Player Run Companies: What do we want to see?

[Caidryn]

Alright, so we now have confirmation courtesy of Bayohne that player companies will indeed exist. See this post for further details:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post127940

So, with that said, it does not appear to be a current focus of the development team, just a long term goal. While normally this would leave me disappointed, XIV seems to be taking a unique approach, in that they are listening to the ideas of the players. With it still in far in the future, that means they haven't started much in the line of development, so now if the perfect time to speak up.

What would you like to see from player run companies? As something closer to the guilds of other MMO's we're used to, we can ask for and hopefully see implemented a plethora of features. I wanted to use this thread to gather ideas on exactly what we want out of this feature so the developers can use our ideas to make this game better.

I'll kick things off, borrowing some ideas from the thread that gave confirmation.

Edit: Actually, to keep this post from getting far, far too long, I'll be detailing individual features in separate posts, so I can get it nailed down to definitive Ideas without getting TL: DR'd. If you see any ideas you like from anyone who posts and helps out, please hit the like button on their posts, to show the developers which features would be most popular.

Remember, feel free to dream big. This stuff is a long ways into the distance. If you have an idea that is similar to one stated, but you have a different view upon how it would work, please feel free to chime in and say your piece. No single person's view will ever be perfect, but this way, with people liking the ones they favor, we can show SE which direction we'd like to take. This is your chance to shape this game, seize it while you can.

[Caidryn]

A Company bank: A simple feature, giving storage to the company as a whole as well as giving a place to communally share resources. Ideally, I would like to see it implemented with different tiers of permissions, along with and added bonus to the members in the form of personal storage space in the bank.

Apart from the simple functionality of the matter, it gives room to add content, something that will get all of the bored multi 50's sitting around something to do. Perhaps even forming a gil sink, to help level out the economy.

As with all storage space, players will always, always want more. Even moreso when there are tons of people putting in mats and gear to be stored. Taking advantage of this, it'd be easy to make content based around the bank's expansion, along with offering true challenges to the players of a company, to overcome together.

I'd like to see the bank be upgradeable in a few different ways. First and foremost, PVE content. (To be detailed in a separate post, as it's a somewhat recurring theme in my ideas) Followed by group crafting, (A team of crafters all with varying skills working on a single project, their individual success or failures on a single, normal synth, contributing to the progress of the overall synth. More details later) and finally, a simple and huge gil sink, paying vast sums of gil gathered from all your members to upgrade the space.

I think that covers my idea for that one. ^^

[Caidryn]

Company Housing: It's always nice to have a place reserved exclusively to you and your friends. If it is at all customizable, then that niceness is multiplied. If also paired with actual usability and benefits to all of those in the company, it becomes a recipe for some amazing content.

We all had our moghouses, and had our fun arranging our rooms. If company housing were to go up, I'd love to see these simple little rooms with furniture and sentimental value go up as the private quarters of each member, accessed from the company hall the same way moghouses were in XI, or the Market wards are accessed now. But that's just the small time stuff.

Function, and clear benefits to the members who work toward creating the hall, would go a long way in motivations and goals. Here's what I'd propose.

When expanding you Company hall, you should be able to create and upgrade rooms devoted to individual crafts. By this, I mean if you say, created facilities for a woodworker (A simple room with some benches and saws, etc.) simply being in this room would give you the simple support buff, which would drop off if you left the room. Now, if you invested more mats, time, and money into this room to upgrade it, you might make tier two facilities, meaning woodworkers in that area now enjoy the mid-tier buff. Each room being a max level of 3, and one room for each craft, it would give us a fun and necessary timesink to spend our days with.

While we're on the topic of buffs, it'd be nice to have a company mess hall, in which any member, at any time, may sit at a table and 'eat' to receive a buff like those gotten from foods in game (or rather, like what they will be when revamped rather than their current limited use) If this buff lasts slightly longer than normal foods, you could have your company gather in the mess hall before setting out to a dungeon, so they may enjoy the benefits of the buff in a place where it would help most. As the mess hall would need staff to prepare the food, and I doubt any player, no matter how dedicated, would wish to stand in the 'kitchen' 24 hours a day to feed their friends, this room would take upkeep. (Funds from the Company bank) The gil spent here would cover the ingredients, the staff, and the general upkeep of the hall, and serve as a much needed gil sink against inflation.

I have more benefits in mind, but I'll keep them to myself, as this post is already long enough. On to the next idea for functions.

[Nikita]

Company Housing

Company Bank

Company Emblem

Possibility for Company Emblem to be shown on Armor / Chocobo

Private Company forums on Lodestone

stuff off the top of my head....

[Caidryn]

Company versus Company content: an outlet for our competitive desires.

While FFXIV doesn't strike me as a PVP oriented type game, and I doubt the players would desire to shift it in this direction, PVP is far from the only way to compete.

In FFXI, the nations were given conquest, as a means for massive amounts of players to be able to compete with one another to vye for land and power. While I do not expect to see the system implemented in an identical state, it serves as an interesting base for some content. It has even already been hinted at in some past official statements. Here's what I'd like to see.

