a valid point. Gearing is so simple I can see why many would think it as boring. And as i only started legit gearing this expansion tbh this patch cycle. If I had to imagine myself doing this over and over for years to come, i would find it quite tedious I guess. I guess OP's idea's are not as harmful as I thought. Since he doesn't seem to want to remove what we have but allow additional ways. Well as long as it remains as easy as it is it will only benefit the community adding new ways. Perhaps with enough support the Forum mods will notify the devs of this. I find adding a suggestion inside the game to be very helpful. As many personal desires I had to better this game (in minor ways of course) have been actually added into the game. From having glasses with helm as long as it is compatible to a few other things i can't immediately recall and seeing them added into the game later. I feel optimistic adding suggestions as well as bringing it to the forums will be a great way for the devs to know what the community desires.Quote:
Originally Posted by ForteNightshade
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08-01-2023, 03:20 PMKorosI don't know about form-changing, but having relics contain special properties would be awesome, even if it's something that isn't very powerful like a 5% chance to randomly Imp a trash mob.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rufalus
I think the biggest problem is that ultimately, power level/power progression is still the great motivator for a lot of people. The fact that content like Deep Dungeons, Criterion Dungeons etc. do not have power progression attached to them is a major reason why not many people do them. Square Enix is afraid of having too many sources of power progression because people might perceive it as a chore, but I think if raiders do not need to the extra stuff to compete on even footing in Savage and Ultimate, most people would actually be fine with this.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zachia
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08-01-2023, 04:32 PMfulminatingSince it’s balanced around gearing one job, having an internal flag trip when you buy e.g. an earring that steeply discounts the cost of further earrings could be a way to approach it. 375 > 40-80 or something of that order.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koros
Re: normal raid gear, maybe if the materia slots were the main difference? Crafted reduced to one, but overmeldable still and normal raid increased to 3. Both should let you add 108 substats with the current system, but crafted is less convenient but faster to obtain. Another option would be a minor set bonus on the normal raid set (2/3/4 pieces give x) similar to the elite’s grand company gear, but it might be quite annoying to strike a good balance there.
I would also like to suggest some kind of superior crafted gear made from rare and expensive drops. Native 5 meld slots and 10ilvl? Might seem a bit redundant with the augmented so perhaps that would need shelved. Essentially it is the elemental+ gear, so might need a touch more to make it competitive given the ilvl deficiency.
It might be a good opportunity to reevaluate yellow materia & stats too. Currently they’re not overwhelmingly popular, and it would be nice if they weren’t so disappointing to see on items. -
08-02-2023, 03:57 AMKorosThe internal flag is a good idea but I'd also probably make the reduction lower something like 375 -> 150.Quote:
Originally Posted by fulminating
The superior crafted gear is a good idea too, especially if it's expert recipes. I think making it ilvl 15 should be fine frankly.
Hard to tell what to do with yellow materias. Piety used to be important because MP was actually a resource to manage. It seems yellow materias can only be made relevant with gameplay/encounter-side changes. -
08-02-2023, 05:25 AMForsakenRoe
Couldn't post before cos daily post limit, but I'd agree on the crafted upgrade, but I'd say having 5 guaranteed slots is enough of a boost, no need for extra ILVL too. 5 slots means 5 grade X materia instead of the mix of X/IX we have now, and on every gear piece that'd add up quick. If we look back at ARR crafts that had an equipment as the ingredient, something like that could work. Craft a 'upgrade token' (expert craft), and then do a recipe that uses 'upgrade token' and 'piece of crafted gear' as the ingredients, and is another expert craft, that way if you botch it, you risk losing the gear piece
'Unlock this slot' purchases with tomestones would be interesting, and doubly so if it applied to buying raid gear with books, as it'd allow SE to have a pseudo-item-reclaim system in place which would help alleviate glamour dresser issues (for example, people holding onto Eden gear cos it's a bit of a pain to re-obtain, would be able to throw it out and just reclaim it from the vendor whenever they like)
As for Piety, I've said in other places I'd just merge DET's effect into PIE and TEN, delete DET for being bland and boring, lock DHit to DPS role only, and then separate Crit into it's two component parts so it doesn't have such a chokehold on our gearing. Then we'd potentially be able to see actual gearing choice for once, like as an example, healers could go for Crit Rate and Crit Strength for a 'higher peaks, lower troughs' build, taking advantage of doing big damage in buff windows, or they could go for a more sustained damage profile via Spellspeed and Piety. It seems weird to me that SE's got this problem with damage variance thanks to Crit, and just... leaves Crit to double dip on scaling, making it the best stat on basically every class, every expansion...? -
08-02-2023, 06:37 AMKorosYeah the augmented crafter gear that drops from khloe can easily be turned into expert/challenge recipes.Quote:
Originally Posted by ForsakenRoe
Personally though I want to see utility become important again in this game so I would like piety and tenacity to remain relevant in their current state. But that might be a pipe dream since it would require fundamentally rethinking encounter design. -
08-02-2023, 07:54 AMThaCa
A lot of interesting ideas by OP.
