How to fix Battle Leve's (maybe^^)

Attention Mods could you please move this thread to the Guildleves section

Guildleves, the content you love to hate

So I have been thinking of how SE could improve Guildleves and solve many of the issues with them ie. abandoning them, only picking certain ones, certain camps over-crowded and have come up with a few idea's.

First though I believe the original plan for Guildleves as we have them now was that it was supposed to be more casual/quick content so that you could login and grab some leves and go do them. The main problem is that they are pretty much the only content, so everyone is doing them as they have nothing else to do. Also certain Leve's are better than others in regards to SP/EXP gained so this also make Leve Abandoning to keep those certain Leve's more desirable.

What could work?

My first fix would be to allow all 9 Leve's to be available for selection every reset for every camp. This would allow people to freely choose the Leve's they wish to do so if they are in a group they can make sure they get the same ones to link if they wish.

Also be a bit more creative with the rewards, a lot of people have a lot of gill so it is not so great a reward any more. Maybe try rewards like 30 Guardians Aspect or 15 Anima as a reward something like that to get people tempted to try different Leves.

Next would be to change the way Leve SP/EXP is accumulated. For this maybe it would be better to give a lump sum of SP/EXP at the end of the Leve upon completion and remove the SP/EXP gained from the mobs killed. This would have to be scaled in different ways though.

For example all Rank 20 Leves could give 5000 SP upon completion, Rank 30 gave 10,000, Rank 40 15,000 and so on. That would be the base, then you could add a multiplier for difficulty with the number of stars the Leve was completed on. Maybe 5% per star so if 10,000 was the base and you completed it on 5 stars you would get 15,000 SP/EXP. Then you can add other modifiers like completion time, you rank vs. leve difficulty and so on. If they were to give static SP then they would have to probably have a minimum rank restriction in place to stop Rank 1's tagging along on R40 Leve's.

Possible Result

By doing these few things it would allow people to spread out and utilise different camps to do Leve's as all Leve's of the same Rank would give the same SP/EXP so there would be no need for everyone to go to Broken Water to do the best R40 Leves.

Also it would stop Leve abandoning as you could decide with your group before hand which Leves you were going to take and obviously if you abandoned you would get nothing as the SP/EXP is rewarded at the end so it would be pointless.

This would also allow you to retry Leve's immediately if you did fail or D/C as it wouldn't be exploitable because the SP/EXP and reward is only gained upon completion. So if you D/C halfway though the Leve they could allow you to retry straight away as you wouldn't have gained any SP/EXP until the end anyway.

I think with just these few changes it would help a lot with the current situation regarding Leves and make them a bit more enjoyable as players will be able to go out and try different Leves at different camps without feeling like they are missing out on huge amounts of SP/EXP by taking different ones.

Additional Idea's

Others also suggested a Grade/Score at the end that could be the base for what SP you received. So if you did extremely well you got an S grade and got max SP from the Leve, if you did badly you would get get an E grade and get less SP. I actually really like that idea as it would give some extra motivation and an additional objective while doing the Leve.

I was a bit sceptic at first, but those are actually really good ideas. It would help people to spread across the camps :)

Good job.

Giving a static amount of SP is just silly - no. Bad idea.

However, I would take this a step further by making SP/exp gain relative to your rank, and have it reward you the SP/Exp you would've gotten for any monsters you didn't kill. For example, a few guildleves involve killing # of monsters until you kill your targets. But what people usually do is just kill off everything first, then kill their primary targets to maximize SP/EXP gain. Give incentive to go after the primary targets first by rewarding the player with all the SP/EXP worth they would've missed by killing the primary targets first.

"Liked" your post.

However, I think in a system like this you need to give leves which take a long time to do an experience point boost. Maybe give a small bonus based on the time taken to complete them. Making said bonus small enough so people wouldn't bother afking until they have 1min left on the clock, but big enough so people don't ignore the longer leves is probably the tricky part.

I wouldn't completely remove exp from mobs either, you could do something like this), but both approaches would probably work.

Anything that moves away from the way guildleve experience point rewards are handled right now is a good thing. The current leve usage is based around failure because of this.

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Originally Posted by Galamantyl

Giving a static amount of SP is just silly - no. Bad idea.

