2018 LV Fanfest Q&A Question re: Open World Pvp follow-up!

[Mango24]

Hello everyone! Like many others I was very excited to see the discussion of open world pvp content come up during the Q&A at this years Las Vegas Fanfest. What was most interesting to me was that Yoshi P had already been testing it in various ways.

What I'd like to do here is discuss his comments, suggest alternatives and ideas for features, and show our support for the development of this kind of content. I know there's already another thread discussing this, but I feel as though the recent attention brought to this subject owes itself a fresh thread.

Without further ado I present what I consider are the merits of such a system, clarifications to address particular community concerns, and suggestions for how this content could look:

It's definitely worthwhile to note that there are many merits to having world pvp mechanics outside of simply having more pvp content. Most noteworthy in my mind is the array of community building opportunities that come with it. Spontaneous, unscripted events taking place in response to bringing players together in the game can be an incredible thing.

I think a lot of critics of this kind of content who complain about the possibility of ganking aren't considering a few things. For starters, while no one likes the idea of being harassed by other players, this kind of content would be completely opt-in. Secondly, allowing players the freedom to build a name and presence for themselves will ultimately foster the creation of new pvp communities. There will be the known gankers, the players who come to the rescue of others, and generally increase interest in pvp in general. Thirdly, this type of content wouldn't be associated with the more casual level content and wouldn't taint the Final Fantasy experience that more traditional FF fans would prefer. If they happen to be interested in PVP, then great! They have another way to experience that.

[Mango24]

1. Make the open world zone faction based, with settlements dedicated for each faction as a starting point. Have the starting points nearby smaller settlements that are able to be captured by the zone factions for rewards. Some rewards from capturing towns could include: access to a blacksmith who gives free repairs, a market board with reduced gil tax on sales, access to vendors with specific items only sold there or that offer discounted pricing on items found elsewhere.

2. Have each factions starting point have it's own independent leader, guards and fortifications. Make it possible to attack these towns and the players within them, but with significant risks and difficulty to do so. This would require a significant group of players to work together to attack it successfully to discourage ganking, but allow for organized raid parties to earn special rewards for defeating an enemy leader. Special rewards could be as significant as special tokens to earn unique items, or 60-90 minute buffs to damage, healing and reduced damage taken. The latter would likely drive many raiding parties into the pvp content prior to raid nights, bringing even more players into the zone.

3. Allow for pvp players to earn unique, ilvl relevant equipment by competing in this content consistently and regularly. Similar to how solo players can gear through eureka, allow pvp players to gear through this 'open world-pvp eureka.' I believe they should continue making level 1 equippable glamour versions of these sets, but allow players at max lvl the opportunity to take their hard earned pvp gear to raid night as more than just a cosmetic.

4. Create a 'ganker bounty' system for known gankers to have bounties placed on them by players with gil based rewards offered by the person putting up the bounty. To ensure the system isn't abused, have placing bounties on players have a cost that scales with their 'notoriety' determined by their number of players killed recently (especially while in a party) and other factors.

5. Continue using the currently balanced attributes, abilities and skills.

6. Utilize an 'underdog' system that offers benefits to outnumbered/outgunned players that strengthens defenses, guards and possibly even the losing teams players.

7. Allow for teams to 'comeback' through a variety of mechanics so that if you're team is falling behind, you're never out for the count. Reward skillful and tactical play.

8. Seperate this open world pvp zone as it's own instanced area that automatically replenishes specific teams that are lacking player numbers. Perhaps even consider making 'free lancing' the only option for queuing aside from queuing as a 4-8 man party to discourage stacking one 'faction'.

There have been a bunch or other great suggestions in the other thread as well. I'd love to hear what you guys think as well as any ideas you guys have and want to add to the thread. Also if you have objections to this idea, what are your concerns?

[Shirolumi]

Good idea making a new thread as the other one was full of arguments and kinda drifted away xD Let's show SE we are interested in open world PvP!

[Nalien]

With the technology behind the World-Visit system, I wonder how feasible it would be to effectively have a single PvP enabled zone which is shared across the data center? Something like an instance, but not really, a regular open world zone with World-Visit forcing everyone on the data center into the same one. Simply travelling to that area would use the same method as World-Visit and that way you can neatly have what is effectively an open world fake instance, rather than what we have with something like Diadem or Eureka (semi-open world, but instanced). Seems like a better idea than simply having a such a zone on every server, with players using World-Visit to use the active one, or having a dedicated PvP server IMO. Off topic, but it would be great to have a Duel Arena zone like this. Everyone on the data center just goes to that area and can participate, spectate, organise tournaments/etc., rework Duels slightly so we can group up for team v team in such an area. There's a lot of potential for PvP with World-Visit I think.