I would love to see at very least some expansion to the overall gearing, like use previous Savage bis as starting point for new tier and the base crafted set hitting the same ilvl and then expand the middling ilvls with secondary craft set (harder materials etc. maybe expert recipes), potentially gear from criterions, PvP, eventually upgradeable Alliance pieces (whether by crafts or savage drops) and so on.
But revising the materias into something meaningful and potentially adding another consumable or two would be great. -
08-02-2023, 08:02 AMJeeqbitIt works in Delubrum Reginae at least. We can grind skirmishes to increase our main stats and it wasn't a significant issue that some players could be more powerful than others. It just made up for the players that weren't playing well (y'know, essences and deaths). The bozja system even proves SE is capable of making this, they just always choose to contain it to those areas.Quote:
Main Stats
A careful balance is needed here: players should be expected to reach 90-95% of the maximum power boost from this system, equating to around a 2-3% DPS increase and 5% HP increase by casually engaging in a wide variety of content, with the last 5-10% of the boost coming from midcore grinds (something that takes around 20 hours of grinding altogether at most).
Even with the current system, it's not a significant issue that some players can do more damage than others due to savage gear or just not being lazy with gear.
So it should not actually be a problem to have systems that can increase DPS by 2-3%, health by 5% and so on.
The only reasons I can think that they keep it the current way is to keep it extremely simple and also the argument that people just choose what is on the balance etc.
I suppose they also need to be really careful not to go too far with it like Blizzard did that synthesized the WoW refugee crisis in their, what was it called... Bfa expansion. The progression system there resulted in a lot of people coming to this game for years. The worst part was apparently RNG, and I didn't like the RNG in Eureka Pyros stats either, because it wastes my time if I did all that work for worthless stats.
I just want to work toward goals that aren't wasting my time like the Cluster farms in Bozja which I could mathematically calculate how long it would take, and schedule the day I would do it and how I would split it up around life events (such as eating), or the stat buff stacks in bozja where I could do the same thing. -
08-02-2023, 12:23 PMKorosI have a feeling the developers are reluctant to add more gear sets at the in-between ilvls, but I honestly think most raiders wouldn't mind so it might be a JP thing.Quote:
Originally Posted by ThaCa
Good point on Delubrum. I don't think it's that bad an idea for normal content. For Savage perhaps they can just disable those increasesQuote:
Originally Posted by Jeeqbit
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08-02-2023, 05:55 PMJeeqbit
Overall I wouldn't mind it working like this.
As it is now, I just try to cling to what little scraps we have in this area. I get new gear when it's available. I meld materia asap. I buy the latest food and use it everywhere, including dungeons (unlike 99% of players). I got things such as the stat increases in Bozja knowing it is ultimately pointless because it won't be used anywhere else (although it would become obsolete after a new expansion or earlier anyway). But I feel that gear just progresses really fast in some cases that it doesn't give you much time to appreciate what work you put into your previous gear.
I set goals for myself such as mounts, to give me a reason to do a variety of content and make up for the lack of sensible achievements (such as the ones involving 10,000, 100,000 or a million of certain activities).
But all of this is self-created content and goals unlike your suggestions (although some others do these things too to create goals for themselves as well).