Company influence upon Eorzea can be decided in the success of its members. In XI, killing any monster that awarded XP while bearing your country's signet would add points to the nations influence in that area. In Eorzea, simply being a part of a company could serve as your 'signet' while the players in the company are out SP'ing. If every company got, say, 1 point added to their counter per 100 sp gained by a member, and these points were tallied weekly, as conquest was, it could get the competitive spirits riled up in all sorts of people.

Now, I don't suggest the winner be allowed to control an area, or receive produce as was done in XI. But if, say, the top 5 were displayed, and there was a small benefit to having a high ranking, such as a company wide 10% SP gained buff (the extra 10% would naturally need to be discounted from the company points gained that week) that scaled down depending on your company ranking that week, it would be enough to give us motivation to strive to be the best. Those not interested could naturally ignore it, but those who try could see just how they stack up against the other companies in Eorzea. Sounds like a lot of fun to me. The benefits, of course, could be adjusted to whatever the developer liked, provided they were inconsequential enough to not make people quit their own companies to join the winner, but also enough to give a sense of accomplishment.

This is, of course, just one idea for company versus company content. Please feel free to post any ideas you may have for others.

[Leeloo]

Player built pirate ships with cannons. We'll shoot lalafell assassins from said cannons onto opposing company ships.

[Caidryn]

Company based PVE combat:

Those of you who played XI after the ToAU expansion probably all remember what besieged was like. Monsters were never truly 'claimed' and it was the entirety of all of those who showed up versus an invading army. If they were to include company challenges akin to those, it would give us a chance to try out truly large group tactics. Heres some of my ideas.

A Company leader takes up a company levequest. A levequest far too difficult to ask of normal adventurers, these leves would be posted by the city-states themselves as a way to get accomplished some incredible tasks, like taking back a fortress from Garlean occupation, or fending off an attack made by the beast tribes. These leves, when accepted and started would open a temporary aetheryte node that takes you to a special zone. These zones would be instanced, large scale battles, in which claim rules were lifted to allow as many as could attend to grapple with their foes. The challenge of these leves would rise or fall depending on the leve taken. Each leve should have very special rewards, including gil paid to all members attending (probably divided evenly from a massive sum listed on the leve) and special gear that drops to a member randomly at the end of the leve, as well as company fame.

As Company fame rises, the city states come to trust that company more and more, company fame being measured in ranks that are thereby tied to leves. Company fame rises, unlocking new leves with greater challenges and rewards, and also giving a whole new element to the story as there would be company based story progression via these leves, if only loosely. When getting enough points to rise a rank in fame, there should be a special operation posted, an especially difficult challenge to make sure those in the company are ready for the next rank.

While this might seem like a huuuge dream, once you figure out the balancing, it's really only a matter of dramatically raising an enemy's stats, removing the claim limitations, and upping the amounts of monsters. Not as difficult as it sounds, but it could be loads of fun.


These leves could also award Company marks, which are then used in conjunction with other assets to purchase upgrades to the Company hall, facilities, and anything else a company might have use for. I'd love to see something like this implemented.

[Roughgalaxy]

I would like to chime in if I may. For the Company housing topic particularly, I agree there should be company housing, but I would love to see this implemented in a trademark FF fantastical way. That way is Airships. Company homes based in functional working airships, the styles of which could be the classic blimp style, the highwind (ff7), the ragnarok or even Garden (ff8), or the airship of ffx/x-2, or even something brand new. With in-company shops, trainers, and crafting facilities.

[Caidryn]

Company markets:

No, I don't mean markets as in like the market wards. Instead, I mean the ability to buy/place/maintain shops within your company headquarters, which sell hard to find items at slightly discounted prices, a sign of good will from the city states you help and work for.

Along with this, I'd love to see a vendor that serves as a company recycling bin. When you come back from adventuring and find your bag full of strange and seemingly useless mats, you sell them to this vendors, at normal vending price. But here's the catch: The vendor keeps those sold items (up to a certain upper limit anyway) in their store stock, which they then sell back to the company at half usual price, or double what they paid for it, whatever ends up making more sense.

In this way, when I cringe upon finding a stack of moko grass clogging my inventory, and promptly vendor it, the weaver that was just starting out could talk to the merchant, peruse their wares, and find that very same stack at a very reasonable price, and could therefor level their craft effortlessly.

These special merchants and representatives from the crafting guilds would be located in the company hall, usable only by members of that company. I can feel the comraderie already.


And with that, I think I pinned down most of my big Ideas. I know transportation is a big one, but I'll leave that to someone with more artistic vision than I, as I could probably only think up a glorified anima saver.

[Synapse]

Company versus Company content

I was thinking along the lines of Ballista or Brenner, sort of like arena type of area where others can see two companies fight it out, the reward maybe for a valuable item such as a Key to entering a high lvl dungeon.