A Guildleve Revision Idea

[Sandpark]

Believe me, I absolutely want that too. I want leves to be awesome and meaningful and iconic and adding to the flavor and color of what it means for XIV to be XIV. But that shouldn't just come from its individual parts. It should come from the whole, which should be a greater than the mere sum of individual elements, and each of those elements should somehow feel necessarily leve-like, as opposed to whatever other option (namely the simplest—each their own thing).

Perhaps that sense of leve-ness would come from the kind of thing you're trying to get out of it – say, a bit of casual fun that can nonetheless be perfected, optomizedly, so-serious-I-can't-take-it-seriously competitive, but still always has this image of a group of 4 to 8 friends hopping into an iconic duty almost purely because it is unadulterated fun situated in a unique a living world. You'd be barfing rainbows at that point if you managed to pull that off, but that would be a collective feeling.

You yourself mentioned an idea of what a leve means when you mentioned the rewards these leves would entail, i.e. "a dynamic, a lull in the everyday grind. It's like music, the subtleties come through even in some heavy metal."

On top of that, you have to deal with what leves mean to the player-base. Luckily, you may be replacing a lot of that image, perhaps even shattering it, but as it stands the idea of a leve varies from all of 'boring exp-grindable recharging-opportunity content' to outright 'vague tasks made collective only because they haven't been assigned any other function cool enough to be otherwise memorable.' And there are certain ranges and expectations for that. I can't speak for others, but for me, a wholesale siege is not a leve (and a small-scale siege rarely, albeit sometimes, worth having). For me, if it doesn't make use of your class or disciple skills in any way (being instead purely vehicular, etc.), it's probably not a leve. At the same time though, there are illogical exceptions. If a leve featured three Magitek Armors trudging through the snow to a particular memorable melody that somehow passed itself as a repeatable archetype and had fun gameplay in all other ways, I'd be leve-y enough for me.

As you said, maybe some things aren't being conveyed, but I don't think those are the parts you're most thinking of. I feel like I get what they're individually trying to do, and what the addition of them all would mean, but I don't understand the exclusive reasons for their packaging, and you've given no context for how or when they'd be introduced to the game. What would the surrounding major patch or expansion be like? How would it play into this idea?

Until I know that, I can't help but feel that individually named events, felt more as story components with the content system individually crafted for each, feels more in the spirit of leves (as I see them) than these various leve types do.

OK please elaborate on some of your points, I want to understand.

I want that collective feeling. Does my idea provide that? What must I add to give you that feeling?

I didn't add magitek to guildleves in that iconic sense you said. Because I have a huge idea brewing involving magitek and guildleves could not contain it's breadth in my opinion.

Until I know that, I can't help but feel that individually named events, felt more as story components with the content system individually crafted for each, feels more in the spirit of leves (as I see them) than these various leve types do.

The bolded is where I want the most elaboration. I might seem clueless, that's because I am lol. Make me understand the bolded parts please.

[Shurrikhan]

Until I know that, I can't help but feel that individually named events, felt more as story components with the content system individually crafted for each, feels more in the spirit of leves (as I see them) than these various leve types do.

The bolded is where I want the most elaboration. I might seem clueless, that's because I am lol. Make me understand the bolded parts please.

/undeath incantation

Sorry for missing your question previously, Sandpark (only just now saw it when looking for some stuff via the advanced search).

What I meant by this is you can get a lot more perceived bang for your developmental buck if you were to treat these huge individual leve ideas as actually individual things. When you try to force them into this "guildleves" box, you take away a lot of their individual flair, which can have hugely negative effects:

• Players are less attracted to each idea; each stands out less.
• The "big project" title, which would be the only reason to try to sell all these together, is already tainted; "guild-leve" is practically a byword for banal grind content.
• Packaging them all together puts less emphasis on how satisfying the individual parts are; so long as the "guild-leve" system has attractive parts, others are allowed to be painfully unpolished or unfinished, whereas that would not be seen as acceptable if they were considered separate.

[Sandpark]

What I meant by this is you can get a lot more perceived bang for your developmental buck if you were to treat these huge individual leve ideas as actually individual things. When you try to force them into this "guildleves" box, you take away a lot of their individual flair, which can have hugely negative effects:

• Players are less attracted to each idea; each stands out less.
• The "big project" title, which would be the only reason to try to sell all these together, is already tainted; "guild-leve" is practically a byword for banal grind content.
• Packaging them all together puts less emphasis on how satisfying the individual parts are; so long as the "guild-leve" system has attractive parts, others are allowed to be painfully unpolished or unfinished, whereas that would not be seen as acceptable if they were considered separate.

Ok, i get that. Standalone content for each one would be a way for the devs to see what is more popular and ignore the others.

My reason for the package is:

1. Function like a choose your stories
2. Each player grabs some stories
3. Join with friends or roulette it up
4. Complete 5 stories and continue going or stop

Unlike the traditional roulette which is join something like a normal dungeon, trial, or raid which all have a symbiosis of being sort of the same. These events would be like linked mini stories, where each chapter is told and played differently from the previous via mechanics and gameplay variety.

If you have a character at max level, chances are you have done every dungeon, trial, or raid save for savage, so you will play them how you did before for the most part. This is partly true for the revamped guildleves except here each run will be significantly different in structure and play from the previous. Starting with 50 leves, could eventually be raised to 100 or so.

[Wintersandman]

Ok, i get that. Standalone content for each one would be a way for the devs to see what is more popular and ignore the others.

My reason for the package is:

1. Function like a choose your stories
2. Each player grabs some stories
3. Join with friends or roulette it up
4. Complete 5 stories and continue going or stop

What i like about the current leves, is I don't need a group. I need a group for almost everything in the game so keeping it for the solo player is ideal with group being optional like they are currently.

FFXI was required to have a group to do anything and honestly exhausting. I don't want a repeat of that as it stands right now I get Leve Quests (to 60 only), fates, and daily quests which are the only solo content. Don't gate another piece of content behind group play.