State of the Game: Savage+ Dungeons and End Game Leves

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

The "no abilities" option would make me sweat. o.o

Tanks - aside from all the good role actions - would lose access to defiance, deliverance, darkside, their whole mitigation kit minus grit & Oath. Clear winner is PLD with gcd stance and heal.

DPS... Blm without enochian, Smn without aetherflow, trance etc, Brd is a dot archer, Mch is a 4-button job. Rest is kinda ok.

Healers without swift, cards, sects, aetherflow, mp management abilities... dont even wanna think about it.

A very harsh challenge if considered.

[Liam_Harper]

Basically WoW's Mythic+ system, which was actually a brilliant idea, lots of fun and kept Legion dungeons relevant the entire expansion, so I'm all for it.

FF14 dungeons are rather pointless besides for levelling. I mostly craft and do hunts myself and I still have consistently had better gear than any lv70 dungeons drop. There's no reason to bother with them except to see them once.

[Delmontyb]

The best part is it costs the devs very little to implement since virtually everything is reused assets with maybe some minor deviations here and there. You could really tie some fun achievements to a system like this...

That's what I assume and hope to be true too!!! Being that they have already created the modifier system (HOH and POTD), they have already created the dungeons, they just need to join those two systems together, and pull from the vast number of dungeons that just sit there, and make the enemies the current level, and allow you to keep pushing the enemy level higher, and add mods to really throw some fun at the players.

Plus, they also have the leaderboard system from HOH and POTD too, so in my mind, it's still work on their part, but it could and should add some dynamic, repeatable content for players each week without a huge investment of time.

[KisaiTenshi]

Essentially, the Mythic+ system from WoW by the sound of it. Either way, yes. I have been begging for something like they to breath new life into stale content. The best part is it costs the devs very little to implement since virtually everything is reused assets with maybe some minor deviations here and there. You could really tie some fun achievements to a system like this...

"Complete Sohm Al (HM) in under x amount of time."
"Complete <insert dungeon> without abilities"
"Complete <insert dungeon> without a tank."
"Complete <insert dungeon> while under permanent mini."

Silly things like that can go a long way to making an otherwise boring dungeon fun, especially with titles, mounts and minions included.

And that's the problem with it, if players want this, then we get this content instead of new content.

Not opposed to having some kind of auto-handicap system, but as soon as you tie rewards into it, it becomes another "nerf it" mess. Just create a leaderboard system, and players who actually complete content solo under certain conditions get specific non-tradeable/non-market-sellable rewards that are otherwise cash shop items already available.

[Nixxe]

Savage+ just sounds like a FFXIV-ized version of mythic+ from WoW. While that sort of content was enjoyable enough in WoW, I don't really think FFXIV is setup in a way that would make it fun here. WoW has a lot more customization when it comes to character performance and the dungeons have more flexibility to them.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

And that's the problem with it, if players want this, then we get this content instead of new content.

Not opposed to having some kind of auto-handicap system, but as soon as you tie rewards into it, it becomes another "nerf it" mess. Just create a leaderboard system, and players who actually complete content solo under certain conditions get specific non-tradeable/non-market-sellable rewards that are otherwise cash shop items already available.

Why? The whole idea is discovering cost efficient alternatives so it doesn't impact the budget too severely. That being said, if we absolutely have to shelf something. I doubt too many will be miffed about losing a by-the-numbers dungeon or the host of niche content they've released in Stromblood.

Here's a solution. Don't nerf it. That has been among their biggest issues. They keep nerfing everything yet wonder why people complain there isn't anything to do. Well, yeah, if the content can all be done in a day because it's brain dead simple, it's never going to last. Conversely, when they actually refused to nerf content (Weeping City, Final Steps of Faith and Royal Menagerie), people eventually "got over it."

[KisaiTenshi]

Why? The whole idea is discovering cost efficient alternatives so it doesn't impact the budget too severely. That being said, if we absolutely have to shelf something. I doubt too many will be miffed about losing a by-the-numbers dungeon or the host of niche content they've released in Stromblood.

Here's a solution. Don't nerf it. That has been among their biggest issues. They keep nerfing everything yet wonder why people complain there isn't anything to do. Well, yeah, if the content can all be done in a day because it's brain dead simple, it's never going to last. Conversely, when they actually refused to nerf content (Weeping City, Final Steps of Faith and Royal Menagerie), people eventually "got over it."

You want to basically add a "challenge mode" / "boss rush" mode to content that is still otherwise has an option to unsync. With no budget. QA goes into balancing everything. So you're only saving SE the development costs of designing a new dungeon or primal in favor of adding a "double the HP of everything" option that adds nothing and has no reward.

Like the kind of thing I'd like to see is put a fixed handicap option list, and if 95% of the players who have played it (not runs, players) can clear it with that handicap, that handicap becomes the default, and thus any potential reward requires being able to clear with that handicap, solo. For party, the handicap has to be work like HoH/PotD does, where the players have to play a specific party configuration for it to count (like, ... all bards)

[Tsumdere]

You want to basically add a "challenge mode" / "boss rush" mode to content that is still otherwise has an option to unsync. With no budget. QA goes into balancing everything. So you're only saving SE the development costs of designing a new dungeon or primal in favor of adding a "double the HP of everything" option that adds nothing and has no reward.

