Dawntrail Exploratory Missions - WISH LIST

[Shurrikhan]

At minimum, I just want progression system to be unobtrusive and minimally RNG-dependent.

I do not want to have to return to sanctuaries frequently to rekit. I do not want to have to grind consumables just to be able to play around with the new features.

Give us some real challenges from which to unlock this or that, but unless it's meant to be both gathered and spent within a particular larger encounter akin to a Castrum raid, don't give consumable counts, just the simple CDs, with or without those being refreshable at end of combat / on killing certain mobs, etc.

If I could have my druthers, though, I'd like for the zone to situate some actually new styles of combat encounters. Base defenses. Revamped escort runs. Group crafting projects. Etc.

And ideally, I'd like to see an alternate mode by which the instance develops over the course of its 1-3 hours instance time, with different communal ways of developing our bases, routes, footholds, outreaches, delves, etc.

[Supersnow845]

Right, but why should those options of finding fun off-norm ways of playing jobs (role-wise) be dependent upon literal bloat items instead of just an unlock after which you can swap to whichever of the states/essences you unlocked as you wish while out of combat?

As you said, they're just an unscaling single-step modifier you just inflate enemy HP numbers to cancel out anyways. So... why not axe the number-inflation and the requirement to always have one going and instead just make it a more impactful way to shift your role/outputs if/when one wants, without it taking up a slot or item?

Because said items are what keeps the instance cycling. CE’s aren’t spawned from skirmishes they are spawned from killing magitek and killing star mobs and sprites are used for things like DRS. Without that cycling design you end up with eureka where a mob that doesn’t spawn a NM is completely pointless

Making the items a toggle that you can freely access would also necessitate nerfing them. You can’t just freely have access to something like excellence, it just doesn’t work with the game without it being restricted and expensive

I maintain that Bozja having an economy is part of what keeps it alive that eureka struggles with outside or it’s “useful” NM’s and they should expand on that

[Shurrikhan]

Because said items are what keeps the instance cycling. CE’s aren’t spawned from skirmishes they are spawned from killing magitek and killing star mobs and sprites are used for things like DRS. Without that cycling design you end up with eureka where a mob that doesn’t spawn a NM is completely pointless

Making the items a toggle that you can freely access would also necessitate nerfing them. You can’t just freely have access to something like excellence, it just doesn’t work with the game without it being restricted and expensive

I maintain that Bozja having an economy is part of what keeps it alive that eureka struggles with outside or it’s “useful” NM’s and they should expand on that

You make it sound like any desire to remove grind/tax to normal play must also desire to prevent any alternative reason, replacing it, to play around in the open world outside of NM spawns. But why would that be the case? One can have lively economy without that entry tax / sandbagging prospect.

And if it's mob-grinds specifically that you're looking to entice, literally just increasing mob exp rates nearer to that grindable from NMs or having them offer any other form of currency (i.e., anything that doesn't a tax per instance entrance and per duration to reach mere normalcy) would spread incentive just as well.

You can as easily have everyone suffer from toxic gas over time that requires a certain drop-only antidote to cure and it would make an economy 'go round'. It'd still be an obstacle to content rather than content itself, though. An okay outcome coming from poor means isn't a reason to keep the poor means; it's a reason to better provide that outcome or, ideally, better ones.

[Supersnow845]

You make it sound like any desire to remove grind/tax to normal play must also desire to prevent any alternative reason, replacing it, to play around in the open world outside of NM spawns. But why would that be the case? One can have lively economy without that entry tax / sandbagging prospect.

And if it's mob-grinds specifically that you're looking to entice, literally just increasing mob exp rates nearer to that grindable from NMs or having them offer any other form of currency (i.e., anything that doesn't a tax per instance entrance and per duration to reach mere normalcy) would spread incentive just as well.

You can as easily have everyone suffer from toxic gas over time that requires a certain drop-only antidote to cure and it would make an economy 'go round'. It'd still be an obstacle to content rather than content itself, though. An okay outcome coming from poor means isn't a reason to keep the poor means; it's a reason to better provide that outcome or, ideally, better ones.

