Until we get another new city that we'll all flock too, Uldah will be the hub due to retainers. However, I feel to discourage repetitiveness by everyone only leveling in the Thanalan region, we need some sort of bonus for going to the other areas. I believe the key to this is we need a sense of belonging to a city. As the game is now, we start out in a chosen city, but there is no real affiliation to it.
Because of this non-affiliation, and the fact that there is no real benefit to starting out in a specific city, people flock to a single city, only returning to the others for missions, and maybe guild support. We need some sort of reward for leveling around the city of our choosing.
Here are some ideas I've thought about:
- We should be able to affiliate ourselves with the city-state we start in. As adventurers we are hired swords and free-lancers in the current time of peace, but as stated before the peace will not be permanent. When things start going bad, it would only make sense for us to be hired or allied with a specific city. The cities may be allied against the empire, but that doesn't mean each city-state doesn't have it's own agenda and want for power and resources. Obviously if we were able to choose whatever city we wanted at that time, just about everyone would join Uldah, so it should be pre-determined by the city-state we start in.
- Remove guardians favor and instead grant SP bonuses for leveling in a cities controlled area. Or you can simply make it so Guardians Favor can only be used in an area controlled by the players city.
- Give us some sort of "city points" for leveling in our city-states controlled area. We should be able to gain a small amount from grinding on normal mobs, and a slightly larger amount for doing guildleves in that area. Give us a quartermaster that we can buy things from. Equipment, potions & ethers, temporary stat boosting items, crystals, etc. They could give out unique items such as a ring that allows the player to teleport to their city without using anima.
- To help encourage an even population in each city, grant unique equipment rewards in connection to city-state missions. If not missions, you could make quests that can only be done by members of that city-state. You could possibly base the rewards depending on what guilds are based in that city. So for someone wanting to level an Archer, if they wish to have a certain unique gear set for their class they would need to become affiliated with Gridania.
- Make current and future Faction leve points dependent on the area you rank in. If you want to get points for the Buffalo Faction leve, then do leves in La Noscea. For drakes, Thanalan. (I'm sure this won't be popular.) Another idea would be to just increase the amount of faction leve points rewarded if you're doing it in the correct region.
- Reputation. There are a lot of possibilities with a reputation system. There could be all sorts of ways to gain reputation. Getting higher levels of reputation could lead to more rewards and special perks. Things like unlocking more and more quests as your reputation rises, which would in-turn reward the player with more special items. Reputation would also get people to do things in cities other than the one they are affiliated with.
Some you may like, others I know many will not like. But they are just ideas. So please, give your opinions, or another suggestion I haven't mentioned.
Fixing the "ghost town" problem.
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04-10-2011, 07:59 AMKazimirFixing the "ghost town" problem.
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04-10-2011, 08:02 AMRau
bring back Conquest and Signets. NPCs and other features are only available in cities in the highest position
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04-10-2011, 08:03 AMKilta_Firelotus
i like it. :) minus the GF that is seperate lore based on us choosing who of the 12 we worship.
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04-10-2011, 08:06 AMNeoNight1986
agreed or something similar anyway. Conquest and signets were well done. not saying they should be replicated.. but if you need ideas feel free to look at them. I always Felt that sandy was my home and was rewarded for it ^_^
also (i am not sure if they have it yet or not) reputation should be included. doing stuff for a city and getting bonuses for it. ffxi has it.. wow .. rift.. it works. -
04-10-2011, 08:09 AMKazimirGood point ^^ I kind of forgot about that part of the lore.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kilta_Firelotus
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04-10-2011, 09:14 AMchime85
Maybe an idea to circulate the population (as well as the great ideas above) could be a "tax system" on retainers. This is not for just Uldar, but whichever city turns the most popular on that week.
For instance, a 10% tax on retainers un Uldar on week 1, the larger population move to Limsa Lominsa, wee 2 tax is 10% in LL. The cycle of course moves on -
04-10-2011, 09:22 AMNabiriAll good ideas. I like these best though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Kazimir
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04-10-2011, 09:30 AMVeasna
Make market wards global and i think we'd see a lot more people hanging out in Gridania and Limsa Lominsa. Not everyone hangs out in Ul'dah because they always find it most fun.
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04-10-2011, 09:31 AMNabirihttp://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...Population-FixQuote:
Originally Posted by Veasna
I think they need to make changes not only to the market wards, but to the cities - like the ideas this OP suggests.
There's more than one reason people gather in U'dah, so I don't think changing the market wards alone will fix it. -
04-10-2011, 09:35 AMZahak
Remake Gridania along with The Black Shroud and add in some type of conquest for your nation. Dosn't have to be conquest since its a whole different mmo but soooomething in that area!