However, I would take this a step further by making SP/exp gain relative to your rank, and have it reward you the SP/Exp you would've gotten for any monsters you didn't kill. For example, a few guildleves involve killing # of monsters until you kill your targets. But what people usually do is just kill off everything first, then kill their primary targets to maximize SP/EXP gain. Give incentive to go after the primary targets first by rewarding the player with all the SP/EXP worth they would've missed by killing the primary targets first.

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Why is it silly to give static SP for Leve's? It makes perfect sense to me or is there some underlying issue I am not seeing with it that you can educate me on?

Also by giving "silly" static SP/EXP upon completion is the incentive in your case as you would not want to waste time killing things you didn't have to. SE would have to balance the Leves in a new way though to give static SP/EXP and that is completion time. If the SP/EXP was static then everyone would just do the quick Leve's so this would have to be addressed also and make short Leve's longer.

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Originally Posted by AlexiaKidd

Why is it silly to give static SP for Leve's? It makes perfect sense to me or is there some underlying issue I am not seeing with it that you can educate me on?

Also by giving "silly" static SP/EXP upon completion is the incentive in your case as you would not want to waste time killing things you didn't have to. SE would have to balance the Leves in a new way though to give static SP/EXP and that is completion time. If the SP/EXP was static then everyone would just do the quick Leve's so this would have to be addressed also and make short Leve's longer.

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I agree with this, but the completion time bonus would also be a good idea.

The thing is, leves are done for casual playing, so you do a leve or 2 while ur waiting for something/someone or just don't have time for more. So the static sp/exp would not be so bad WHEN the game delivers different leveling activities that require more time.

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Originally Posted by SirEdeonX

I agree with this, but the completion time bonus would also be a good idea.

The thing is, leves are done for casual playing, so you do a leve or 2 while ur waiting for something/someone or just don't have time for more. So the static sp/exp would not be so bad WHEN the game delivers different leveling activities that require more time.

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Exactly like I said at the start they are only supposed to be casual/quick content but because of a lack of anything else to do that is better, they are pretty much the only thing people are doing.

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Originally Posted by AlexiaKidd

Why is it silly to give static SP for Leve's? It makes perfect sense to me or is there some underlying issue I am not seeing with it that you can educate me on?

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You get more sp/exp for fighting harder enemies, you get less sp/exp for fighting weaker enemies. What you are suggesting is giving out a flat SP/EXP reward for completing a repeatable quest. That's a bad idea. It goes back to doing easier guildleves and it also further reduces incentive to kill anything else outside of guildleves. This means less reward for greater risk.

How's that for education? Or did you miss the school bus again?

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Originally Posted by Galamantyl

You get more sp/exp for fighting harder enemies, you get less sp/exp for fighting weaker enemies. What you are suggesting is giving out a flat SP/EXP reward for completing a repeatable quest. That's a bad idea. It goes back to doing easier guildleves and it also further reduces incentive to kill anything else outside of guildleves.

How's that for education? Or did you miss the school bus again?

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I think you need to learn to read as I already stated that the star (difficulty) level would be a multiplier. I also stated that Guildleves are pretty much the only content atm so that is why they are such a big focus.

Don't miss the bus again ^^

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Originally Posted by Galamantyl

You get more sp/exp for fighting harder enemies, you get less sp/exp for fighting weaker enemies. What you are suggesting is giving out a flat SP/EXP reward for completing a repeatable quest. That's a bad idea. It goes back to doing easier guildleves and it also further reduces incentive to kill anything else outside of guildleves. This means less reward for greater risk.

How's that for education? Or did you miss the school bus again?

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I believe that's why she said that the sp/exp reward would vary from the rank of the leve. So, harder leves would have higher ranks, therefore higher rewards.

But anyway, that's where the balancing comes.

Alexia can you copy your op into the thread I made in the guild leves section of the forums about abandoning leves? The thread you already posted in. I love your idea and I would think the devs should see it. Very very good idea imo.

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Originally Posted by AlexiaKidd

I think you need to learn to read as I already stated that the star (difficulty) level would be a multiplier. I also stated that Guildleves are pretty much the only content atm so that is why they are such a big focus.

Don't miss the bus again ^^

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Looks like you need mommy to drive you to school today, because you seem to think star difficulty makes all the difference and the school bus just left you behind.

