Something from FFXI I would like to see in FFXIV. Nyzul Isle

[Kazamoto]

Hello All. This is gonna be a long one. Also, disclaimer, no one knows so far how The crystal tower is going to work, if they have something like this already planned, awesome.

The current trend of the instanced dungeon with a set objective and time limit did exist in FFXI. In FFXI they were known as Assaults and were introduced in the 'Treasures of Aht Urgan' expansion.

One of these assaults was special. It is called "Nyzul Isle Investigation".

(this is mostly copied from a wiki, but edited to include only parts that would translate to FF14 most easily):

Nyzul Isle Investigation incorporates a random progression of floors. The rules are as follows:

Buffs will wear upon entry, but unlike with regular battlefields, this does not mean it is Level Restricted in any way, thus a character at any job level may enter.

Tokens are earned from successful completion of this mission. The amount of Tokens earned is determined by how many floors are successfully cleared before exiting, and how high the floors were.

A single run through "Nyzul Isle Investigation" consists of progressing up through various floors.

How it Works:

Each floor has a random objective that must be completed before the party will be allowed the choice of moving on to the next floor, or exiting the Assault area.

The standard goal of this Assault is to progress through five of these floors within the time limit of 30 minutes, although the amount remains somewhat arbitrary and is not restricted to just five floors. If time permits the party can choose to try to complete more floors.

In FFXI there were 100 floors. Every 5 floors was a save point, so for your next run, you could start at 1+(increment of 5) ie. 6,11,16.

For FFXIV, there could be many more floors (500?), giving people grind able end game content that also has some bragging rights with it. With higher floors being more difficult than lower.

Every floor has a challenge that must be completed before you can advance.

Types of floor/challenge:

Lobby: This is floor 0, any party member can bring the group up to the highest floor they have cleared to. (This should promote some discussion within group as to where to go. Progress is only saved for the person who actually chooses the floor, as with current dungeon, people locked in bubble until every party member has loaded in.)


Eliminate all enemies: Kill everything.

Eliminate enemy leader: Kill the named monster, more powerful than normal trash, usually has a special ability or move set.

Eliminate specified enemy: One particular trash mob unlocks the floor, would show as level ?? rather than a number.

Eliminate specified enemies: A certain group of mobs would show level ?? and have to be killed. Such as drakes or colibri.

Activate all lamps: I wasn't a huge fan of these, but they were interesting.
This can mean one of three things:

There is only one lamp, and everyone needs to activate it.

There are multiple (2-4) lamps which must be activated at the same time.

There are multiple (2-4) lamps which must be activated in an unknown order. This is often the most difficult version, and good open lines of communication are essential.

Free Floor! There is no objective, can move on.

Boss Floor:
Every 50 floors is a boss floor, featuring a strong monster from elsewhere in the game, using the same mechanics, but at an easier (or stronger) difficulty.

Primals (Hellfire/Aerial Blast/Earthen Fury), Hydra, Chimera, King Tonberry, Anantaboga, Aiatar, Miser's Mistress, Batraal, Isgebind, Adjudicator, plus the other dungeon final bosses.

These boss fights would be tuned for a fight time that still allows people to clear 4 floors before reaching the boss. A 'boss' run would have most of its time aimed at the boss in theory.

This also allows for whole new floor designs with the new mechanics in the game

Perhaps a Tower defense style minigame floor where packs of mobs run past cannons?

What you Get:

Assuming a 90 min dungeon. A typical group should clear 15 floors per run.

10 Tomes of Philo per floor cleared in a run floors 1-250.
2 Tomes of Myth per floor cleared in a run floors 1-250.
12 Philo/4 Myth per 251-500.
Sidegrade Gear from the bosses every 50 floors.

Pros

Reuses current game models, and content in an interesting way.
Creates dynamic content that is 'new' every run.
Already has years of play testing and community feedback.
Gives us more things to do.
Allows elitists to have a new measure of success.
Allows a faster group to have a greater reward rather than just more runs in less time.
Might make people never run AK or WP again.
Less overall runs required to cap tomes.

Cons

People abusing other players in the floor climb system(rushing to the floor selector)
People are dumb and cant do lamps.
Development time to adapt coding.
Development time for new artwork and map layouts for floors.
Development time to add lore behind this dungeon.
Development time to ballance difficulty curve to match floor number.
Development time to rebalace old dungeon bosses for lv50/iLevel60+ players.
LOL-FFXI-ROSE-COLORED-NOSTALGIA-GLASSES
One more thing for people to shout Relic+1/DL Only in Mor Dohna.

TL : DR

Nyzul Isle provides randomized endgame content to break up the monotony of AK/WP runs, while adding bragging rights as well as a decent reward.

[Arkune]

didnt you posted that into my thread before too haha ?

[Dale]

There is a lot from Final Fantasy 11 I would like to see in this game.

It's a real shame SE decided to use World of Warcraft instead of Final Fantasy 11 as its standard. Because I do think this would be a better game if it had chose to build and improve upon the latter.

[Kazamoto]

didnt you posted that into my thread before too haha ?

I posted that I would like this feature in a few places, but didn't flesh it out much and I think it's good enough to warrant its own thread.

There is a lot from Final Fantasy 11 I would like to see in this game.

It's a real shame SE decided to use World of Warcraft instead of Final Fantasy 11 as its standard. Because I do think this would be a better game if it had chose to build and improve upon the latter.

WoW has the market share unfortunately. But I do think there are things FFXI that could be adapted, this is one example.

VVV

Crystal Tower.

Please look forward to it.

See disclaimer at top.

[Lord_Zlatan]

There is a lot from Final Fantasy 11 I would like to see in this game.

It's a real shame SE decided to use World of Warcraft instead of Final Fantasy 11 as its standard. Because I do think this would be a better game if it had chose to build and improve upon the latter.

Agreed, but I also think they are using the WoW shell, and will implement other things/better content (not that i am complaining AT ALL) into the game. Nyzul Isle was intense. I would love to see that come in some way shape or form into this game.

[Andrien]

Crystal Tower.

Please look forward to it.

[Bizniztyme]

Nyzule was definitely one of the better things FFXI had, hope CT is something like that but more fleshed out like having a more fun bosses on each floor, puzzles you have to figure out, etc etc. The RNG is NYZULE is atrocious with the lamps so that needs to go. lol

[Steeled]

A randomized maze is a fine concept but Nyzul had a few flaws, and NNI was worse.

I dread Order-lamps ever returning. They weren't remotely hard if people listened, so 60% of the time they were obscenely hard.

[Argent_Wings]

There is a lot from Final Fantasy 11 I would like to see in this game.

It's a real shame SE decided to use World of Warcraft instead of Final Fantasy 11 as its standard. Because I do think this would be a better game if it had chose to build and improve upon the latter.

Not everything about WoW was inferior. Pre-WotLK Naxxramas and Karazhan were excellent raid designs I'd like to see emulated in FF14.

[Lord_Zlatan]

Crystal Tower.

Please look forward to it.

Does Crystal Tower have any relation to Nyzul Isle type content? Im not being a jerk, I'm genuinely asking. It doesn't seam to me that there is any relation, unless I missed something.