A Guildleve Revision Idea

[Sandpark]

I know it's lifeless. The older sister of this game did some of the best challenging open content in the genre. But this game rarely takes things from it. They had such a deep open world system.

Notorious Monsters, HNM, Skillchains(on the fly limit breaks), an aggressive enemy ai, xp chains, it goes on and on.

[Shurrikhan]

I know it's lifeless. The older sister of this game did some of the best challenging open content in the genre. But this game rarely takes things from it. They had such a deep open world system.

Notorious Monsters, HNM, Skillchains(on the fly limit breaks), an aggressive enemy ai, xp chains, it goes on and on.

Agreed. (And a shameless bump.) But allow me a ranting extrapolation.

XP-Chains.
We still have xp-chains actually. We just no longer pace our CDs or (especially) pool our (1.x-style) TP in order to maximize them because the individual mob exp is relatively poor, AoE options are a bit too clear-cut, and kill order not focused on as much in ARR (by which I mean all things past 1.x until such time as there are significant enough changes to require a separate term for the game's framework). Were trying to kill off a specific enemy at an exact amount of time despite gradual suppression on it a bigger thing (actually, I can't remember any time past T5-7 where avoiding a pad push was a real concern), and were there just a bit more synergy between pure AoE and single-target choices, and mob exp made viable, this would probably return to a real concern in FATEs. If mob camps were ever returned, then doubtless exp-chains would be a thing there too.

But that's a lot of conditions to get it off the ground; the framework does nothing without surrounding changes.

NMs.
We still have NMs. They're our hunts. They're just bland as hell, because apparently there's this assumption that players can't handle more than two abilities per open world mob, let alone without a clear and immediate telegraph. Is that SE actively trying to hold themselves back, or is it an excuse for shallow work? I don't know. But consider also the issues we have with complaints of "early pulls". In XI, only one group could claim credit for an NM kill. Here, anyone who attacks can. And still we take issue.

Skill-chains.
A concept like skill-chains have, in my opinion, a tremendous amount of potential in XIV. However, anything that works in the same framework, rather than merely the concept, of skill-chains is pretty well doomed to fail. Latency frequently limited skill-chains to open-combo, end-combo. With the Quebec-only XIV servers, that issue hasn't really abated. But, the ability frequency has easily tripled. Do you really want to be trying to time, within a fraction of a GCD, someone else's whatever skill (chain opens) to your highest per-execute filler/DoT skill (chain closes/progresses)? At best, that's going to be worth about 1.5 GCDs, but even the faintest delay can make a trainwreck of our GCD-locked rotations. Without a tremendous bonus, it won't be worth it. With a tremendous bonus, you're most likely to have numerous skills that just don't line up, making your rotation feel disjointed, unnatural, and—not surprisingly—unintended.

Now, there are ways to recreate what a skill-chain provides, be that a collective energy/force, or skill-blending, but these elements need to be made for the new, faster-paced, GCD-locked framework of the game, or the framework itself will need to be adjusted for something more flexible. Given how "same-y" a lot of jobs allegedly feel to people coming from other MMOs, where resource or priority systems might prevent GCD-locked gameplay, the latter may seem the place to start. If you so choose, I'd recommend looking at other systems that seem lackluster or ill-utilized, such as TP, which has no real consequence on rotations (partly because there's just no internal way to vary most DPS rotations themselves, such as hastening a Monk rotation to skip Fracture but further extend the use of a single Twin Snakes or Dragon Kick to another cycle without an Arrow and/or Fey Wind, and partly because there's just nothing interesting baked into TP itself, which may or may not then have interesting rotational effects).

(Arguably, even MP can seem underwhelming when you consider that a healer can cast every GCD, for some 8 minutes on end, without running out of mana; that might require full maintenance of HoTs, the occasional lesser, more mana-efficient heal, or even an Energy Drain, but short of having to rez or AoE spam there's certainly no reason to revert to lower-tier DPS fillers such as Ruin, Stone II, or Malefic. Some will love this. Some will complain that it moves healers from emergency-only DPS to a GCD-locked hybrid role.)

Consider also what strange but seemingly fun battle concept ideas you might excuse through the revision or implementation of XIV skill-chains. Perhaps you have an expansion that's largely focused around elementals, or the harnessing of elemental power. Well, now you have license to create a system in which elemental force projected (produced by players), received (taken by players), and environmental (field effects or lingering from projected or received) can be harnessed and reused. Let's say you have a Garuda... Savage fight that begins in a larger canyon, where you fight fragments of Garuda (e.g. Suparna and Chirada) of the original Garuda size, while the actual Garuda is typically at greater distance (and about the size of her spirit release from Ultima) and must be warded against by bending the winds within the canyon to starve or overpower (and thereby re-aim) Garuda's wind attacks, all through your combat and positioning when fighting the fragments. Spit-ball idea, meant to represent spit-ball ideas, but would it potentially, after whatever number of revisions, connect to our make sense to introduce with the XIV skill-chains. ...Same question for literally every other attractive but vague combat idea that comes through your mind.

AI.
As for aggressive AI, that's just such a massive and obvious opportunity that I don't know why it isn't on the roadmap. And I mean this both in the open world and in instances. Everything obeys the exact same laws of enmity. That may be convenient, but it makes zero sense; these are supposed to be different mob types, with different natures, conditions, procedurals, etc., etc. We've lost the curious cobblyns, the clacking crabs, blood-smelling wolves, vibration-sensitive ghosts, what have you. Granted, that may not mean much when 80+% of the world cannot respond to a max level character anyways, but perhaps that's all the more reason to consider universal level-syncing or whatever else. But the in combat effects, for the time being, are even more noticeably lacking. The most aggressive AI-ish characteristic we have right now is a threat reset. And it's not even AI. There is no typal AI. Arguably, there is no AI of any sort, only a table, a pointer, and a queue. That's a crying shame.