Because you are coming from the perspective that if you offer incentives to not sandbag or attempt to attempt to reorganise content to direct you towards obtaining what you need to not sandbag then it will make people not sandbag which PVE normally shows that people don’t care

You could make excellence a toggle for every player along with all the other actions and people would still run platebearer bubble and act like they are helping. We have seen time and time again you can’t baby proof this game because people will always go under your expectations

The lost action system isn’t perfect and the lack of other rewards associated with obtaining fragments is a big weakness of the system but replacing it with fragments being limitless toggles just grinds the entire system to a halt as everything not in service of the most direct way to the goal gets shoved to the side. A big draw in field content is money and fragment farming is one of the biggest ways to achieve this

[Shurrikhan]

You could make excellence a toggle for every player along with all the other actions and people would still run platebearer bubble and act like they are helping. We have seen time and time again you can’t baby proof this game because people will always go under your expectations

How is that relevant to my suggestion, though? I didn't ask to remove those choices, nor to make the default/best choice among them a toggle, but simply to make Essences no longer pure buffs but instead simply fun role-flexing options that neither take up slot nor, however indirectly, bag space.

A big draw in field content is money and fragment farming is one of the biggest ways to achieve this

What should be the goal for exploratory missions, though? Intrinsic enjoyment, or... gil inflation?

Why purposely degrade features of a content type, instead of merely evening out its means of progression/insular-reward-per-minute, just to allow for that additional means of gil-grinding (and thereby reason for gil inflation), though? Inventory-space-consuming grind is not the only way to incentivize general combat. Hell, you could even try... making it fun?

I cannot for the life of me think of any (other) instance where one would want to purposely inconvenience and restrict an interesting but passive feature specific to a content type which that content is tuned around just so to enable gil grinds so that others can trade for the "convenience" of being able to actually play around with that content without said prior unnecessary grind. Especially when that grind is as vapid as just killing open world mobs.

It would be like if the only gear were crafted gear and having the latest set were up to, again, a 25+% throughput difference instead. Or if food buffs did the same and lasted through death but not through requeue. Buy them or grind them out yourself, but you're functionally neutered without them. All that just to ensure it's a must-have to stimulate side-content "economy"? Why? And that's without even accounting for the fun parts in those features themselves (everything other than just giga-buffing yourself) that you'd otherwise have access to without arbitrary grind constraints.

[Supersnow845]

You are acting like the people that still populate exploratory content don’t find the current systems fun as they are and that the answer to all the problems is “just make it fun”. To some people intrinsic enjoyment can come out of grinds, just as other people are fine to pay to skip grinds for convenience, this is how MMO’s have worked as long as we have had central trading systems (like the grand exchange)

Building systems around allowing for either grinding if you want it or being able to skip with money (which reminder very few fragments are actually expensive) benefits both groups. I’m fine to delete the flat DPS buffs that the content is tuned around (like aetherweaver) but making everything either passive or “get it once and you have it forever” negatively affects the way people cycle through field content because it pushes people onto a defined path

This is not to say that just killing mobs should be the only way to achieve this. I’m fully supportive of a system of repeatable quests on different classes to say “revive an abandoned town” that also offers fragments or equivalent so you get them passively from doing the optimal thing to progress the “mainline” goal. Bozja’s system is 100% not perfect

And in answer to your last example yes I’d be totally happy to support a system like that, if you can either pay for it or get it yourself by doing something semi time consuming I 100% support that design, because that’s what an MMO is to me (maybe that’s because I grew up with RuneScape)

[fulminating]

I would like to see more of eureka than bozja in terms of aesthetic and power progression.

The blade relic lacking haste or anything zone relevant made it feel disconnected. I am not sure rolling for stats would be a welcome return, but I would certainly like more control than the manderville relics offered; pending further stat squishes, 114 is the magic number in eureka weapon customisation. Any higher and it will be synced for you, lower and it will have room for improvement. This does not apply if you wish to do content outside eureka where you may want 162 to fully populate a substat.

Similarly the elemental armour being comparable with raid and augmented tome gear but with 5 meld slots made it feel more desirable than the blade’s gear.