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04-10-2011, 11:03 AMKazimirI agree that adds to the problem. But even if they were global people will still remain in Uldah because there is no benefit in going anywhere else. It's easier to have a one-stop travel hub. Opening up a new city like Ishgard will help with the situation a lot. It will need it's own retainer wards and be the central focus for other things like story line missions and areas for it to be the new hub however.Quote:
Originally Posted by Veasna
Even with that though we still need some sort of system that benefits us going into other areas. Not only would it make the game more fun while leveling up by adding more content to do, it will spread people out more. Affiliating ourselves with a city-state and gaining unique perks for doing so would be a great addition to the game I believe. -
04-10-2011, 11:20 AMTonka
As long as there are market wards, most people will level around the area where everything is most convenient. Global AH would be a great start.
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04-10-2011, 06:12 PMKirith
I like the ideas proposed here more: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...-made-for-ME!)
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04-10-2011, 07:10 PMLamhirhand like in FFXI, most weill associate wit one country, and all others will be left with totally nothing<_<Quote:
Originally Posted by Rau
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04-10-2011, 08:36 PMKilta_Firelotus
i kinda wish ppl get over their need over a central hub. all it will do is as the game ages ppl will no longer sell in the starter nations. and sorry if i make alts or after a while reroll ima be peeved if im going to have a hard time locating gear/weapons. Sorry there is a long term effect of a "jeuno" that ppl don't see. In ffxi ppl only sold to jeuno as the years when by. And being a level 5 and having to run their for gear was so annoying and time consuming. I'm happy we don;t have to buy spells that was another headache. Sorry but huntoing weeks/mnths for gear at various levels got old and annoying. As was getting kicked because of lacking gear. Even though they got told there was none to be had. I suggest thinking about the long term before you suggest an idea for a market ward change.
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04-10-2011, 10:14 PMJinko
Conquest would be great, I don't want to see a system that stops me being able to play with others from different nations though, so something simple like getting signet from a player controlled area would be great.
I also agree with global AH. (or a worse case scenario, globally linked market wards, although they would need to keep the damn things from crashing first) -
04-10-2011, 10:30 PMKilta_Firelotus
whats wrong with global Market wards? their just an interactive AH and they can add floors if they get full. part of the reason they crash is too many ppl placing retainers ontop of each other. Too much info in too snall of a space.
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04-10-2011, 10:47 PMVeasnaTrue not alone, it's just a minor help in fixing the problem. Personally i'd be way more in Gridania if i didn't have to manage my retainers in Ul'dah.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nabiri
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04-11-2011, 12:43 AMDaniel_Hiroshi
The Uldah trend for me started with the November update. Soloing Cobs and Dobs combined with leve linking Broken Water made Thalan the place to be, for battlecraft and thus the central market was born there too. While I like your ideas about having boons in your home city, I feel other things need to be done, before we can even start to think about breaking the Uldah as a main and only city problem (if you call it a problem, a few of my ls members with far more MMO experience than me have said, one city always naturallly becomes the main city). He are just a few thing I would like to see happen:
Economy:
The wards need to have a request button. An option to purchase an item from a ward in another city. I think you would still get regional differences in price, but the request option will mean if you set up your retainer in Limsa, it is not lost to the Uldah/Gridania players. I think without this you cannot break the central market, because players will feel their wares will not be viewed by enough people and in some cases anyone. It is also my belief that this should be the final evolution of the wards to being a fully functional market system. The only additions I would make then would be to how they look.
Battlecraft:
If I had wrote this a few months ago I would have said to nerf the cobs and dobs in some way and I am glad this has been done. They are still an affective grind for a duo (not nearly as affective as linking but affective).
The other thing which still remains is the linking. I think two things need to occur here. Firstly camps need to be brought into line with each other. Each camp should have a set number of leves, I would personally put this number at 8, maybe 10, but I feel 10 would make linking a bit too rare. At later leves each city should have a power leveling camp and a marks/credits camp. This would make it so certain camps are no longer better than others. Also if players would looking for credits/marks, they would travel to each areas camp to get them, same for players looking for power leveling. Finally and this is contraversial, to make this system work, would require the end to fail partying. At each reset the completed/failed leves in your journal are taken away and you start again afresh. For me the arugement of losing 1k of marks is not enough, it is pretty easy to get the marks you need just by ranking up to 50 and doing leves on easy difficulty solo, or with friends. The end of fail parties would make players travel to the best camp for their party. They would go where the links where, which brings me back to having 8 leves per camp. With this number you be able to get good links, whereas with 10 leves you would make linking a rarish event.
In conclusion these are two things I would try to do to spread the playerbase out. However, it is worth noting that right now the playerbase is low and maybe other cities will be brought more into the game by a population increase. Also the opening of Ishgard could cause a redistribution of the population as well. I do however, feel tht the ability to request items from retainers in other cities wards is essential. Without it there will always be a desire to have a centralised market place, through fear of of wares not being viewed by potential buyers.