I agree because some people won't choose the meta anyway. It's like how when we had stance dancing some people would choose to play defensively 100% of the time and do less damage and they must have been able to read this stance reduces their damage. Or some people do actually stack Tenacity still.Quote:
Originally Posted by Koros
I'm glad that it's gone this way where personalization is promoted a lot now, such as comfortable skill speeds. I feel that a lot of people still seek out what is "best" no matter what, to the point of searching for a post they can trust that tells them what is BiS, ignoring all the "depends" stuff. But for as many players that do that, there are going to be plenty that just do whatever they want.Quote:
We currently have different BiS sets for most jobs that people can choose based on their preferences for comfort, speed, and need to play multiple jobs. People will math out the degree of personalization, but if it's well-balanced then there will still be a choice players can make that will be competitive with the absolute best pick.
This is another example like how people used to use tank stance that reduced outgoing damage. Also like how healers could spam their attack and only use off-globals, but you will see some of them casting cure and adlo constantly on WHM and SCH, and if you talk to them about it some of them are aware of what they are doing and just like playing that way.Quote:
In Bozja there are absolute best picks but most casual players would bring something like Regen or Shell even if it's mathematically actually extremely terrible because they like healing themselves or having the feeling of applying buffs on their party members
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08-02-2023, 07:54 PMCStrife912
See Koros… if you made posts like this mostly then people wouldn’t be going after you and your alts…. But because you have conditioned the community in a sort of boy who cried wolf situation we look at these posts and are like ‘are you being genuine here’ for how many times you bait and troll.
But to the actual topic I do like a lot of the ideas present here especially in materia and the collectible tiers with shanty etc nice idea there. However like others pointed out the numbers are off but for an example it’s a good idea. I also think deep dungeon should be less floors and more complicated floors. Heck could even take into account more of FF12s danger spots which do random status effects etc and you could use lost actions to have them briefly appear. -
08-03-2023, 02:56 AMKorosI think there is a cultural shift where people are OK playing slightly suboptimally now. Back in Stormblood people stuck to the meta much more closely even if the meta was actually fairly balanced (unlike HW). But FFLogs switching to rdps changed the community perception a great deal.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeeqbit
Honestly only week 1 raiders need to care about the meta. The thing about Bozja is that it actually encouraged off-meta picks because of the content design. Tenacity can be valuable if you're a tank who needs to soak hits from a lot of mobs. Healing non-stop can be valuable if you're in a party with no healer. I feel like only in DRS and BA were actual meta picks enforced, but even then there's build diversity where a tank could have multiple viable builds depending on their role in the raid, which promotes replayability.
Genuinely, DRS and BA are much better raid content for raiders than Savage raids these days IMHO. -
03-20-2025, 08:59 AMUser202503201232
Bumping this epic thread
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03-20-2025, 09:40 AMAneshda
All we need is exactly one gear set per expansion, which we players can level up and customize over the course of the expansion. For example, with rare materials that can be collected, fished, found in treasure maps, dungeons, trials, raids, world bosses, and so on. With this material, you can then improve the armor or even change details of its appearance. Additionally, the armor should be fully dyeable from a certain level onwards. SE doesn't put any effort into creative new armor sets anymore anyway; 90% of the sets are copies, just in a different color with a different name. That way, SE would have more time to focus on other things. Jewelry + weapons & shields should be available as usual.
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03-20-2025, 10:01 AMHallarem
I'll take any gearing / stat system over the current one. Anything with even a smidgeon of nuance
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03-20-2025, 08:19 PMKazuke_MisoHonestly, when FF16 is so barebones, I frankly doubt they actually even want to develop a fleshed out gearing system.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hallarem
Like in that game you don't have the excuse of "ooh people will just flock to the meta" or "if you don't build right you'll get kicked", but they still made gearing basically completely irrelevant. -
03-20-2025, 11:42 PMSubmarineAlt
I think there should be a general skill requirement to talk about game systems, the meta game, etc. You can't expect me to take some of these suggestions and replies seriously when people very clearly struggle to play the game itself, let alone form a critical thought on its systems.
Why should we change or dismantle a system because Donny Doton, the 0 parsing normal raid legend, thinks it's bad? It's rediculious. No, Donny's opinion doesn't matter, and we shouldn't pretend that it does.
Thanks for necroing this thread though. It further affirmed that the average player should never be in charge of game decisions -
03-21-2025, 03:50 AMKazuke_MisoYeah OK, OP's main cleared 4 Ultis on patch, have multiple tiers of 99s including on BLM, multiple week 1 kills, all 3 deep dungeon solos, PvP t100, but ok lolQuote:
Originally Posted by SubmarineAlt