If it's a static amount, regardless of star level, anyone at any level can get a fixed amount of SP/EXP. There's no way to balance that with the way SP/EXP is already earned. People will do the fastest guildleves they can with the least amount of effort, and repeat for every level. Given your example, at rank 35, i could "probably" do 1-star rank 40 guildleves for 15,000 sp each, but it would be much faster to just burn rank 30 3-stars for 11,500 sp likely twice as fast.

Or perhaps you've invented a new way for everyone to get all their classes to rank 50 quicker. I see now. I can join a rank 40 party with my rank 20 gladiator. Congratulations! The party bonus is now moot too.

Your idea was clearly broken, I stepped in and did my part to fix it. Making the SP/EXP reward relative to your rank (less if higher, more if lower) will force players to take on more challenging difficulties/guildleves and it would be far more balanced with what's already in place.

Ok lets break this down and think through it logically:

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Originally Posted by Galamantyl

Looks like you need mommy to drive you to school today, because you seem to think star difficulty makes all the difference and the school bus just left you behind.

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I am pretty sure the star level works. You increase stars, mobs increase in difficulty or is that not how it works and if it doesn't then it should and SE need to address that.

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Originally Posted by Galamantyl

If it's a static amount, regardless of star level, anyone at any level can get a fixed amount of SP/EXP. There's no way to balance that with the way SP/EXP is already earned. People will do the fastest guildleves they can with the least amount of effort, and repeat for every level. Given your example, at rank 35, i could "probably" do 1-star rank 40 guildleves for 15,000 sp each, but it would be much faster to just burn rank 30 3-stars for 11,500 sp likely twice as fast.

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I agree SP per hour is key and that will never change regardless of what you do people will still do the fastest easiest way possible. It's all about balance and that would be down to SE to ensure the Leves are balanced fairly.

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Originally Posted by Galamantyl

Or perhaps you've invented a new way for everyone to get all their classes to rank 50 quicker. I see now. I can join a rank 40 party with my rank 20 gladiator. Congratulations! The party bonus is now moot too.

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I already put in my post Rank Restrictions would need to be put in place to stop you from taking your R20 GLA into a R40 Leve.

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Originally Posted by Galamantyl

Your idea was clearly broken, I stepped in and did my part to fix it. Making the SP/EXP reward relative to your rank (less if higher, more if lower) will force players to take on more challenging difficulties/guildleves and it would be far more balanced with what's already in place.

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Fair enough that is a possible solution or a modifier to add to the static base.

Either way what I am trying to get at with this thread was there are better ways to operate Guildleves than what we currently have and this was just an idea I had to try and make them a bit better and free up some of the camps from overcrowding issues. The amounts of SP I stated in my OP are not final and would of course have to be tweaked to allow for Leve linking and other factors, they were just picked as easy numbers to get across what I meant about the base SP.

I am afraid I am not a game designer I just merely play them and came up with an idea I thought I would share it. Maybe someone at SE might see the idea and take something from it and make it even better, who knows what could happen.

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Originally Posted by Galamantyl

Looks like you need mommy to drive you to school today, because you seem to think star difficulty makes all the difference and the school bus just left you behind.

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Your comments would double in weight should you leave your notoriously condescending nature out of your message. FYI.

I like it! As it would be fun. Things to be worked out for sure... but it would be nice to have a 'sp/exp score' at the end. Reminds me of besieged. Perhaps this could be used during 'defend the camp' style leaves.

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Originally Posted by NeoEarth

I like it! As it would be fun. Things to be worked out for sure... but it would be nice to have a 'sp/exp score' at the end. Reminds me of besieged. Perhaps this could be used during 'defend the camp' style leaves.

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Thanks and yeah I like the idea of a score at the end that could be worked out using different modifiers like Rank, Speed, Difficulty, Link's, Party Members and so on.

Good idea, I would like the SP score at the end kinda like a grade. Like in FFXIII so when you finish the leve and the screen comes up it could give you a grade so if you did the leve quick on a high difficulty and whatever else you could get an S Grade and get max SP but if it took you a long time and did it on a lower difficulty you got a E grade and less SP. Kinda hard to explain.

I liked this idea, great job :D

How do you get mods to move a thread, I want this moving the the Guildleve section it should have been there anyway I put it here by accident in the first place by having to many pages open ><

I think some people miss the point of what an idea is. An idea is by no means a complete concept.