[Sandpark]

XP-Chains.
We still have xp-chains actually. We just no longer pace our CDs or (especially) pool our (1.x-style) TP in order to maximize them because the individual mob exp is relatively poor, AoE options are a bit too clear-cut, and kill order not focused on as much in ARR (by which I mean all things past 1.x until such time as there are significant enough changes to require a separate term for the game's framework). Were trying to kill off a specific enemy at an exact amount of time despite gradual suppression on it a bigger thing (actually, I can't remember any time past T5-7 where avoiding a pad push was a real concern), and were there just a bit more synergy between pure AoE and single-target choices, and mob exp made viable, this would probably return to a real concern in FATEs. If mob camps were ever returned, then doubtless exp-chains would be a thing there too.

But that's a lot of conditions to get it off the ground; the framework does nothing without surrounding changes.

Wouldn't increased xp for xp chains start training people from the get go how to maximize damage? I mean if you are trying to kill hundreds of monsters in the fastest time possible. I would think that would give people practice on mastering rotations and how different enemies require different rotations.

NMs.
We still have NMs. They're our hunts. They're just bland as hell, because apparently there's this assumption that players can't handle more than two abilities per open world mob, let alone without a clear and immediate telegraph. Is that SE actively trying to hold themselves back, or is it an excuse for shallow work? I don't know. But consider also the issues we have with complaints of "early pulls". In XI, only one group could claim credit for an NM kill. Here, anyone who attacks can. And still we take issue.

I feel a channel or phasing system should be used for NM. Then SE could create more interesting open world fights without worrying about zergs.

Skill-chains.
Consider also what strange but seemingly fun battle concept ideas you might excuse through the revision or implementation of XIV skill-chains. Perhaps you have an expansion that's largely focused around elementals, or the harnessing of elemental power. Well, now you have license to create a system in which elemental force projected (produced by players), received (taken by players), and environmental (field effects or lingering from projected or received) can be harnessed and reused. Let's say you have a Garuda... Savage fight that begins in a larger canyon, where you fight fragments of Garuda (e.g. Suparna and Chirada) of the original Garuda size, while the actual Garuda is typically at greater distance (and about the size of her spirit release from Ultima) and must be warded against by bending the winds within the canyon to starve or overpower (and thereby re-aim) Garuda's wind attacks, all through your combat and positioning when fighting the fragments. Spit-ball idea, meant to represent spit-ball ideas, but would it potentially, after whatever number of revisions, connect to our make sense to introduce with the XIV skill-chains. ...Same question for literally every other attractive but vague combat idea that comes through your mind.

I like this idea of an expansion around harnessing the elemental powers. I wish I could hear more of this. Any reason to give a make sense of skillchains would be a plus in my book. It doesn't have to be a copy paste from XI, that's for sure.

AI.
As for aggressive AI, that's just such a massive and obvious opportunity that I don't know why it isn't on the roadmap. And I mean this both in the open world and in instances. Everything obeys the exact same laws of enmity. That may be convenient, but it makes zero sense; these are supposed to be different mob types, with different natures, conditions, procedurals, etc., etc. We've lost the curious cobblyns, the clacking crabs, blood-smelling wolves, vibration-sensitive ghosts, what have you. Granted, that may not mean much when 80+% of the world cannot respond to a max level character anyways, but perhaps that's all the more reason to consider universal level-syncing or whatever else. But the in combat effects, for the time being, are even more noticeably lacking. The most aggressive AI-ish characteristic we have right now is a threat reset. And it's not even AI. There is no typal AI. Arguably, there is no AI of any sort, only a table, a pointer, and a queue. That's a crying shame.

A crying shame indeed. One of the key features that draws me to games like XI or Dark Souls is the world's environment and creatures telling a story. It takes AI and lore to do that, sometimes less bread crumbs is more.

[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.

[Masekase_Hurricane]

Because I believe they should be leves. They can be separate instances I suppose. But I wanted Guildleves to actually mean something in the game besides experience points and materials.

Your names do stand out more than the names SE came up with. I was trying to keep it in line with virtues which was their original intention.

Soon as you mentioned instance content I tuned out. I don't want anymore instanced content, FATES, fetch quests or mind numbing grinds. I want open world content that I can do solo or as an alliance, something that actually forces me to explore the current area, something that rewards risk. I want to use the teleport system because its the safest way to travel not because of convenience.

I'd like something like campaign,let beastmen take out teleports forcing us to go repair and disperse them. This in turn would bring DoH and DoW/DoM together, they could even bring in DoL by having them to collect the relevant mats needed for a team of crafters to repair them.

These events could offer bonus rewards based on how many in your free company attended and give the free company reputation points. The reputation points could be used to build defensive structures around the aether crystals or free company primals or other upgrades.

All levels could join in as they could make the battles the same level as the fates in the area.

[Sandpark]

I want open world content as well. I just want improvements to existing areas as well, so the whole game is a great experience.

Ooh so tasty! Free company campaign events? Where do I sign up?

[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.

[Sandpark]

If you read the link on ideas it states that you can solo or group. I would like solo options too, I like squadrons, but I would like the option to group with npcs and friends too, I would like POTD to be more doable solo as well.