Thread: How to fix Battle Leve's (maybe^^)

I originally posted this idea HERE and ask the mods to move it to this section but they haven't so I am posting it in the correct section now.

Guildleves, the content you love to hate

So I have been thinking of how SE could improve Guildleves and solve many of the issues with them ie. abandoning them, only picking certain ones, certain camps over-crowded and have come up with a few idea's.

First though I believe the original plan for Guildleves as we have them now was that it was supposed to be more casual/quick content so that you could login and grab some leves and go do them. The main problem is that they are pretty much the only content, so everyone is doing them as they have nothing else to do. Also certain Leve's are better than others in regards to SP/EXP gained so this also make Leve Abandoning to keep those certain Leve's more desirable.

What could work?

My first fix would be to allow all 9 Leve's to be available for selection every reset for every camp. This would allow people to freely choose the Leve's they wish to do so if they are in a group they can make sure they get the same ones to link if they wish.

Next would be to change the way Leve SP/EXP is accumulated. For this maybe it would be better to give a lump sum of SP/EXP at the end of the Leve upon completion and remove the SP/EXP gained from the mobs killed. This would have to be scaled in different ways though.

For example all Rank 20 Leves could give a base 5000 SP upon completion, Rank 30 gave 10,000, Rank 40 15,000 and so on. That would be the base, then you could add a multiplier for difficulty with the number of stars the Leve was completed on. Maybe 5% per star so if 10,000 was the base and you completed it on 5 stars you would get 15,000 SP/EXP. Then you can add other modifiers like completion time, your rank vs. leve difficulty and so on. Also if they were to give static SP then they would have to probably have a minimum rank restriction in place to stop Rank 1's tagging along on R40 Leve's.

Also be a bit more creative with the rewards, a lot of people have a lot of gill so it is not so great a reward any more. Maybe try rewards like 30 Guardians Aspect or 15 Anima as a reward something like that to get people tempted to try different Leves.



Possible Result

By doing these few things it would allow people to spread out and utilise different camps to do Leve's as all Leve's of the same Rank would give the same SP/EXP so there would be no need for everyone to go to Broken Water to do the best R40 Leves.

Also it would stop Leve abandoning as you could decide with your group before hand which Leves you were going to take and obviously if you abandoned you would get nothing as the SP/EXP is rewarded at the end so it would be pointless.

This would also allow you to retry Leve's immediately if you did fail or D/C as it wouldn't be exploitable because the SP/EXP and reward is only gained upon completion. So if you D/C halfway though the Leve they could allow you to retry straight away as you wouldn't have gained any SP/EXP until the end anyway.

I think with just these few changes it would help a lot with the current situation regarding Leves and make them a bit more enjoyable as players will be able to go out and try different Leves at different camps without feeling like they are missing out on huge amounts of SP/EXP by taking different ones.

Additional Idea's

Others also suggested a Grade/Score at the end that could be the base for what SP you received. So if you did extremely well you got an S grade and got max SP from the Leve, if you did badly you would get get an E grade and get less SP. I actually really like that idea as it would give some extra motivation and an additional objective while doing the Leve.

Solo Vs. Party

So how do we balance solo vs. party with this new system. An idea would be to have only people who have linked the leve receive the lump sum of SP at the end. This would also have to work with other balances of Leve linking.

Maybe they could make it so you only get the lump sum at the end if you linked and linking only gives a 5% bonus per link. This would allow solo people to do them without feeling like they are missing out on the huge SP gains you currently get by linking but it would also allow parties to link for a smaller boost while also increasing the difficulty and other modifiers for an even bigger boost.

Lets say for example doing an R40 leve solo would give you 10K SP. Now if you fully leve linked it in a party and did it on a higher difficulty it could add up to a 50% boost so it would make it 15k SP. I think that would be more fair than what we have currently.

I love the idea of each Camp resetting independently and the leves providing lump EXP at the end. The only problem I see is that at the moment, a great bonus to helping others with leve you have already completed or do not have is because the mobs give good exp during a leve. Perhaps people who are helping out can receive a reduced portion of the end exp reward (much like they do now with money). I definitely think it would help in raising the value of less desirable leves (due to them netting fewer exp).

I also love the idea of bonus rewards based on completion time and other objectives. It would add another level of strategy when selecting a leve (I can complete 2 stars twice as fast for the time bonus EXP, or I can do 3 stars for a flat increase at the end).

I think all these ideas are great.

Originally Posted by Ashiivas

Is it just me or are guild leves the ONLY thing to do in this game?... Besides the ever so fun crafting system...

It's just you. There are other things to do, like faction leves, low level NMs, World NMs, main storyline quests, job quests, side quests, grinding, gathering, and buying/selling stuff.

Leves are the main focus for most people right now, but that doesn't mean there's nothing else to do. And the game's focus on leves in going to change in about a week or two.

Originally Posted by AlexiaKidd

What could work?

My first fix would be to allow all 9 Leve's to be available for selection every reset for every camp. This would allow people to freely choose the Leve's they wish to do so if they are in a group they can make sure they get the same ones to link if they wish.

Next would be to change the way Leve SP/EXP is accumulated. For this maybe it would be better to give a lump sum of SP/EXP at the end of the Leve upon completion and remove the SP/EXP gained from the mobs killed. This would have to be scaled in different ways though.

For example all Rank 20 Leves could give a base 5000 SP upon completion, Rank 30 gave 10,000, Rank 40 15,000 and so on. That would be the base, then you could add a multiplier for difficulty with the number of stars the Leve was completed on. Maybe 5% per star so if 10,000 was the base and you completed it on 5 stars you would get 15,000 SP/EXP. Then you can add other modifiers like completion time, your rank vs. leve difficulty and so on. Also if they were to give static SP then they would have to probably have a minimum rank restriction in place to stop Rank 1's tagging along on R40 Leve's.

I've got a couple of concerns.

First, I'm not sure that giving every leve the same reward is going to change things much. Instead of everyone doing the leves with the most high level mobs, they'll do the leves with the fewest amount of low level mobs. They'll get the same amount of SP, but in a much shorter amount of time. So instead of everyone doing Adamantine Wills, no one will do it. Instead, everyone will just do the devilets ones. Kill 4 devilets and get 10,000 SP > kill 30 mongrels and get 10,000 SP.

Second, if you don't award any SP for killing mobs, then there's no reason to kill unnecessary mobs. If the leve requires me to kill 4 devilets, why would I bother killing moles that don't change into devilets? I'll hit them once, and if they don't change, I'll just run to the next group. That creates perverse incentives to not kill as many mobs as possible.

I prefer (what I believe to be) Yoshi-P's suggestion. You get normal SP from any mob kills, and then a bonus at the end. That way, you're encouraged to seek out and kill as many mobs as possible, and you're also encouraged to complete the leve.

Third, 5% seems pretty low for leve links. If players only get 5% for linking, they'll just run them separately. Do I run this devilet leve once with 7 links and get 15,000 SP? Or do I run it eight times and get 80,000 SP? I mean, I only have to kill 4 mobs. That would take maybe 10 minutes for each leve?

So instead of leve linking parties where everyone runs -- and fails -- the same 8 leves over and over, we'll get non-linking parties where everyone runs one devilet leve over and over. Instead of getting more leve diversity, we'd end up with less.

But I do love the idea of making all leves available to everyone. And I think the idea of giving GA/anima as rewards is genius. I would definitely seek out the ones that give anima as a reward.