I do like the idea, although it would need considerable refinement. I'll throw a few more ideas into this.

The most important part would be reducing SP awarded in relation to your current rank against the camp suggested ranks. This would be off-set by adjusting the star difficulty. Something like a reduction of 5% of base SP for each rank above the suggested rank of the camp (so a R40 would get 50% of the SP a R30 would at a R30 camp) with the addition of +10% base SP for each star of difficulty. With this, a R40 doing a R30 leve on 5star difficulty would get the same as a R30 doing it on 1star. It would keep it more balanced and make people head to camps more appropriate for their rank.

There are already time and difficulty bonuses in leves in the form of additional gil rewards, so I don't see that being too much of an issue to add a little bit of SP like the gil is added. I would, however, make the additional SP negligible like the gil is. Even making the additional SP the same as the current additional gil amounts would be good.

I'll push another idea in here since it would become applicable if SP was based on the leve instead of the kills. The exchanging of old leves for when acquiring the new leve could increase the SP reward of the leve. It currently only increases the gil rewards, so I'm sure it could be put to more use.

Pushing another idea which could be applied if your suggestion were to be implemented: reduction of SP reward for each consecutive time you take that leve. ie. taking the same leve every time would reduce the SP reward by 5-10% each time you take it. Think along the lines of narrative "you killed wolves for us recently, so not as much of a problem at the moment. If you go kill more now we'll still reward you, but with less SP". This would promote taking different leves each reset.

And in the case of failing a leve, knock 10% SP right off there for each time it is failed. Simples.

I'll leave it at that. They're ideas that no-one is likely to ever read, but I've given them at least.

Well, here's one of your ideas come to pass:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post163169

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現在の仕様では、8パターンのリーヴのうち、数パターンしか選べないものとなっています。これについて開発チーム内でもその是非について検討を行いました が、ギルドリーヴごとのバランスを調整出来ていない今、その部分を変更すると、今まで以上に同じリーヴしか選択されなくなるという状況になると予想されま す（その事を要望していた人にとっては改善といえるかもしれませんが…）

そのため、現在の優先度としては、リーヴ間のバランス調整を行うことを先行するものとしています。攻略ルートを含め、様々な面から調整を行っています。

また、調整の中で最も重要なものの1つ、修錬値の調整も行っています。これは前述の失敗を繰り返して同じリーヴをプレイすることへの対策でもありますが、 リーヴをクリアした際に修錬値をもらえるようにして、クリアすることの意味を高めるようにするというものです。この点を踏まえたバランス調整を現在行って います。

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Quick summary: the devs are aware of the problem of everyone failing on purpose. To fix that, they're going to give an SP award upon leve completion so that there is a greater incentive to complete the leve instead of failing it.

Nothing especially specific, just that there's an SP reward for completion. There could be more, that could be all, I have no idea.


That has the potential to help. The other things they need to address is how overwhelmingly beneficial it is to leve-link compared to other methods, which makes doing leves without links rather pointless.

Also, they need to address the balance so that on average, all the limsa and gridania leves are just as good for SP as the Uldah leves.


Additional note: Does this mean that leve mobs will no longer give SP? I have no idea. They didn't say, and it wasn't hinted at one way or the other. I doubt that it would be implemented that way, though.

Hmm that is interesting. Have to see how this plays out, if they total SP up and award it at the end but don't do anything else to the Guildleve system then that would completely kill them for a lot of people.

We'll have to wait for more details on this I guess ; ;

I really like the ideas in your OP. I was actually going to post something similar, but you beat me to it :)

Static EXP for each leve - Brilliant
Retry on DC - Brilliant
No option to exploit - Brilliant
Everyone can link due to whats available - Brilliant

Hope SE see this post.

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Originally Posted by Vahzl

I really like the ideas in your OP. I was actually going to post something similar, but you beat me to it :)

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Beat you to it? lol, the OP is 2 months old!

:)

Delete them and replace with real content.

Or make them unrepeatable and make the game world actually follow through with what's promised in the story text. (yeah I knew it would be too much to ask of them)

Personally I'd do leves if there was a goal of "DING you completed all the leves!" achievement and a reward waiting for me.

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Originally Posted by Rentahamster

Beat you to it? lol, the OP is 2 months old!

:)

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Does it matter? I was just thinking of it, and as I did, saw the thread, as I use the search function.