If we ever do get some form of open world PvP though, I do hope it's not too... Scripted... The appeal of that kind of thing, in my opinion, is the dynamic events that are purely player driven, and the rivalries that creates. While I get that Freelancer was required to fix Frontlines queue issues, it kinda killed it for me (since it changed the dynamic of the community) and open world PvP has no such issue, there's no queue after all. While it might be appealing to have such a system for the sake of balance, I don't think such balance should be the focus. Such a world or zone should be the wild west; You can go there and never know what you'll find. Those kind of dynamic events are what make it memorable, I guess the fear is one Grand Company would end up dominating, but I don't mind that. If everyone jumps ship to Maelstrom to "win", such content would fizzle out and die, then nobody wins. I'd rather be the underdog with Twin Adders and hopefully make some good memories with my allies, even if we lose. That's how you really win in such content as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps it's just not possible to build that kind of pride in virtual factions with gamers these days though...

[Stormfur]

So perhaps something like how Cyrodill is done in ESO? This one centered, open-world area that various factions try to take over? I like that idea! I also like the notion of building and using ALLAGAN TECHNOLOGY, even though YoshiP said no plans for that kind of large-scale battle right now.

[Nanne]

We are interested in content like this! Please make it happen SE!

[Sigvarr_Ulfbeard]

Would love to see this happen, a GC vs GC “mock battle” or even tie it in with what the new expansion shadowbringers seems to be going for this “light vs dark”, Just one zone people can go choose to go to for straight up Pvp-ing.

[Mango24]

With the technology behind the World-Visit system, I wonder how feasible it would be to effectively have a single PvP enabled zone which is shared across the data center? Something like an instance, but not really, a regular open world zone with World-Visit forcing everyone on the data center into the same one. Simply travelling to that area would use the same method as World-Visit and that way you can neatly have what is effectively an open world fake instance, rather than what we have with something like Diadem or Eureka (semi-open world, but instanced). Seems like a better idea than simply having a such a zone on every server, with players using World-Visit to use the active one, or having a dedicated PvP server IMO. Off topic, but it would be great to have a Duel Arena zone like this. Everyone on the data center just goes to that area and can participate, spectate, organise tournaments/etc., rework Duels slightly so we can group up for team v team in such an area. There's a lot of potential for PvP with World-Visit I think.

If we ever do get some form of open world PvP though, I do hope it's not too... Scripted... The appeal of that kind of thing, in my opinion, is the dynamic events that are purely player driven, and the rivalries that creates. While I get that Freelancer was required to fix Frontlines queue issues, it kinda killed it for me (since it changed the dynamic of the community) and open world PvP has no such issue, there's no queue after all. While it might be appealing to have such a system for the sake of balance, I don't think such balance should be the focus. Such a world or zone should be the wild west; You can go there and never know what you'll find. Those kind of dynamic events are what make it memorable, I guess the fear is one Grand Company would end up dominating, but I don't mind that. If everyone jumps ship to Maelstrom to "win", such content would fizzle out and die, then nobody wins. I'd rather be the underdog with Twin Adders and hopefully make some good memories with my allies, even if we lose. That's how you really win in such content as far as I'm concerned. Perhaps it's just not possible to build that kind of pride in virtual factions with gamers these days though...

Utilizing the world visit system to have one shared world pvp zone per data center sounds like an awesome idea, albeit potentially technically challenging. I love that idea because with more players able to access it there would be more activity and thus more content. Also, regarding GC faction balancing, I do think it's possible to incorporate systems into place that 1. Dissuade people from stacking teams, and 2. Help to realign the balance of the factions according to player strength (how many times a player has killed other players), team composition, and more.

You could potentially have NPC 'guards' that would help defend player controlled settlements and could perhaps be called upon for help if resources were managed correctly. (Say Maelstrom are winning the battles due to their numbers, but adders have been collecting resources to build up a force of NPC guards to even the odds.)

That's just one idea, but I think balancing the factions could certainly be accomplished in a variety of ways. Sometimes though that challenge presents an opportunity for players to bring their friends etc., too.

[Mango24]

Would love to see this happen, a GC vs GC “mock battle” or even tie it in with what the new expansion shadowbringers seems to be going for this “light vs dark”, Just one zone people can go choose to go to for straight up Pvp-ing.

Yes, thematically that could be a very interesting way to build out the lore around it! Light vs dark factions.

[DrWho2010]

it would have to be an instanced zone people would want to go into - like how eureka works. however i don't think there'd be that many people who would do such a thing. it would probably die out very quickly.