I think the drops from nms were a good idea. I would be keen to see another strider boots with an out of instance utility, or speed belt/cassie earring/optical hat/magicite component with in instance value (Even if the lack of +element on the optical hat made it fall off a bit). Not that I would be opposed to more scorpion harness and emperor hairpins, lacking effects but being visually appealing.

Visually I prefer eureka and its brighter/broader colour palette.

Delubrum reginae was enjoyable, although being in a separate instance did make it somewhat less convenient to enter than ba, cll or the dalriada. I am not sure there is a good solution here if zone size limitations are being approached.

[Veritas-Ancora]

I would like to see more of eureka than bozja in terms of aesthetic and power progression.

The blade relic lacking haste or anything zone relevant made it feel disconnected. I am not sure rolling for stats would be a welcome return, but I would certainly like more control than the manderville relics offered; pending further stat squishes, 114 is the magic number in eureka weapon customisation. Any higher and it will be synced for you, lower and it will have room for improvement. This does not apply if you wish to do content outside eureka where you may want 162 to fully populate a substat.

Similarly the elemental armour being comparable with raid and augmented tome gear but with 5 meld slots made it feel more desirable than the blade’s gear.

I think the drops from nms were a good idea. I would be keen to see another strider boots with an out of instance utility, or speed belt/cassie earring/optical hat/magicite component with in instance value (Even if the lack of +element on the optical hat made it fall off a bit). Not that I would be opposed to more scorpion harness and emperor hairpins, lacking effects but being visually appealing.

Visually I prefer eureka and its brighter/broader colour palette.

Delubrum reginae was enjoyable, although being in a separate instance did make it somewhat less convenient to enter than ba, cll or the dalriada. I am not sure there is a good solution here if zone size limitations are being approached.

These are all really good points, I agree.

[Shurrikhan]

I’m fine to delete the flat DPS buffs that the content is tuned around (like aetherweaver) but making everything either passive or “get it once and you have it forever” negatively affects the way people cycle through field content because it pushes people onto a defined path.

I never suggested "making everything passive". I simply suggested making Essences separate from consumable actions or action slots (reducing item bloat, and, in exchange, no longer being pure buffs but simply ways to adjust one's role to a given extent) and making the remaining consumable actions more impactful but limited.

The only part of my suggestion you've responded to is "get it once and you have it forever," but I suspect you misunderstand what I meant by that. To be clear, I do not mean you can then simultaneously take and use every Essence, only you would not need to holster and activate an Essence to use it. You'd be able swap freely among whatever Essences you have already acquired while out of combat.

Moreover, though, how would attaching item bloat and a brief RNG-varied grind time or a modest gil sink to one's access to Essences... somehow make one's choices "less defined"? The difference is solely in the initial convenience by which to access those fun additional options.

And without Essences being a massive flat throughput buff that content has to be tuned around, the "defined path" in typical group play is to run no Essence, as %DR gets the most value out of large eHP pools, healing reductions are most wasteful on those with high amounts of fixed/"free" healing potency per minute, etc., etc., rather than some set Essence becoming ("increasingly") the default or "defined path". Essences can then function purely and more interestingly as actual compliments/supplements/choices rather than primarily just effective throughput amps.

What should be the goal for exploratory missions, though? Intrinsic enjoyment, or... gil inflation?

Why purposely degrade features of a content type, instead of merely evening out its means of progression/insular-reward-per-minute, just to allow for that additional means of gil-grinding (and thereby reason for gil inflation), though? Inventory-space-consuming grind is not the only way to incentivize general combat. Hell, you could even try... making it fun?

I cannot for the life of me think of any (other) instance where one would want to purposely inconvenience and restrict an interesting but passive feature specific to a content type which that content is tuned around just so to enable gil grinds so that others can trade for the "convenience" of being able to actually play around with that content without said prior unnecessary grind. Especially when that grind is as vapid as just killing open world mobs.

It would be like if the only gear were crafted gear and having the latest set were up to, again, a 25+% throughput difference instead. Or if food buffs did the same and lasted through death but not through requeue. Buy them or grind them out yourself, but you're functionally neutered without them. All that just to ensure it's a must-have to stimulate side-content "economy"? Why? And that's without even accounting for the fun parts in those features themselves (everything other than just giga-buffing yourself) that you'd otherwise have access to without arbitrary grind constraints.

