A mid-core content for mid-core players.

[Issac]

So...

OP wants dynamis. Hey, I'm for it.

[PArcher]

With this reply I understood your point of view. And with you many people share the same think. I'm an old school player, that play first for fun, and the rewards are only a plus. However I respect your thought. Maybe I'm only daydreaming with a hope for a content like this, but I wanna try it out.

I spent more hours than I care to admit on Gordias Savage, eventually clearing A4S in January. I do things for challenge (savage) and for fun (did some crystal tower on Sunday. Haven't don't that in a year). I'm definitely a hardcore player. But, I also know what midcore and casuals motivations and needs are, since I interact with them quite frequently. Yesterday's gamers are not common today

[LordNickage]

So...

OP wants dynamis. Hey, I'm for it.

Pretty much my thoughts.

Personally I'd love to see a new age iteration of something like Nyzul. I loved the random objectives and teamwork needed.

[Kosmos992k]

It's an eventuality. However as I said at the beginning, this content it must not be a sure clear, like a 10% of clear rate. However the rewards system will not penalize the casual player, they keep taking the unique material from every mob or from the quests.

I'm sorry, but saywhatnow? You want people to pay tomes to run this, but they have a scant 10% or less chance to clear it? This challenging content with no time limit and more complex mechanics? Sorry, but you're not describing mid-core content, you're describing an hard core raid complete with punishing wipe mechanics. That 10% or less completion rate will relegate this content to the design room floor unless the rewards are worth wiping multiple times before winning. And if you want replayability (you seem to with the respawning and wandering mobs), then the reward is going to need to be good enough to entice people back again.

But again, you really seem to be describing something closer to hard core raid content, than mid-core anything.

[Welsper59]

2. A completely instanced area. Not like the usual dungeons or raids (corridor, room, corridor, room) but an area like Dravanian Forelands completely instanced. The players will start in a safe outpost in this instance (like Tailfeather).

I highly doubt the servers could handle instanced zones of that scale, unless it were one at a time. The only reason Diadem is so large and stable is because of the fact that it cycles in so many players in one instance. A large zone for a single party of 8 would mean that there would have to be lockouts and long queue times.

7. Mobs :
- NO mobs like the hunts' rank S/A or Diadem’s ones that have only a large amount of HP and one mechanic.
- NO trash-mobs like the ones we have in dungeons or raids, with mechanics restricted to only meres aoe.
- YES to mobs that have synergy between them, a group of four mobs (linked) like this one : a mob that deals high damage, a mob healer, one that cast debuffs (vulnerability, paralysis) and the last one that does not have aggro. Groups of mobs that oblige the players to play they're job at their best. More fun, more challenge with basic mechanics.
- YES to a more complex system of patrols, and with an instanced area and not a dungeon-like map (see number 2) the tanks' pulls and positioning will become the key to survive in this content.

This is actually the one that I have the biggest criticism for. This game is not designed for that sort of mechanical play. The only job in the game that has efficient CC to counter support related mobs is BLM, thanks to Sleep... which is also only AoE, for a short time, and suffers DR. No one else has effective CC to counter what's meant to be groups of "mini boss" type of trash.

If the designed intent is for non-AoE tanking, that would mean the mobs have to be so dangerous that tanks WILL die quickly if they're all up and about. This also means that strays, because tanks can't do much AoE threat that wouldn't remove CC, hitting other party members will result in an essentially 1-2 hit kill. With pats being a problem, a lot of non-BLM CC is generally going to be more problematic than otherwise (knockbacks + bind = patrol bait).

There's just so much wrong with the base design of jobs that this is, in absolutely no way, a "mid core" difficulty of content. If we had an actual support job that is exclusively dedicated to the role (emphasized for the mouthbreathers that still think such a thing exists with BRD here), then this wouldn't be an issue probably. Given that's not the case, however, there's too many negative potentials to make this form of content work properly. Stacking a bunch of BLMs might work though, since if you only have 1, you're risking WAY too much.

10. Last Boss. Once all the party manages to complete all the 10 quests the arena where the last boss dwells can be accessed. The difficulty of this boss it must be like the fights of the Minstrel's Ballad, Ultima’s Bane and Thordan at the time of their respective releases. As I said at the beginning of this post, it’s a challenging content, so this boss must be killed with a single try. If the party wipes, all got kicked from the instance.

This one is more of a problem towards participation. With how long it would take to reach that point, practically no one would really bother... particularly no one that considers themselves "mid core". There's no real situation to learn the fight, that's why. Even XI was not that punishing. What's the point in creating content that no one can (or would) realistically attempt? Keep in mind, that's being stated based on not just the length of time to get to that 1-try only boss, but also the limitations related to what I stated earlier.

[Vieilocean]

Pretty much my thoughts.

Personally I'd love to see a new age iteration of something like Nyzul. I loved the random objectives and teamwork needed.

So...

OP wants dynamis. Hey, I'm for it.

Dynamis and Nyzul are an excellent starting point for a mid-core content for FFXIV, maybe they were a little bit too hard-core, but with proper features/mechanics (like the ones I wrote) it could be a real good content.

[Vieilocean]

Yesterday's gamers are not common today

You're perfectly right.

[Nutz]

Dynamis and Nyzul are an excellent starting point for a mid-core content for FFXIV, maybe they were a little bit too hard-core, but with proper features/mechanics (like the ones I wrote) it could be a real good content.

Nyzul, maybe, but Dynamis was very 'mid-core' thanks largely to it's immense 64 player limit (many people ran with far fewer).

I like at least some of the spirit of this idea, but I think some things need touching up. As you said, it's not designed for full clears all the time, or even most of the time, so why bother hiding the boss behind ALL of the objectives? Why not set it up to dish out say 5 objectives from a pool of 20 or so with the last one always being the boss (or one of multiple bosses)? This would tighten up the content and add variety making each run a bit different. I thought to maybe just have all objectives available and let the players decide, except that would devolve into only accepting a small set of objectives as determined by the player base as a whole.

I have my reservations about the popularity of such content, no matter how fun, if the rewards are mostly cosmetic. I'm sure something could be worked out though and everyone knows SE would somehow shoehorn anima weapon upgrades into it.

I feel like a lot of this can be done with the next iteration of Diadem. I imagine given the reception of their first go SE will be up for making at least a few changes.

[Ashkendor]

OP seems to be a little confused as to the definition of midcore.

[Synrin]

What about a defend the castle-themed instance? Not an entire zone, and not the usual 'go there, kill everything, go deeper, kill everything' but something like defend This city or castle, where there are up to 10 paths with different bosses and interiors (ranging from a dungeon to alleys to inside the main keep) with their own rewards, but where killing certain mobs or talking to a certain npc triggers a certain path?

A siege scenario would be perfect.