Like the kind of thing I'd like to see is put a fixed handicap option list, and if 95% of the players who have played it (not runs, players) can clear it with that handicap, that handicap becomes the default, and thus any potential reward requires being able to clear with that handicap, solo. For party, the handicap has to be work like HoH/PotD does, where the players have to play a specific party configuration for it to count (like, ... all bards)

What? Did you breeze over people asking for titles and leader boards? Those things would take such minuscule amounts out of the budget to do but add a ton of replayability for a good chunk of players. Grab a few mobs that are already modeled and animated and make them mounts. Wham. Three different rewards for very little development time and a new group of happy players.

Hell. Even add a gil sink of Savage Dungeon Sustain potions so they can do crazy things like Keeper of the Lake + 4 BLM + Double Enemy Health + Blind or something.

[SinisterJoints]

There is a lot to love about Final Fantasy XIV, and having given the latest expansion some thought, I figured I'd like to share some ideas that would add to the overall replayability of the game as a whole.

While I have a lot of ideas that I want to share, this post is focused on the idea of Savage+ Dungeons and End Game Leves in the game.

1. Savage+ Dungeons
What would the Savage+ system look like? Well, it's a spin on taking the modifiers from Heaven on High and applying them to scaled up dungeons that are currently in the game. There are a lot of awesome dungeons that go unused and the idea here is to take them all and just level sync them up to the current level cap (currently 70, but as expansions are released, they would scale up to 80, 90, ect)... Then, you also take the modifiers that have been released in POTD and HOH and can apply them to the dungeon itself, along with adding in more modifiers. Both positive and negative. Now each time you clear the Savage+ Dungeon you "level up" the duengon and are thus given the option to go back into it and the dungeon is now harder, imagine the enemies being level 71, or 75, 80, etc... Along with adding in new modifiers with each phase, thus pushing players with challenging and repeatable content.
Rewards
Rewards are going to fall into what is most challenging as the game currently only offers tombs and gear, so I think they would want to add leaderboards, mounts, titles, and more to this system.

2. End Game Leves

One of the systems that I always thought could use a horde mode, would be the leve system. Think waves of enemies, ever increasing difficulty levels, and even add in HOH modifiers to the mix. The catch here is that leves happen in the open world, so it would be visable to other players, while at the same time being instanced content. The catch is the leve would allow you to end after any 10 rounds of enemies, but would continue on for as long as you can go, so there would be no end, the enemies would keep getting stronger, and they could pull from any number of enemies or bosses that the game already has... Imagin fighting a version of Alexander at some point out in the open world. The trick here is that the player would use their allowances to do this content, so it would be like a leve that cost all your allowances, so you couldn't do it every week. Along those lines, leve linking would be a thing so you could bring friends and challenge it as any size group up to a full alliance if you wished. The leve should take into account the party sizes and apply that to both the difficulty and the rewards.
Rewards
Being that this content is gated behind your leve allowances, they could offer a lot of interesting and rare rewards because players would be time-gated between trying it for themselves as well as with other players. It would offer XP, tombs, mounts, minions, and more.

If I could +100000 to you that would be amazing. They have so many systems in place right now that they could add so much depth to with ideas like yours.

Like adding dungeon leves (go here kill this. or, go there fetch that), for all jobs (crafters and gatherers too) add special crafting/turn in items to drop tables etc. Maybe add some crafting items for crafters to make glamour, or even gear (nothing of MAJOR power ofc). (not sure how I feel spending 99 leves for something like that though lol) Or make it like a gambling system. The more leves you spend, the harder the dungeons are.

This will further increase the use of older content. Make the xp rewards big for battle jobs.

This should have 1 meelion likes already.

[KisaiTenshi]

What? Did you breeze over people asking for titles and leader boards? Those things would take such minuscule amounts out of the budget to do but add a ton of replayability for a good chunk of players. Grab a few mobs that are already modeled and animated and make them mounts. Wham. Three different rewards for very little development time and a new group of happy players.

Hell. Even add a gil sink of Savage Dungeon Sustain potions so they can do crazy things like Keeper of the Lake + 4 BLM + Double Enemy Health + Blind or something.

You have no idea how much it would cost them, titles take up RAM in the game client. Mounts take up disk space, because you can't just make a boss a mount by rescaling it. It needs to have all the mount animations for swimming and flying too. Why do you think we haven't seen all the 2.0 mounts fly yet?

At best, a permanent leaderboard system would be the easiest thing for SE to maintain as they already have a system in place for it for PotD and HoH. Extending it to other content requires tracking points, and to do that, take the HoH strategy for doing this content by syncing the content to minimum ilevel, and have the handicap be a permanent debuff applied at the start. Separate scores for solo and party.