To some people intrinsic enjoyment can come out of grinds, just as other people are fine to pay to skip grinds for convenience, this is how MMO’s have worked as long as we have had central trading systems (like the grand exchange)...

...And in answer to your last example yes I’d be totally happy to support a system like that, if you can either pay for it or get it yourself by doing something semi time consuming I 100% support that design, because that’s what an MMO is to me (maybe that’s because I grew up with RuneScape)

Then we have very different views of fun in this regard. I don't consider "freedom from punishment" as fun in itself. I consider well-crafted, and ideally novel, means of play fun. Purposely holding one's novel systems hostage just to make room for an option to ransom it back seems needlessly convoluted. Were there, as mentioned before, a real effort to make the means of grinding out such items more fun, then fine, but that's because you'd just have denser or mellower forms of enjoyment available. Grind just to punish those who do not pay to skip it, though, is not that, and should not be a design goal.

Though, again... I didn't ask to reduce the grind available, only to separate from it certain parts I don't think fit it. Remember, I'd rather the consumable skills be more interesting and limited. Even including freeing Essences from consumables and the churn of items, such would not reduce the grind available to Exploratory Zones. It simply doesn't needlessly delay or constrain largely separate (e.g., what should not have throughput and is not actually an active skill anyways) novel system features, like Essences.

Just like I wouldn't want something like Eureka's Magia Board (crappy system though it was) to be dependent upon grinding light, or to require looting, unboxing, transferring, slotting, and activating a RNG-dependent item to change your target element (especially without a context in which such could offer real choice that didn't merely/solely waste map space or kill off a majority of options), I don't care to see the likes of Essences funneled through a broader pathway (especially if that pathway is already rather bloated/convoluted and including the likes of Essences there would make it yet more bloated).

That has nothing to do with wanting everything for free or the like and everything to do with not wanting unnecessary system bloat/clash. Now, yes, that does tend to follow from a "fun/gameplay first" approach rather than approaching zone design primarily as and for an exchange between gil and time, but I don't see why the latter exchanges would necessarily be hurt by just being more choiceful in what novel features/gameplay should be initially delayed by and dependent on that grind or gil sink so long as the ceiling is raised in turn.

E.g., Once I've unlocked the feature, I don't have to buy fragments to be allowed to turn my heals into damaging abilities (and my damaging abilities into heals, each at slightly lesser effect), but I may need to spend the results of dozens of fragments at a time to be able to drop a meteor storm on a boss. I'm still buying your fragments -- just not for basic, job-choice-increasing options separate from actual active casts.

[niwaar]

Honestly, it just needs to be less grindy with less convaluted systems, and I'd be fine with it. I hate having to look up what skills I need, etcetera. It just makes stepping into it extremely overwhelming for no reason.

Eureka's problem for me is it wanted you to experiment, but punished you if you failed.

Bozja doubled down on fixing the issues with Eureka and somehow became boring while still having a punishment for death outside of just dying and having to regroup.

I think people wanted 11 with Eureka, and people complained, and we got Bozja, and people complained again, and then we got nothing, and here we are.

I think that the segment of people that aren't happy with them will always hate them, but I think we need to meet people more in the middle with this content.

It's like the relics people hated the grind, so you removed it, and people complained it was too easy. I think some tact and the willingness to serve the player what you want to serve them regardless of taste is what we need.

I think my biggest desire for this content is the fact i want to explore and not feel like I am being punished for failing during that exploration. Losing xp in XI felt bad, but they gave you tools to avoid enemies while exploring. If we are going to have XP loss on death again, give us tools to avoid combat more than "run while their back is turned"

Otherwise, Tural is an amalgam of the Americas. They can easily give us a set of zones that has multiple biomes in it. I mean California has beaches, deserts and forested mountains, the new zones should be the same.

But the thing I want most is the ability to queue up using the Duty Finder... I do not find it all that fun having to run to Shirogane or Doma to enter these zones.